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The Twitter Files

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Re: The Twitter Files

#871

Post by encryptluks2 »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #206
hintymad wrote: post #164

An honest question: what if conservatives are in power? Can they or should they suppress truths like the left did? Wouldn't it "destroy democracy" as the left loved to say? I thought a fair political system protects all political parties. Or the left believe that they will always be in power?

During the period we're discussing the president was a Republican.

That is what I find so funny, left and right the right-wing can't even manage to get the most basic facts right. They surely are more disingenuous than any other party. Gaslight Obstruct and Project.

Re: The Twitter Files

#872

Post by starkd »

code_witch_sam wrote: post #500
starkd wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The fact so many don't understand this is discouraging. Just because you support a particular candidate shouldn't mean it is ok, because it could very easily go against you on another occasion. There needs to be a uniform standard and accountability for this.

what does a particular politician have to do with this? the "leak" literally said both the trump white house and the biden campaign lobbied to have posts removed i think it's kind of funny that the government is lobbying corporation now, rather than the other way around.

You do know what this kind of government/corp collaboration is, don't you? It's literally the beginning of a fascist state. This is not hyperbole either, though I wish it was.

Re: The Twitter Files

#873

Post by brchn »

romellem wrote: post #296
Dig1t wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598827602403160064 Biden team asking Twitter to "handle" tweets they don't like. This rubs me the wrong way, nobody in government should be telling Twitter to remove speech.

Did you read your own source? The Biden team never asked Twitter staff to “handle” anything. They forwarded tweets that [violated twitter’s ToS][1], a Twitter staff member forwarded them for review, and at that point the reviewer said they “handled these.” That’s what content moderation is supposed to do! [1]: https://twitter.com/parkebench/status/1598841731763810304

The fact that they listen to the government requests is the scary part. They should just have a consistent content moderation policy and enforce it.

Re: The Twitter Files

#874

Post by anderber »

brchn wrote: post #873
romellem wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read your own source? The Biden team never asked Twitter staff to “handle” anything. They forwarded tweets that [violated twitter’s ToS][1], a Twitter staff member forwarded them for review, and at that point the reviewer said they “handled these.” That’s what content moderation is supposed to do! [1]: https://twitter.com/parkebench/status/1598841731763810304

The fact that they listen to the government requests is the scary part. They should just have a consistent content moderation policy and enforce it.

Shouldn't they listen to anyone who showcasing someone violating their TOS? Does it matter that it was a staffer in Washington?

Re: The Twitter Files

#875

Post by acdha »

unnamed76ri wrote: post #24

Just a couple weeks ago I had a comment downvoted and flagged for saying what this confirms. The political bias in tech circles is unreal sometimes.

Here’s your comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33497772

Those are some very strong claims. What specifically in this thread supports them? For example, we know that Twitter received these requests from both campaigns, whereas deliberate collusion would only have been with one, and the most hyped up claims are a handful of tweets which contained non-consensual nudity, which doesn’t exactly seem like it would shift the election.

Re: The Twitter Files

#876

Post by UncleMeat »

brchn wrote: post #873
romellem wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read your own source? The Biden team never asked Twitter staff to “handle” anything. They forwarded tweets that [violated twitter’s ToS][1], a Twitter staff member forwarded them for review, and at that point the reviewer said they “handled these.” That’s what content moderation is supposed to do! [1]: https://twitter.com/parkebench/status/1598841731763810304

The fact that they listen to the government requests is the scary part. They should just have a consistent content moderation policy and enforce it.

And like virtually every system on the planet, there are false negatives. So external groups might send over things and say "hey, I think you missed this."

Re: The Twitter Files

#877

Post by chaosbolt »

Dem_Boys wrote: post #127

Most concerning thing here is that this proves political parties (including the white house[0]) have a direct line to Twitter[1] to get stuff they dislike removed. One would have to assume that there was also a direct line to other social medial platforms. It's so wild to have the slimy-ness of our American political system be revealed in yet another way. So in America you cannot say negative things about political l…

>proves

Zuckerberg said it himself on Joe Rogan, it's been common knowledge for years now, only contrarians and stubborn shills claimed otherwise

Re: The Twitter Files

#878

Post by haswell »

brchn wrote: post #873
romellem wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read your own source? The Biden team never asked Twitter staff to “handle” anything. They forwarded tweets that [violated twitter’s ToS][1], a Twitter staff member forwarded them for review, and at that point the reviewer said they “handled these.” That’s what content moderation is supposed to do! [1]: https://twitter.com/parkebench/status/1598841731763810304

The fact that they listen to the government requests is the scary part. They should just have a consistent content moderation policy and enforce it.

A consistent content moderation policy would accept reports of problematic content regardless of the source of the report.

To me, the bigger issue is the white glove treatment, and the appearance of preferential moderation.

But I think that’s where political realities come into play. I don’t doubt that these companies feel the need to make lawmakers feel heard or risk legislation/regulation that will harm the platforms.

I think this is touching on something much bigger, in that these kinds of government/company relationships are everywhere, and have been for decades.

The difference with the Twitter situation is one of public visibility and direct impact on individuals trying to do something as seemingly innocuous as post and share links on social media.

Which is absolutely not to excuse the behavior. If anything, I hope this wakes up more average Americans to the kinds of quid pro quo and shady handshake deals that have been going on forever.

Re: The Twitter Files

#879

Post by jliptzin »

nathias wrote: post #691
cm2187 wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These policies were always a pretext. The two major social networks blocking the same story at the same time citing different policies that are obviously inconsistently applied (did Twitter block the story about Trump's leaked tax returns? Did facebook block Biden when he claimed that covid would be gone once everyone was vaccinated?). These emails show twitter executives puzzled by the application of those policies.…

the life of a politically inconvenient story: 1. it's conspiracy theory 2. it was obvious to everyone 3. forgotten

I don't understand why this is a story to begin with. Twitter is a private company that does what it wants. It can boot or block whoever or whatever story they want to for whatever reason. Obviously if the people running the site lean towards one political direction, that's going to affect their moderation policies. Why don't we analyze Fox News's decision to run or not run certain stories.

People's first mistake is getting their news from Twitter, or Fox News for that matter. This is not a free speech issue. If you are interested in the Hunter Biden story there are about 300 other sources you could find information about it within about 1/2 a second, it was one of the most widely reported stories in 2020 if I remember correctly.

I guess the story is that the people that ran Twitter were left leaning? Which we already knew going into it?

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