It's bad that it wasn't transparent to the public. I don't like the idea of the government actively playing a role in moderating content that isn't illegal unless it's transparent and there's oversight by voters.
Twitter as a private company can moderate content as it sees fit. But the government is supposed to be constrained by the First Amendment. And here, they technically are, because they're not forcing Twitter to take action. But there's always the background threat of regulation if Twitter doesn't play nice, so it's not as black and white as this.
Can you outline a scheme that would satisfy your needs for transparency while at the same time not result in compromising active investigations, tipping off the perps that they are under surveillance and so on? Because I don't see a practical way to achieve that ideal that would still work.
Having been on the receiving end of such requests I was pretty happy all of them were made in a confidential manner, it saved everybody a ton of headaches and reduce the amount of grip the various miscreants had on our community. Doing that in the open would have caused massive issues, some of these people were downright dangerous and others simply needed help, keeping their data and our interaction around that data confidential was - in my opinion - a good thing all around.
The problem is that there is this assumption that the FBI is working in good faith. There is a mountain of evidence that they have arbitrarily acted in the interests of the ruling class and not within the confines of the constitution.
Just look at COINTELPRO for the most egregious example.
Then there's Waco, Ruby Ridge, the campaign finance corruption, infiltration of latin American governments, and modern operations similar to COINTELPRO to take down various movements like occupy wall street.
They are a mafia, not some benign group that can be blindly trusted with secret carte blanche powers.
The bulk of the people in LE and the bulk of the people running the government are doing so with the best of intentions. They get it wrong, sometimes spectacularly so and a lot of stuff has been done that should have never ever happened.
But none of that seems to have any bearing on what happened here at Twitter, which is so far - to put it mildly, given the amount of noise made by Musk et al - underwhelming.
If you feel differently then that's fine but personally I think there are far bigger transgressions by the FBI than requesting that Twitter take down objectionable content and rabble rousers.
In NL Twitter was successfully weaponized by our most despicable - outright pro-Nazi - political party and the aftereffects are still felt today. Compared to what happened in the US it obviously pales but you have to wonder how the 6th of January 2020 would have ended if it weren't for the good contacts between the FBI and Twitter.
I'll give you one example: I was called up on my cell phone in the middle of the night by the police in NL that a person was attempting suicide on camera on our website. We fished their IP number out of the logs and passed it on which allowed LE (after contact with the relevant ISP) + medical assistance to get there in record time and help the person who ended up surviving and being quite happy that their attempt had failed (it's been more than a decade and I still have that image etched into my brain). There is no 'best before' date on something like that, just knowing the account name would be enough to cause trouble for that person all over again.
You would have to decide on a case-by-case basis which requests can cause harm and which don't, which given the volume of such requests would add a fairly unreasonable burden on a company that was already cash strapped.
The only reason people want to know about this stuff is some kind of morbid curiosity. What you could do is to come up with a set of workable rules for which requests would have to be made public and which not, but I don't think I would be capable of coming up with such a set of rules that would not in the future lead to issues. So to default to secrecy seems prudent.
In that light, the sale of Twitter and the subsequent exposure of all these interactions presumably has the effect of such communications becoming more opaque rather than less resulting in the opposite effect of what you desire.
> The only reason people want to know about this stuff is some kind of morbid curiosity.
Nobody has a problem with the FBI doing takedown requests for that kind of content. It's about political content (labelled "civic misinformation") on accounts like @RSBNetwork. The FBI isn't supposed to be taking sides and potentially influencing elections by encouraging social media companies to ban accounts of political actors.
Personally I'm of two minds about this whole thing. While I have concerns, the right-wing in the US at the moment are an authoritarian movement and social media companies are doing not nearly enough in the way of moderation. Ideally the FBI would have stayed out of it and Twitter would have upped their game.
> You would have to decide on a case-by-case basis which requests can cause harm and which don't, which given the volume of such requests would add a fairly unreasonable burden on a company that was already cash strapped.
I'd put the burden on the FBI. If they want to exclude all clearly non-political content (e.g. suicide videos) from the transparency report that's ok by me.
I think in the end it will come down to a decision about workload. As soon as the matter is dealt with any further cycles are wasteful and since the ocean of work is endlessly deep they probably would prioritize newer cases over dotting the i's and crossing the t's on those cases that are already closed. This is not ideal, but having a moderately underfunded law enforcement institution is not necessarily a bad thing, it forces them to prioritize. If you don't then you end up with East Germany or some local equivalent.
So you think it is totally normal that FBI just helps a company to moderate stuff that is legal but doesn't comply with the company's Terms of Service?
Yes. Because 'legal' and 'damaging to society' are different bars and both the FBI and Twitter probably felt that cooperating on that front was better than to let things get out of hand.
The alternative may well have been a dead VP, or worse, so be happy that these channels exist(ed). With that whole department axed we are now in much more dangerous territory. That said I'm pretty sure that Elon Musk knows which side his bread is buttered on and that given an appropriately worded request Twitter will comply just like it did in the past. Or do you think they'll give the FBI the finger now?
It's not in the FBI's charter to "fix society" outside of the bounds of law. It's mind boggling to me that people are acting nonchalant about a government entity shaping public discourse in secret.
If - for instance - Mike Pence had been murdered (and I believe there was a real possibility that that could have happened) I'm pretty sure that you'd be playing an entirely different tune. The FBI is free to interpret the law and you are free to take them to court if you don't agree with their interpretation. This does not normally need to be spelled out.
Next time you receive a request from the police that you think is reasonable try stonewalling them and see what happens. I guarantee you won't like it.
And as far as the secrecy is concerned: records were kept, that's why you are reading about this.
I have no idea how to respond to your comment. You seem to be coming from a world view that has no overlap with mine. I have zero understanding why you'd so condescendingly argue that we should just accept shady behavior by the FBI.
I don't see anything shady. And being pretty anti-authoritarian and having been in contact with LE many, many times over the years including the FBI what struck me first and foremost in all of that is that they did their utmost best to keep it clean.
Yes, but that has nothing to do with the subject of this thread, the 'Twitter Files'.
If we're going to discuss the FBI in a larger setting I would consider that to be out of scope, to me the discussion is limited to the interaction between social media companies and law enforcement in general and the FBI in particular.
I am extremely unhappy with what he has been doing on twitter, especially the account bans. But I am not a binary thinker, so I can still make an attempt to look at these releases objectively. And some of them are not that interesting, but some of the details are actually quite bad, and people aren't looking at them due to their disgust with Musk. I almost didn't look at this one.
It could also be said the central issue is that Twitter's political leanings went against many elsewhere, therefor, everything is a conspiracy and nothing done was done with good intentions.
The alternative to censoring "Americans, Vote today. Democrats you vote Wednesday 9th." and "If you're not wearing a mask, I'm not counting your vote." is a dead VP? I don’t see a connection.
The FBI should absolutely not be trying to manage or control activity that isn't illegal, especially when that activity is speech. When the FBI does, we end up with horrible stuff like COINTELPRO.
> When the FBI does, we end up with horrible stuff like COINTELPRO.
You could. But that's not what happened here, judging by the evidence on display.
All I see is what I expected to see: law enforcement engaging in a careful manner with a company that is dealing with an extremely large flow of communications. And if some of those communications are of a society destabilizing nature it is well within the mandate of the FBI to stick their noses in and make requests. You then have the option to refuse those requests, in which case you may either end up in court, they could forget about the whole thing or you are served with a piece of paper signed off by a judge.
What is illegal and what isn't is ultimately for a judge to decide but not every two-bit issue needs to go by a judge if all parties agree that the world is better off with moderating it out of existence.
What I see is the government involved in pressuring and directing companies to censor legal speech. You seem to think this is OK because you think it will only ever be done to people you disagree with. History has repeatedly shown that is a dangerously naive view.
The whole point is that these cases aren't going in front of a judge or jury to decide. Without that system of checks and balances, "all parties agree" is meaningless because it can't be challenged. "All parties agreed" that the civil rights or anti-war movement were destabilizing and needed to be suppressed...you seem to support that kind of unchecked power. I don't know why people are so quick to forget our very recent history.
If that disagreement were censored, would you know about it?
Getting fired is not a 1st amendment violation. The 1st amendment only covers protection from the government (with a lot of gray ground for "disorderly conduct" laws, but I digress)
The NY Post was banned for breaking a story about revelations contained in a laptop computer abandoned by Hunter Biden. This was just prior to a national election. The FBI was involved in pushing this narrative through Twitter.
The Babylon Bee is a satire site that was banned for doing satire.
The Babylon Bee was not banned, the same way someone who tries to go into a store without shoes on isn't "banned." They just need to put on some shoes, then you're allowed in.
The Babylon Bee was told that 1 Tweet violated Twitter's policy, and that they needed to delete it to unlock their account. They chose not to.
lmao "Twitter made me delete a Tweet that violated their ToS if I want to keep using their platform" is equivalent to renouncing all of your principles and values??
I hope we remember that in the same time period, all mentioning of same story were declared misinformation here, on Hacker News, and posts were flagged, users banned. I wonder if there is any learnings here for the current/future reaction to the ongoing stories?
The thread clearly shows that they were going after misinformation, and trying to make sure they only did so when accurate. At most you could say that the FBI sent some low quality reports, which seems like a better question for your congressional representatives since they have oversight.
It does not show or allege a crime was ignored - can you be precise in what you’re insinuating?
You do realize for this to be true - the FBI, one of the most conservative organizations in this history of the country, one that’s never been led by a democrat - would have to be secretly as liberal as Twitter’s trust and safety team? Do you understand why people might not find that plausible?
The FBI serves the state, and itself. If they need to make friends with a leftist to get something done, why would that stop them? I personally find it hard to believe that Crossfire Hurricane was run by a conservative cabal in the FBI, but maybe you're right. Whoever were doing it were elitist reprobates.
The FBI investigated both Trump and Clinton in 2016. The difference is that they made a big announcement about Clinton immediately prior to the election.
Was that the only difference? Nothing qualitatively different about the reasons or motivations behind the investigations? Like maybe one was investigated because the candidate was mishandling national secrets in order to avoid freedom of information act requests?
While Twitter may think it’s a good idea to police “misinformation” on its platform and has every right to do so, the FBI can’t be in that business.
Maybe one could make a case that the FBI requesting Twitter to enforce its own policies is reasonable, but if the Feds are making judgments on what to complain about based on content or viewpoint rather than time / place / manner, that really starts to conflict with First Amendment jurisprudence.
You have to give credit to whomever came up with it, its a cheap but effective linguistic kill shot. No doubt it was engineered to be divisive, and whomever is wielding it is unlikely to be reasoned with.
Who is saying that people should be harmed? Seriously. Whoever you have in mind, if they're actually advocating violence against people then I'm in agreement with you. That's not cool and they shouldn't be doing that.
Are you referring to calling a trans person by their biological sex?
When a doctor is speaking with a trans person about their body, it's an appropriate time to speak about their biological sex. That is certainly not hate speech.
When a stranger is yelling at a trans person about their biological sex, it's done to inflict emotional harm on the trans person. They transitioned away from that gender to reduce harm (that is the definition of a trans person), and the stranger is intentionally trying to bring that harm back.
Imagine shouting at a woman about her "biological breast size" because she is wearing a push-up bra, or had surgery to enlarge or reduce her breast size. Would that seem like a normal, harm-free way to interact with another person you don't know? Obviously not.
Depends on the context. People have been suspended from Twitter from saying things like "transwomen are actually men so stop letting them compete in women's sports, it's not safe or fair for actual women", which isn't hate speech, doesn't target an individual, and is a legitimate political opinion, so in theory should be fine. Yet bans are handed out anyway.
I’m not familiar with the lightness with which Twitter bans conservatives. Could you provide an example close to the example you gave? Or will any example be even more bigoted?
Stating facts can be hate speech. For example, if someone said "I was just attacked on my way home" and someone said "you're black" in response, yeah. Facts. Hate speech.
So, let's say that someone (like a user of Twitter, or a writer for the Babylon Bee) points out that Rachel Levine, a public figure, is a man.
How does that actually harm him?
He's in an incredibly privileged position, and indeed has enjoyed male privilege for pretty much all of his life.
Should we avoid saying any truth that might slightly upset a public figure, or anyone really, just in case they feel a bit sad if they happen to hear it?
https://sci-hub.st/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32345113/
Good paper, but here's a sentence from the conclusion.
> Findings underscore the importance of risk factors such as emotional neglect within the family, interpersonal microaggressions, and internalized self-stigma
In addition, what reason do you have to not respect a trans persons identity? Biological sex is already much _much_ more complex than just the XY we're taught in middle school. Klinefelter's and intersex people both exist, as do other blurred lines.
There's also nothing inherent about 'sex == gender' - transgender people have existed throughout history:
So everyone just has to lie and pretend, just to make trans people feel better? Push down their own beliefs and feelings in case someone who thinks they are the opposite sex reads anything that may be critical of this?
As a more concrete counterpoint, here's a news article from last year which includes a lesbian woman describing her rape by a man who calls himself a woman: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-57853385
The editors decided to replace the male pronouns she used to describe him with "they" and "them":
> Another reported a trans woman physically forcing her to have sex after they went on a date.
> "[They] threatened to out me as a terf and risk my job if I refused to sleep with [them]," she wrote. "I was too young to argue and had been brainwashed by queer theory so [they were] a 'woman' even if every fibre of my being was screaming throughout so I agreed to go home with [them]. [They] used physical force when I changed my mind upon seeing [their] penis and raped me."
How do you think she must have felt reading this truthful quote of hers mangled into a lie? A rape victim who isn't permitted to have her rape accurately reported, after she had already been shamed into getting into bed with this man by him weaponising the same ideology that censors her now.
Was she guilty of hate speech by describing her own rape?
I read your source by the way, it's very one-sided, and mostly irrelevant to the conversation about speech.
I understand the position of the lesbian woman in that story - she is justified in anger, hate and fear, as sad as it is to say.
You're allowed to not be attracted to someone, and trans individuals have to accept that sometimes relationships may not work out as a result of their being trans - it's just a sad but true fact.
> Push down their own beliefs and feelings in case someone who thinks they are the opposite sex reads anything that may be critical of this?
Isn't the quote "facts don't care about your feelings"? All serious modern research points to trans individuals being valid.
> I read your source by the way, it's very one-sided, and mostly irrelevant to the conversation about speech.
You asked how speech leads to harm, I provided an example. I've also uploaded more since then.
You've missed the point, this about people not being permitted to say the truth, per this ideology.
Even a rape victim isn't allowed to say that a man raped her, despite him forcing his penis inside of her. Is she supposed to pretend that this is a "woman's penis" or something?
That was an extreme example used to illustrate. The other examples elsewhere in this thread include a man taking an accolade that would usually be reserved for women, and a man going around being creepy to women who provide genital waxing services to other women.
If critics aren't allowed to push aside the gender ideology for a minute and discuss these males as men, it entirely undermines any point they're making about women's boundaries being encroached upon - which is also a harm, and a significant one.
The reason that I responded to your previous post was the importance of this extreme example.
Trans men are men. Trans women are women.
The research supports this.
Scumbags are scumbags, regardless of gender or trans status. Some of the people you listed are scumbags, and one was a woman receiving an award for women.
If you're going to dissolve into whataboutisms, we're done here.
This is an ideological belief. We can also accurately describe them as women who want to be men, and men who want to be women.
Of the three examples we're discussing:
* one raped a woman using his penis - this is what men do, not women
* one tried to get women to touch his male genitals - again, the behavior of a man
* one received an accolade as if he's a woman - but spent most of his life making a highly successful career as a man, using his male privilege to its fullest extent
Can you see why people may prefer to refer to these three as men, not women?
I think you may be surprised at how many 'TERFs' are dyed-in-the-wool socialists. I know it's convenient to paint this as some left-right political split, but the truth of the matter is quite different. Look up the history of radical feminism - it didn't originate on the political right, quite the opposite.
Meghan Murphy in particular is a left-wing, socialist, radical feminist, who was raised in a Marxist household. This is no secret, you can search her work online to confirm all this, she's pro-unions, pro-socialism, and speaks against the right on numerous political matters.
Her ban from Twitter was caused by referring to a male (Johnathan/Jessica Yaniv), who was suing female beauticians for refusing to wax his bollocks, as "him".
Now I don't know about you, but I would think if you're going around flashing your testicles to women and demanding they touch them, that is very much a proof of being a man. I mean, you don't find women popping their hairy balls out to be plucked, and haranguing women who politely demur, do you?
Nonetheless, Twitter moderators disagreed. To them, this was the bushy scrotum of a woman. So Murphy was canned.
She keeps saying she is. She doesn't understand (I mean I'm sure she does, but she's a lying bigot) that socialism and all the wonders of it don't work if youre being a SWERF and TERF. Things don't work that way. You have to want better conditions for every one. Otherwise...how are we giving people equal chances to succeed?
I think the problem is the vast majority of people have no clue what socialism is. Most people have read no socialist texts, but are inundated with right wing and capitalistic propaganda all the time.
tldr: SWERFs and TERFs are not leftists. Like how people like Jordan Peterson (before), Tim Pool, Dave Rubin are all right wingers through and through, but keep pretending they are centrists. You have to act the act. Not just talk. This applies to Meghan Murphy too.
I have spent dozens and dozens and dozens of hours getting into TERFs. Radical feminism didn't originate on the political right, but at this point trans people are dying and in danger. This is abundantly clear to any dyed-in-the-wool socialists in the 2020s. Even if it wasn't clear decades ago. Or even a decade ago.
Unfortunately you showed your true colors deadnaming Jessica and using the incorrect pronouns.
The article you linked shows that she upholds left-wing, socialist, feminist principles much more scrupulously then so many who call themselves "the left". It's no wonder she doesn't want to identify with them as a political group, even though her ideological stance is still firmly leftist.
"While I have long been a supporter of labour rights, of unions, and have counted myself as a fighting member of the working class who has waivered somewhere between socialism and Marxism from the moment I understood the concept of class struggle, I've found myself suddenly misaligned with some of those with whom I share my end of the political spectrum."
"These are the people I vote for. They represent my interests and ideologies and yet, when it comes to the issue of prostitution, it feels as though we've been pitted against one another."
"On one hand there seems to be a distinct lack of class analysis – we forget that there are reasons that some women are prostituted while others are not, that some women have a 'choice' while others do not. On the other, because decriminalization has, in part, been framed as a labour issue (i.e. that this is a job like any other and, therefore, should be treated in the same way any other service sector job is, in terms of laws), the gender and race factors fall to the wayside and we forget that prostitution impacts women and, in particular, racialized women in an inordinate way."
And:
"The reason for a man to buy sex from a woman is, without a doubt, because he desires pleasure without having to give anything in return. This is a male-centered purchase. If we are to define sex as something pleasurable for both parties then how on earth can we define prostitution as sex work? There is something decidedly unprogressive about calling something 'sex' when the act is, in fact, solely about providing pleasure for one party (the male party) without any regard for the woman with whom you are engaging in this supposed 'sex' with. Doesn't this defy the whole enthusiastic consent model?"
"While I certainly support human rights and worker rights, I also support women's rights and believe that, as a feminist, I cannot and will not work towards normalizing the idea that women can and should be bought and sold. I certainly will not promote this as part of my progressive politics."
And much more - the whole article is very much worth reading. Do you not agree that she makes many thoughtful and well-considered points?
The fundamental problem is that within many leftist groups, there is a huge blind spot when it comes to women's issues. It should not be too much to ask that women be spared from male sexual violence, and women be permitted female-only safe spaces away from men.
Right so she’s not a leftist as your evidence points out. Every single thing she wrote is so cringe when you say it’s coming from a leftist. It isn’t if you understand socialism and communism.
Like how Tim Pool and his sycophants say he’s a [classic] liberal. As if that means anything to Americans besides code for right-wing. Obviously right wingers can be liberals. Many are. Any one with a nuanced understanding of politics knows that.
Edit: Hilarious. You responded the way you did completely ignoring me having already done the Tim Pool analogy. You’re still going at it Again, have you personally read any socialist or communist or leftist texts? If so, what? It would be embarrassing and shameful for me to be an adult and spout off about different political ideologies without having read up on them.
"I have long been a supporter of labour rights, of unions, and have counted myself as a fighting member of the working class who has waivered somewhere between socialism and Marxism from the moment I understood the concept of class struggle"
I’m sorry I’ve been arrogantly wrong about this as you stated before your edit.
Please cite some left and right wing texts you have read and understood. Please explain why class solidarity excluding trans and sex workers is still leftist. Write in your own words so I know you understand in-depth nuanced politics and can accept you’re right and I’m wrong.
I wrote my comments to help people reading see the truth. I’m sure with your swagger you will respond in good faith.
"I have long been a supporter of labour rights, of unions, and have counted myself as a fighting member of the working class who has waivered somewhere between socialism and Marxism from the moment I understood the concept of class struggle"
“But a surprisingly high number are requests by the FBI for Twitter to take action on election misinformation, even involving joke tweets from low-follower accounts.”
Why were the accounts of interest? Were they controlled by foreign IPs?
When there are mass ransomware attacks from foreign states, the FBI does help private companies.
I think that is probably the charitable perspective.
Either that or the FBI led by James Comey at the time (who arguably single handed sunk Clinton in 2016 by going against FBI policy to re-open the "emails" case), was corrupt and at a rate of one email a week was attempting to control the national discourse thru twitter.
Not sure if that is credible given the FBI could have done far worse to the trump campaign.
Though, without primary source material, I'm not sure how one could tell the difference (Occams razor seemingly might come into play)
In this case reporting two dozen small fry accounts to moderator teams is very weak as far as censorship goes. They’re doing the same thing as everyone else who hits report on Twitter does, except cutting in line. But you can bet there are tens of thousands of businesses, especially Twitter’s advertisers, who have the same if not closer relations with Twitter and, if made displeased, could cause Twitter to censor you even quicker than the FBI could.
I don't see anything about being a "small fry" mattering when it comes to the law. It's pretty cut and dried. What the FBI is doing is unconstitutional and illegal. Why are you minimizing it? That they are doing it all is extremely alarming. It's like saying "the concentration camp only has 5 people, what's the big deal?"
And why are you comparing them to private companies? Private companies are not covered by the same laws when it comes to the first amendment.
Why is the FBI spending tax payer dollars trying to influence media outlets at all? Do you not find this alarming? It's absolutely outside their realm of responsibility.
The FBI accepts reports from the public about people interfering with elections, and they forward on those reports to the relevant platforms. I would like to see the FBI and other law enforcement agencies considerably reduced in scale and power, but as long as they exist I think monitoring threats to free and fair elections is one of the better things they can do with said taxpayer dollars.
No government entity should be involved in the slightest in policing media in order to "protect" elections. It's very subjective and extremely ripe for abuse.
The only reason election outcomes are so vulnerable to media manipulation is because the US political system is captured by cynical corporate interests that draw an arbitrary line unrelated to idealism across a set of issues to split voters almost perfectly at 50/50, then do everything in their power through corporate media to minimize third parties and use legal challenges to remove them from the ballot.
If viable candidates that actually served the interest of the public rather than the ruling class were given fair access to the process, then we wouldn't be so vulnerable to manipulation.
The FBI's role is to protect interests of the corporate elite in their backdoor dealings with various media outlets.
> No government entity should be involved in the slightest in policing media in order to "protect" elections. It's very subjective and extremely ripe for abuse.
The FEC can impose all sorts of fines, they arguably have more teeth than this.
> Intentionally deceiving qualified voters to prevent them from voting is voter suppression—and it is a federal crime.
> However, not all publicly available voting information is accurate, and some is deliberately designed to deceive you to keep you from voting.
Bad actors use various methods to spread disinformation about voting, such as social media platforms, texting, or peer-to-peer messaging applications on smartphones. They may provide misleading information about the time, manner, or place of voting. This can include inaccurate election dates or false claims about voting qualifications or methods, such as false information suggesting that one may vote by text, which is not allowed in any jurisdiction.
> Help defend the right to vote by reporting any suspected instances of voter suppression—especially those received through a private communication channel like texting—to your local FBI field office or at tips.fbi.gov.
So it sounds like they're actively doing this outside of Twitter or social media in general.
IANAL, but here's a Georgetown Law info sheet about how that works, and cites several federal law statues that are applicable:
The Pentagon routinely screens Hollywood blockbusters to ensure the content does not offend the military, and makes suggestions to studio executives as to how to best portray the military. The government is constantly influencing media outlets, none of this is new.
Let me cut and paste my comment with a minor change:
Why is the Pentagon spending tax payer dollars trying to influence media outlets at all? Do you not find this alarming? It's absolutely outside their realm of responsibility.
What does being "new" have anything to do with whether it matters or not?
It's not alarming because it's so pervasive it's the way things are. Thus when something new is brought up their impact needs to be weighed accordingly to prioritize.
Growing up in a fascist regime may make it seem normal but at some point you need to raise your hackles and feel alarmed regardless of the past, because it's a fascist regime.
The FBI says "won't someone rid me of this meddlesome priest?" while the majority party in congress is dragging social media CEOs to testify about content moderation isn't enough to make you at the very least, suspicious?
The FBI said they are "notifying you of the below accounts which may potentially constitute violations of Twitter's Terms of Service for any action or inaction deemed appropriate within Twitter policy". One of the accounts was an account parodying a pro wrestler by suggesting he frequently poops in his pants. Not really seeing any evidence of a coordinated political agenda here.
What is the law that is being broken here, and how are punishments measured for its infraction? Is it based on amount of impact? Because if so, then asking moderation for a dozen or two accounts with limited reach is something that might carry a small amount of punishment, if any at all.
The first amendment is about the government making laws to infringe upon free speech. I see no laws being made here. So it is the government behaving exactly like a private company. Which may be problematic, but not unlawful.
I already am. The FBI just shut down the Z-Library with the help of Google and Amazon, which is a far more significant scandal over unjust power than this is. This is nothing more than chaff meant to distract from that atrocity. You are all crying about two dozen low-follower accounts while the FBI has successfully shuttered an immense knowledge repository.
The FBI is putting pressure on Apple to drop Enhanced Encryption, and still refusing to declassify their JFK files. Those are far more urgent issues than getting mad at mods.
We are just trying to achieve concensus on facts here, not strategize on our plan to prosecute the FBI. This is a pseudo anonymous forum, not a law firm or activist group. We can talk about all of these things at once, despite your protestations.
Yes, and my free speech as protected by the First Amendment gives me the right to call this as plainly falling into the FBI's distraction trap, not to mention the whole giving cover to the sell-off of TSLA stock thing.
So how about describing the FBI's dasterdly distraction plan rather than dropping random sketchy details every couple comments as an argumentation tool?
You're posting in it. We're all here while those other threads remain low in replies. I'd say their plan has succeeded, wouldn't you? The proof is, as they say, in the pudding.
Every time the government tells anyone that something possibly harmful is happening, with the hope that folks stop that, it's censorship. The government shouldn't be involved at ALL in talking or thinking about what its citizens do or say. Any time the FBI posts a most-wanted list it's clearly an attempt to shut down speech or behavior. This is censorship and is just like a concentration camp.
Twitter isn't a media outlet; content moderation isn't censorship; routine communications over email aren't "behind closed doors"; suggestions that Twitter investigate certain accounts carry no legal weight.
> What you call a "suggestion" can easily be interpreted as a threat
Anything can be interpreted as a threat if you're paranoid enough, but the text of the emails (if you ignore Taibbi's commentary) is pretty clearly inconsistent with that interpretation.
The FBI contacted trust and safety and said 'Hey we have concerns about these tweets'. Twitter decided to take them down in some cases.
Who is corrupted here? Twitter for taking reports and then deciding how to react to them? The FBI for finding misinformation that might lead to crazies creating mass casualty events?
The FBI at no time FORCED twitter to do anything. So it's not violating the first amendment.
Any time the FBI “asks” a company to do something it’s immediately a form of coercion. Government law enforcement agencies shouldn’t be “asking” for anything unless it’s done under due process of law. Sorry but I 100% disagree.
> Any time the FBI “asks” a company to do something it’s immediately a form of coercion.
Strong disagree. I've been on the receiving side of many such requests and all of them came with reasons and citations to back up the request. I've never had a single LE request (including some from the FBI even though we were located in Toronto, Canada and in IJmuiden, NL meaning that we could have refused them simply on account of not being in their jurisdiction) that did not make perfect sense to me.
1. We're not talking about your company which probably had a different context. We're talking about the FBI telling Twitter to silence opinions and facts.
2. Whether you agree with the LE request has no influence on whether it's legal or not.
> 1. We're not talking about your company which probably had a different context. We're talking about the FBI telling Twitter to silence opinions and facts.
The context was quite comparable: live conversations, messages both public and private.
> 2. Whether you agree with the LE request has no influence on whether it's legal or not.
Twitter had an extensive legal team before Musk fired them all, I'm pretty sure they were well capable of determining which requests were legal and which were not.
"Create a strong and unique passphrase for each online account you hold and change them regularly. Using the same passphrase across several accounts makes you more vulnerable if one account is breached."
This is an ask from the FBI. But they obviously aren't coercing you not to use abc123 as your password.
>Any time the FBI “asks” a company to do something it’s immediately a form of coercion. Government law enforcement agencies shouldn’t be “asking” for anything unless it’s done under due process of law. Sorry but I 100% disagree.
By that logic, if there's a loud party in your apartment building, the police shouldn't be able to knock on the door where the party is going on to ask them to keep it down unless they already have an arrest warrant for disturbing the peace.
Does that sound about right? Because police should never be involved in anything unless there's a court order. Is that correct?
Given a large enough transgression they would have gone by a judge and probably gotten an enforceable order, but they chose to first ask nicely. But be assured that if you stonewall such a request and the matter is grave enough that you'll be served next, and rightly so.
This is just an optimization and a way to save everybody a lot of time and headaches, as well as a way to ensure that the genie gets put back into the bottle before something can grow legs and do a lot of damage. And with the degree to which social media has been weaponized that is a good thing.
I can read too, what do you mean when you say that?
I’m not sure how institutions can say “no” to the FBI without feeling fear of retribution, nor do I want the FBI putting pressure on corporations to be something that’s “normal and expected”.
Twitter said 'no' to the feds on multiple occasions (as was pointed out upthread) and you can bet that if they had received an illegal request they would have balked at it.
I'm sure there was some give-and-take but on the whole what I've seen so far is absolutely par for the course, if you were to look into Facebook, Google, Microsoft and any of the ISPs and email providers you would find the exact same thing.
Both Twitter and the FBI were pretty open about the FBI having limited access to Twitters' firehose and that there was constant interaction between the two parties. You can add to that that if you were to look at this internationally and at the state level that such contacts can be expected to exist as well. Any assumption to the contrary is hopelessly naive.
Do you understand why when a person in a position of authority or dominance makes sexual advances towards their subordinate, it is considered sexual assault and abuse of power?
That analogy should help you understand the difference between a random guy writing to Twitter "hey, I think these tweets violate your ToS" and the FBI doing the same thing.
And yet, despite unfettered access to Twitter's internal communications, evidence has yet to be posted by the journalists tasked with exposing that fact.
When people become a sworn officer of the FBI or any other federal LEO officer, they take an oath to protect and defend the US Constitution. When instead of upholding the Constitution, they ask a private company to violate people's first ammendment rights, that is an abuse of power.
It may be within Twitters terms of service to ban people and censor people, and that may be fine for Twitter, but for a sworn officer to use Twitter to censor people - that is an abuse of power.
Of course, the files also show that Twitter personnel acted in bad faith and didn't follow their own ToS.
Yeah, so it seems looking at the emails, which is the only piece of information we are allowed to see.
However if you think about it for a minute, if the FBI were this bold in written, subpoena-able communication, what do you think the offline conversations looked like?
"The evidence doesn't show malfeasance, but if you imagine other evidence that does show malfeasance, that would be bad" is not a compelling argument in any situation.
Twitter took stuff down at the government's request even though they couldn't find a violation of their own ToS, let alone determine that things were illegal.
Can you cite an example of that? I've read all of the threads so far and none of them demonstrate an account being taken down at the government's request.
I mean, Twitter was so accomodating of warrantless government requests that they built a friggin portal for government agents to submit them. Does that not set off any alarm bells?
The document dump contains evidence of government agents telling Twitter to "look into" things and Twitter responding that they "handled" it.
Government thugs don't need to give explicit orders to have their wishes followed, especially if the thugs in question make it sound like they share your ideological goals.
Nice little company you got there. Shame if something were to happen to it.
This is incorrect. The "handled" response you're referring to was regarding a list of links to leaked nudes of Hunter Biden reported by the Biden campaign:
What was illegal about the NYPost breaking a story about content found on Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop?
If you have allegations of illegality, who determined that? Are you saying FBI should just say "Trust us, it's illegal - we don't need a jury or a judge"?
Since when does the FBI just get to accuse people of things and take their rights away?
It's one thing for the FBI to contact twitter to say "hey there's this account that's posting instructions on how to make and plant pipe bombs so you should remove it" but a completely different thing for the FBI to say "hey there's thing thing that violates one your arbitrary terms of service so you should take it down".
Why is the FBI spending time and resources looking for TOS violations for a private company?
Why is the FBI spending time looking into _anything_ that's not illegal, period?
