4 ms·

Its is not censorship. No censorship has taken place. The article still exists on the NY Post web site and their newspaper. Their audience is still sizable. Th

Its is not censorship. No censorship has taken place. The article still exists on the NY Post web site and their newspaper. Their audience is still sizable. Their article included personal information and was consistent with policies that have been in place for almost a year. Twitter is not a public utility in the way that phone services are. They were (rightly) criticized along with others for letting mis-information run amok in the last election and beyond. They have (slowly) taken steps to listen to these concerns and this is what happens. I full support Twitter in this. This is not censorship, this is limitation of deliberate mis-information and personal information.

Wolfenstein98k 6y ago
But that standard has never been used before and was manually engaged here. Trump's taxes were repeatedly shared and there are photos of the content (not to mention the content itself, which is far more private than an email address). This standard has never been applied like this, and you can still link to the Web Archive version without limitation - same content. It's also not "limitation of deliberate misinformation" - that has never once been used on deliberate misinformation like the Steele dossier. Ahmari of the NYP had a reasonably good counter: https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/if-unreliable-is-the-issue-why-did-social-media-never-block-anti-trump-stories/ https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/if-unreliable-is-the-issue-why...
- tabtab 6y ago
  Re: "Trump's taxes were repeatedly shared..." That's kind of comparing apples to oranges. One is a public figure, the other not. And is tax info comparable to email addresses? I'm not saying whether or not it's fair, only that it's very different kinds of personal information being compared here. Equivalency is hard to establish.
  - Wolfenstein98k 6y ago
    Being a public figure doesn't mean your rights don't exist. I actually abhor that the photos of Hunter were shared, but he's a public figure too. As this (and other recent reporting) has shown, he was using his father's name and implied access thereto for personal profit. Note that there is no evidence Hunter ever actually got Joe to do anything for him. What is a matter of record is that Hunter was IMPLYING he could do so, which is scummy but probably not illegal. Johnson-Grassley investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe and I want to stress I'm not alleging otherwise.
    - tabtab 6y ago
      Hunter sounds like a jerk; I'm not voting for him.
- donohoe 6y ago
  My editorialization aside, Twitters stated reason is that the images contained in the articles include personal and private information (email addresses and phone numbers) which violate our rules. That (to me) is valid in itself. I do wonder, had they redacted things properly then this would all be a non-issue. To your example; my understanding is that Trump's taxes did not in the same way (by this I mean things like Trump org address etc isn't a private address). I have not dug deep into those articles to say that with 100% certainty.
  - zajio1am 6y ago
    I would say that content of my tax return is much more private information than my home address.
  - Wolfenstein98k 6y ago
    That may be true but that was a reason they used later, as an excuse. Hence they don't ban the Web Archive mirror (which has a static URL), and they don't ban any of the previous leaks about Trump taxes, health records, etc. Not to mention Wikileaks - by definition that is a trove of email addresses and completely uncensored private information that you can tweet with impunity right now.
- ahallock 6y ago
  The selective application of their terms is precisely the problem. It renders their policies essentially meaningless when certain groups are given preferential treatment. The thing is, I would have thought by now that these companies would have learned from the past. The more you try to censor information on the internet, the more attention you draw to it.
thisiscorrect 6y ago
How is failing to send private messages which contains ideas you disagree with not censorship? You've limited the definition to "taking down the originate reference" but that's too limited.
- CalChris 6y ago
  Because they weren't private messages. Private messages are between two parties. Instead, these were messages on a platform which is owned by Twitter between two users where these users have agreed to restrictions. You can read about those restrictions here: https://twitter.com/en/tos https://twitter.com/en/tos HN is no different. I know this because I've been dinged by dang.
  - ww520 6y ago
    Direct Message is 1-to-1 private message. DM is banned.

Wolfenstein98k 6y ago

But that standard has never been used before and was manually engaged here. Trump's taxes were repeatedly shared and there are photos of the content (not to mention the content itself, which is far more private than an email address). This standard has never been applied like this, and you can still link to the Web Archive version without limitation - same content. It's also not "limitation of deliberate misinformation" - that has never once been used on deliberate misinformation like the Steele dossier. Ahmari of the NYP had a reasonably good counter: https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/if-unreliable-is-the-issue-why-did-social-media-never-block-anti-trump-stories/ https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/if-unreliable-is-the-issue-why...

tabtab 6y ago
Re: "Trump's taxes were repeatedly shared..." That's kind of comparing apples to oranges. One is a public figure, the other not. And is tax info comparable to email addresses? I'm not saying whether or not it's fair, only that it's very different kinds of personal information being compared here. Equivalency is hard to establish.
- Wolfenstein98k 6y ago
  Being a public figure doesn't mean your rights don't exist. I actually abhor that the photos of Hunter were shared, but he's a public figure too. As this (and other recent reporting) has shown, he was using his father's name and implied access thereto for personal profit. Note that there is no evidence Hunter ever actually got Joe to do anything for him. What is a matter of record is that Hunter was IMPLYING he could do so, which is scummy but probably not illegal. Johnson-Grassley investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe and I want to stress I'm not alleging otherwise.
  - tabtab 6y ago
    Hunter sounds like a jerk; I'm not voting for him.
donohoe 6y ago
My editorialization aside, Twitters stated reason is that the images contained in the articles include personal and private information (email addresses and phone numbers) which violate our rules. That (to me) is valid in itself. I do wonder, had they redacted things properly then this would all be a non-issue. To your example; my understanding is that Trump's taxes did not in the same way (by this I mean things like Trump org address etc isn't a private address). I have not dug deep into those articles to say that with 100% certainty.
- zajio1am 6y ago
  I would say that content of my tax return is much more private information than my home address.
- Wolfenstein98k 6y ago
  That may be true but that was a reason they used later, as an excuse. Hence they don't ban the Web Archive mirror (which has a static URL), and they don't ban any of the previous leaks about Trump taxes, health records, etc. Not to mention Wikileaks - by definition that is a trove of email addresses and completely uncensored private information that you can tweet with impunity right now.
ahallock 6y ago
The selective application of their terms is precisely the problem. It renders their policies essentially meaningless when certain groups are given preferential treatment. The thing is, I would have thought by now that these companies would have learned from the past. The more you try to censor information on the internet, the more attention you draw to it.

thisiscorrect 6y ago

How is failing to send private messages which contains ideas you disagree with not censorship? You've limited the definition to "taking down the originate reference" but that's too limited.

CalChris 6y ago
Because they weren't private messages. Private messages are between two parties. Instead, these were messages on a platform which is owned by Twitter between two users where these users have agreed to restrictions. You can read about those restrictions here: https://twitter.com/en/tos https://twitter.com/en/tos HN is no different. I know this because I've been dinged by dang.
- ww520 6y ago
  Direct Message is 1-to-1 private message. DM is banned.