5 ms·

I don't know about Russian involvement, but it was clearly a right wing attempt to meddle in the election to achieve a last minute bomb on their opponent like i

by TwoBit 6y ago

I don't know about Russian involvement, but it was clearly a right wing attempt to meddle in the election to achieve a last minute bomb on their opponent like in 2016.

mjfl 6y ago
If something is going to be suppressed as Russian propaganda, there better be evidence that it is Russian propaganda. Otherwise the suppression itself is propaganda in the other direction.
- nearbuy 6y ago
  Twitter's objection was that the New York Post article contained hacked or illegally obtained material (personal intimate photos, etc.). Publishing those materials is a legal grey area.
  - bgentry 6y ago
    No, if if the content is true and in the public interest, there is really no question about the legality of publishing it in the US: it is 100% constitutionally protected. Twitter’s initial justification for removing the “hacked” material is completely at odds with their past decisions to leave up hacked/illegally obtained materials like the Snowden docs, Trump tax returns, Panama papers, etc. Of course they have since changed their stance.
    - nearbuy 6y ago
      That's exactly why it's a legal grey area. We don't know if the content is true or forged. Publishing stolen content is illegal unless you can prove it's in the public interest, and even if some of it is, it's doubtful the personal photos are.
      - bgentry 6y ago
        Even if the content of the leaks was fake, which we have no evidence to indicate and none of the key actors have really claimed (as opposed to the story about how they were obtained), it would still be legal to publish it because the public officials involved mean it has a clear public interest. There’s the possibility of civil damages if it amounts to defamation, but that’s quite a standard to reach. Such damages would fall on the publisher of the story, the NY Post, but not a platform like Twitter (per section 230 safe harbor immunity). There is no legal gray area here. This is the same reason why those who publicized the now widely rebuked Steele Dossier are not facing legal consequences for it (including Twitter), nor should they. Of course your original comment said nothing about the accuracy of the reporting and instead only made the claim that there was a legal gray area around publishing hacked materials like these, which is simply not true.
        nearbuy 6y ago
        > the public officials involved mean it has a clear public interest. It's clear only to you. You cannot normally legally publish hacked or stolen photos of celebrities. The personal, intimate, or family photos of Hunter Biden almost certainly do not meet the bar for public interest. Twitter is not liable here. But as a private company they're allowed to have a policy against linking to hacked or stolen material on their platform. It's the NY Post that's in a grey area. > Of course your original comment said nothing about the accuracy of the reporting and instead only made the claim that there was a legal gray area around publishing hacked materials like these, which is simply not true. My original comment was in response to someone saying Twitter blocked it because it was Russian propaganda, which is simply not true.
        raxxorrax 6y ago
        > It's clear only to you. Really? Who would be the judge of that? The suppression itself is hard evidence to the contrary.
        nearbuy 6y ago
  - scoot_718 6y ago
    Except it was faked and not hacked or illegally obtained.
    - nearbuy 6y ago
      I don't think anyone is sure what it is yet. A common tactic in misinformation campaigns is to mix authentic (possibly hacked) photos with forged material. The authentic material is added to make the leak seem more believable.
abnry 6y ago
How the heck can an opposing party "meddle" in an election that the very party itself is contending in?
- takeda 6y ago
  By fabricating a story to be released exactly on October 15 where there's not enough time to verify if it is true or not. We are here on Hacker News, are you certain that a legally blind person in Delaware. would be the guy to fly to all the way from California to repair water damaged laptop? If you don't know how such repair looks like, I recommend you to search Luis Rosmann on YouTube (actually cool to watch anyway). I initially thought that the repair maybe involved reinstalling windows or removing viruses (which you could get assistance from text to speech tooling), but it was a water damage. Edit: https://youtu.be/DoiByFIPgK8?t=468 https://youtu.be/DoiByFIPgK8?t=468
  - 1234letshaveatw 6y ago
    I assume by your broken english you are a foreign actor? btw, the repair shop is located very close to one of the Biden residences.
    - takeda 6y ago
      I wasn't born in US, but I'm an US citizen. It's funny you're accusing me being a foreign agent, when your account is only 6 months old and only talks about politics here. As far as I know the Biden residence was sold few years ago, and Hunter lives in LA, but could be wrong, it's not possible to find definitive answer. But he has a house and his son was born in LA so high chance that's where he lives. I also have hard time to believe that someone who makes $80k a month would care about laptop repair, and even if he did, wouldn't have someone on payroll (perhaps IT person from his company) who would go to his house to get it fixed. Also, I still can't see how a legally blind person (I know legally blind doesn't mean completely blind) can do a water damage repair. There are so many other holes in that story, but even if ALL of that was true, I don't see how actions of a 50 year old man implicate his father. There isn't any "smoking gun" in relation to Joe Biden. So what was the purpose of this story again?
Consultant32452 6y ago
Are you aware that the "grab her by the pussy" tape was a timed drop just before the 2016 election? Would you have preferred that be censored?

by TwoBit 6y ago

I don't know about Russian involvement, but it was clearly a right wing attempt to meddle in the election to achieve a last minute bomb on their opponent like in 2016.

mjfl 6y ago

If something is going to be suppressed as Russian propaganda, there better be evidence that it is Russian propaganda. Otherwise the suppression itself is propaganda in the other direction.

nearbuy 6y ago
Twitter's objection was that the New York Post article contained hacked or illegally obtained material (personal intimate photos, etc.). Publishing those materials is a legal grey area.
- bgentry 6y ago
  No, if if the content is true and in the public interest, there is really no question about the legality of publishing it in the US: it is 100% constitutionally protected. Twitter’s initial justification for removing the “hacked” material is completely at odds with their past decisions to leave up hacked/illegally obtained materials like the Snowden docs, Trump tax returns, Panama papers, etc. Of course they have since changed their stance.
  - nearbuy 6y ago
    That's exactly why it's a legal grey area. We don't know if the content is true or forged. Publishing stolen content is illegal unless you can prove it's in the public interest, and even if some of it is, it's doubtful the personal photos are.
    - bgentry 6y ago
      Even if the content of the leaks was fake, which we have no evidence to indicate and none of the key actors have really claimed (as opposed to the story about how they were obtained), it would still be legal to publish it because the public officials involved mean it has a clear public interest. There’s the possibility of civil damages if it amounts to defamation, but that’s quite a standard to reach. Such damages would fall on the publisher of the story, the NY Post, but not a platform like Twitter (per section 230 safe harbor immunity). There is no legal gray area here. This is the same reason why those who publicized the now widely rebuked Steele Dossier are not facing legal consequences for it (including Twitter), nor should they. Of course your original comment said nothing about the accuracy of the reporting and instead only made the claim that there was a legal gray area around publishing hacked materials like these, which is simply not true.
      - nearbuy 6y ago
        > the public officials involved mean it has a clear public interest. It's clear only to you. You cannot normally legally publish hacked or stolen photos of celebrities. The personal, intimate, or family photos of Hunter Biden almost certainly do not meet the bar for public interest. Twitter is not liable here. But as a private company they're allowed to have a policy against linking to hacked or stolen material on their platform. It's the NY Post that's in a grey area. > Of course your original comment said nothing about the accuracy of the reporting and instead only made the claim that there was a legal gray area around publishing hacked materials like these, which is simply not true. My original comment was in response to someone saying Twitter blocked it because it was Russian propaganda, which is simply not true.
        raxxorrax 6y ago
        > It's clear only to you. Really? Who would be the judge of that? The suppression itself is hard evidence to the contrary.
        nearbuy 6y ago
- scoot_718 6y ago
  Except it was faked and not hacked or illegally obtained.
  - nearbuy 6y ago
    I don't think anyone is sure what it is yet. A common tactic in misinformation campaigns is to mix authentic (possibly hacked) photos with forged material. The authentic material is added to make the leak seem more believable.

abnry 6y ago

How the heck can an opposing party "meddle" in an election that the very party itself is contending in?

takeda 6y ago
By fabricating a story to be released exactly on October 15 where there's not enough time to verify if it is true or not. We are here on Hacker News, are you certain that a legally blind person in Delaware. would be the guy to fly to all the way from California to repair water damaged laptop? If you don't know how such repair looks like, I recommend you to search Luis Rosmann on YouTube (actually cool to watch anyway). I initially thought that the repair maybe involved reinstalling windows or removing viruses (which you could get assistance from text to speech tooling), but it was a water damage. Edit: https://youtu.be/DoiByFIPgK8?t=468 https://youtu.be/DoiByFIPgK8?t=468
- 1234letshaveatw 6y ago
  I assume by your broken english you are a foreign actor? btw, the repair shop is located very close to one of the Biden residences.
  - takeda 6y ago
    I wasn't born in US, but I'm an US citizen. It's funny you're accusing me being a foreign agent, when your account is only 6 months old and only talks about politics here. As far as I know the Biden residence was sold few years ago, and Hunter lives in LA, but could be wrong, it's not possible to find definitive answer. But he has a house and his son was born in LA so high chance that's where he lives. I also have hard time to believe that someone who makes $80k a month would care about laptop repair, and even if he did, wouldn't have someone on payroll (perhaps IT person from his company) who would go to his house to get it fixed. Also, I still can't see how a legally blind person (I know legally blind doesn't mean completely blind) can do a water damage repair. There are so many other holes in that story, but even if ALL of that was true, I don't see how actions of a 50 year old man implicate his father. There isn't any "smoking gun" in relation to Joe Biden. So what was the purpose of this story again?

Consultant32452 6y ago

Are you aware that the "grab her by the pussy" tape was a timed drop just before the 2016 election? Would you have preferred that be censored?