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> Yes, from a man who happens to be legally blind and can't verify who dropped it off. Still more verifiable sources than the Atlantic and NYT stories, which w

> Yes, from a man who happens to be legally blind and can't verify who dropped it off. Still more verifiable sources than the Atlantic and NYT stories, which were based on zero verifiable sources. > Turning up a week before the election? The Atlantic and NYT stories were also published very recently, also a few weeks before the election. > The was supposed to be a professional servicing a machine, he violated his clients privacy for his own purposes, and now we're to trust him? The NYT story was based on illegally leaked tax returns. Whoever leaked these documents has not only breached their duty of confidentiality and privacy that they owe every taxpayer - they in fact committed a crime. Why didn't Twitter and Facebook block a story that could only come from a source who breached their legal duties and committed a crime? And in your words, how can we trust such a source?

ericb 6y ago
I mean, on the face of it, Trump's taxes leaking seems likely, almost inevitable, and surprising it hadn't happened sooner. He has no shortage of people who have seen his taxes, and no shortage of disgruntled folks. Whereas a conveniently placed laptop just left somewhere with incriminating emails seems to test credulity. The laptop seems like a foreign psyop, the taxes seems like something everyone thought inevitable, and that he told us he was going to do himself. There's a reason that sources remain anonymous, and I'm not sure I see an equivalency here. Look at what happened to Lt. Colonel Vindman. It seems like having a standard of "you must lose your livelihood to alert the world to something" might be a good way to keep all sorts of secrets bottled up, to everyone's detriment.
srtjstjsj 6y ago
One difference is that NYT isn't publishing the documents, only claims about them. Twitter doesn't censor unverifiable claims, such as the Presidents own claims about his tax returns. The Post refuses to take down the link to what they claim are private photos and documents. It seems pretty clear that they prefer to keep the conversation focused on the censorship of private photos (which they can then conflate with censorship of their corruption allegations) instead of on the mix of nothingburger and likely faked evidence against Joe Biden.
- NeverFade 6y ago
  If any story based on "private photos and documents" is to be blocked, then most news stories must be blocked on Twitter. That includes the Snowden leaks, Panama Papers, the Pentagon Papers, virtually all Wikileaks releases, and many of the most important news stories of the past several decades. Twitter pretends to have standards by which any news story can be censored, then uses that standard to very selectively block specific stories as they choose. Also, from a journalistic perspective, it is much better to publish the source documents, as NYP has done, rather than quote from them liberally without publishing the original, as the NYT has done.

ericb 6y ago

I mean, on the face of it, Trump's taxes leaking seems likely, almost inevitable, and surprising it hadn't happened sooner. He has no shortage of people who have seen his taxes, and no shortage of disgruntled folks. Whereas a conveniently placed laptop just left somewhere with incriminating emails seems to test credulity. The laptop seems like a foreign psyop, the taxes seems like something everyone thought inevitable, and that he told us he was going to do himself. There's a reason that sources remain anonymous, and I'm not sure I see an equivalency here. Look at what happened to Lt. Colonel Vindman. It seems like having a standard of "you must lose your livelihood to alert the world to something" might be a good way to keep all sorts of secrets bottled up, to everyone's detriment.

srtjstjsj 6y ago

One difference is that NYT isn't publishing the documents, only claims about them. Twitter doesn't censor unverifiable claims, such as the Presidents own claims about his tax returns. The Post refuses to take down the link to what they claim are private photos and documents. It seems pretty clear that they prefer to keep the conversation focused on the censorship of private photos (which they can then conflate with censorship of their corruption allegations) instead of on the mix of nothingburger and likely faked evidence against Joe Biden.

NeverFade 6y ago
If any story based on "private photos and documents" is to be blocked, then most news stories must be blocked on Twitter. That includes the Snowden leaks, Panama Papers, the Pentagon Papers, virtually all Wikileaks releases, and many of the most important news stories of the past several decades. Twitter pretends to have standards by which any news story can be censored, then uses that standard to very selectively block specific stories as they choose. Also, from a journalistic perspective, it is much better to publish the source documents, as NYP has done, rather than quote from them liberally without publishing the original, as the NYT has done.