5 ms·

On april 17th I made the prediction that the US government was in control of twitter for probably this reason. I got flagged for this. A day later a bunch of f

On april 17th I made the prediction that the US government was in control of twitter for probably this reason. I got flagged for this. A day later a bunch of former intelligence people basically said this is a good idea. That's funny to me.

andrewclunn 5y ago
We used to fund distributed disruptive technologies to subvert Soviet censorship. Chinese censorship was seen as proof of our superior freedom 20 years ago. Now it is viewed with envy by those in power. What moral high ground do we hold now?
- adventured 5y ago
  > What moral high ground do we hold now? Vast amounts of ground, fortunately. How about the fact that we can have these conversations fully uncensored? That little thing known as freedom of speech, which is still overwhelmingly alive and well. I enjoy its use, aggressively, on a daily basis without persecution and have for decades uninterrupted.
  - formerkrogemp 5y ago
    We can have this conversation now, but vigilance is good.
    - adventured 5y ago
      Certainly. Nothing in my comment suggests otherwise in the least.
      - formerkrogemp 5y ago
        So much on this site and online more generally comes across as criticism. It wasn't meant as such. I just thought it should be minded.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    Except that freedom of speech does not protect us from intolerance, as Karl Popper observed. For example, private entities are not required to uphold freedom of speech.
    - mschuster91 5y ago
      Funny enough, in Germany - which is definitely more restricted, and for good reason, on the US understanding of "free speech" - Facebook and Twitter are routinely seen as public discourse forums and have to unban users as long as what they post isn't against the law [1]. [1] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/muenchen-urteil-facebook-meinungsfreiheit-1.4707910 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/muenchen-urteil-faceboo...
    - politician 5y ago
      Good news- We aren’t required to tolerate institutions that don’t uphold freedom of speech.
    - refurb 5y ago
      It's funny when Popper is brought up in this way because his conclusion was that the only reasonable censorship of intolerance was that which poses a threat of immediate physical harm. So basically how the US treats freedom of speech today. He certainly wouldn't be supportive of censoring racist commentary that didn't incite immediate physical violence.
  - dangus 5y ago
    The article is about the benefits that the US intelligence agencies get from the censorship power of a centralized monopoly of tech companies. For example, if your main form of communication online is through companies owned by Meta, it’s very easy to effectively censor a point of view or group of people through deplatforming, but if there are dozens of platforms that becomes more difficult. While more authoritarian countries rely on direct censorship, the US instead promotes the viewpoints they want people to subscribe to: positive reinforcement. You can see this with the government’s involvement with the entertainment industry, or with the military paying sports leagues to promote patriotic displays. Tech companies being private entities means that they can censor or at least stop the viral effects of social media on ideas that don’t fit the mold. There’s a lot you can do to shape public opinion without violating the first amendment. It’s kind of similar to the way local news stations will run “stories” that amount to advertisements for various products or local businesses. Or you might see a funny meme on Reddit where the joke mostly has to do with a company. Not to say that there aren’t valid reasons to do stuff like this…there’s plenty of harmful speech out there that makes the world a worse place. Hateful, violent, or misleading speech is a legitimate problem. For example, there’s a report that claims most anti-vaccination online content comes from just 12 sources. [1] It seems a little bit alarming that such a small group can amplify speech in a way that has cost perhaps thousands of lives. [1] [PDF] https://f4d9b9d3-3d32-4f3a-afa6-49f8bf05279a.usrfiles.com/ugd/f4d9b9_df6e2ee56bbd4f53be11a3156dae0b63.pdf https://f4d9b9d3-3d32-4f3a-afa6-49f8bf05279a.usrfiles.com/ug...
- incomingpain 5y ago
  >We used to fund distributed disruptive technologies to subvert Soviet censorship. Chinese censorship was seen as proof of our superior freedom 20 years ago. Now it is viewed with envy by those in power. What moral high ground do we hold now? The bigger point to discuss. If twitter is under control of the US government. I have no idea if it is or not, it just seems to be the case. You dont get to make the comment 'twitter is private, free speech only applies to government' because twitter == government. The other consideration I had. What if the us government doesnt explicitly own twitter. They simply dont realize the us government has hacked access to moderate and censor things in a clandestine way? Now it's an even more complicated subject but wouldn't justify the stock market situation that brings me to the point.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    >You dont get to make the comment 'twitter is private, free speech only applies to government' because twitter == government. it's true, twitter == government but not twitter === government. Meaning that the conversion happens in the underlying JIT engine where government hacks twitter to do what it wants. So the idea is that you could make a first amendment complaint against the government for hacking twitter if it infringed your free speech with that hack, but you could not say twitter cannot just turn off my account because while twitter == government it does not === government.
    - incomingpain 5y ago
      I get the complication of the position. Occams razor puts me back to the plain option that twitter is simply controlled by us gov.
      - JKCalhoun 5y ago
        Controlled how? I ask because I'm pretty sure real (non-US government) people post to Twitter and get real retweets. How is the US government controlling it? I imagine this would have blown wide open a long time ago if true. (Also Occam's Razor?)
eganist 5y ago
Found: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31057193 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31057193 Thanks, vouched even though I'm not sure your claim about "every major player" being out is correct (https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?symb=TWTR&subView=institutional https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?s...). Still, easier to have that conversation elsewhere now that there's a general public conversation about it, so it's harder to hand-wave it away as conspiratorial.
- incomingpain 5y ago
  >Thanks, vouched even though I'm not sure your claim about "every major player" being out is correct (https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?s https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?s...). Still, easier to have that conversation elsewhere now that there's a general public conversation about it, so it's harder to hand-wave it away as conspiratorial. Institutions like Blackrock or Vanguard don't get to vote, they may at most provide a proxy vote at cost. The typical 'conspiracy' around those 2 is that their management can threaten entities like twitter with delisting. Twitter is then removed from their holdings at tremendous cost. So they have kind of a little threat and they get some say to do stuff like climate change and diversity stuff. Ultimately the orgs still take this upon themselves. It's an easy thing to bluff against. Yes maybe some of these institutions have some players involved but I dont see it. Twitter looks tremendously undefended.
spamizbad 5y ago
Former intelligence people churn out all sorts of goofy takes in an attempt to build their brand. They’re also all over the spectrum depending on what audience they’re chasing. Not that much difference than any other media influencer or substack author. It's ultimately a free speech issue. You can't demand people to self-censor because their previous employment places unjustified credibility their nonsensical views. The way to combat this is through better civic and media literacy.
- incomingpain 5y ago
  >Former intelligence people churn out all sorts of goofy takes in an attempt to build their brand. They’re also all over the spectrum depending on what audience they’re chasing. You're right but is this one a goofy take? Or is there a real something here?
  - spamizbad 5y ago
    I don't think so, but to indulge my own cranky theories: Perhaps Elon Musk's takeover attempt was done at the behest of the US government to take control of the platform under the cover of "censorship". Musk himself indicated he wanted to make the platform more miserable for the "extremes" on both the left and right (both perceived as being anti-government) - leaving you with the establishment consensus unharmed in the middle.
    - incomingpain 5y ago
      That's a cool idea. Largely speaking you can see Elon's point of view. He was on Babylon Bee's show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvGnw1sHh9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvGnw1sHh9M 2.4 million views in last 3 months. In this video they in detail discuss the problem with political banning. 2 months later, Babylon Bee got banned off twitter for a joke. Clear political banning and violation of section 230.
      - everforward 5y ago
        > Clear political banning and violation of section 230. This has been posted a bunch of times, and it's wrong. Section 230 doesn't prohibit political bannings. It doesn't actually prohibit any banning at all. This is the relevant section (from https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230). > (2) Civil liability > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of— > (A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or > availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, > lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise > objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; Even banning for constitutionally protected speech is explicitly allowed. Whether that's a good thing or not is a separate conversation, but nothing presently in section 230 would prevent Twitter/Facebook/etc from banning an entire political party.
tomrod 5y ago
From your comment, you went unnecessarily political regarding the January 6, 2021 insurrection. In my view, this is why people downvoted your comment. The common narrative is that it was insurrection. It was certainly a dangerous mob driven by Trump and cronies intending to interfere with the US election proceedings without justifiable cause beyond pseudo-creedal feelings that somewhere, somehow, the election was stolen.
- incomingpain 5y ago
  >From your comment, you went unnecessarily political regarding the January 6, 2021 insurrection. In my view, this is why people downvoted your comment. The common narrative is that it was insurrection That hasn't been true for months. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_United_States_Capitol_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_United_States_Capitol_att... Wiki used to call it insurrection but it's not that. I understand the criticism that perhaps it's because it's political, but that's the because the whole subject is political. >It was certainly a dangerous mob driven by Trump and cronies intending to interfere with the US election proceedings without justifiable cause beyond pseudo-creedal feelings that somewhere, somehow, the election was stolen. Dangerous seems an over reach. Contemporary comparison you have mostly peaceful riots and actual insurrections like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Occupied_Protest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Occupied_Protest It's really important to see what's happening here. It's ultra important to be able to talk about these things. Republicans need to address the police brutality and objectively proven racism. Democrats need to address some things as well. These conversations have to happen and they are going to hurt.
  - notacoward 5y ago
    > Wiki used to call it insurrection but it's not that. They don't call it insurrection only because "seditious conspiracy" is the more legally accurate term, and the charge on which convictions have already been obtained. But ask a layperson to describe the difference and you'll get nothing. Even the US house and senate voted on impeachment for "incitement of insurrection" despite the legal distinction. Saying that it's "not insurrection[legal]" might be true, but HN is not a court and saying "not insurrection[common]" here is false.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
I don't think people think it's impossible but you need a source. The article in the headline does not prove this. Of course US security/war hawks want control over twitter but that doesn't make it true.

andrewclunn 5y ago

We used to fund distributed disruptive technologies to subvert Soviet censorship. Chinese censorship was seen as proof of our superior freedom 20 years ago. Now it is viewed with envy by those in power. What moral high ground do we hold now?

adventured 5y ago
> What moral high ground do we hold now? Vast amounts of ground, fortunately. How about the fact that we can have these conversations fully uncensored? That little thing known as freedom of speech, which is still overwhelmingly alive and well. I enjoy its use, aggressively, on a daily basis without persecution and have for decades uninterrupted.
- formerkrogemp 5y ago
  We can have this conversation now, but vigilance is good.
  - adventured 5y ago
    Certainly. Nothing in my comment suggests otherwise in the least.
    - formerkrogemp 5y ago
      So much on this site and online more generally comes across as criticism. It wasn't meant as such. I just thought it should be minded.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  Except that freedom of speech does not protect us from intolerance, as Karl Popper observed. For example, private entities are not required to uphold freedom of speech.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    Funny enough, in Germany - which is definitely more restricted, and for good reason, on the US understanding of "free speech" - Facebook and Twitter are routinely seen as public discourse forums and have to unban users as long as what they post isn't against the law [1]. [1] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/muenchen-urteil-facebook-meinungsfreiheit-1.4707910 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/muenchen-urteil-faceboo...
  - politician 5y ago
    Good news- We aren’t required to tolerate institutions that don’t uphold freedom of speech.
  - refurb 5y ago
    It's funny when Popper is brought up in this way because his conclusion was that the only reasonable censorship of intolerance was that which poses a threat of immediate physical harm. So basically how the US treats freedom of speech today. He certainly wouldn't be supportive of censoring racist commentary that didn't incite immediate physical violence.
- dangus 5y ago
  The article is about the benefits that the US intelligence agencies get from the censorship power of a centralized monopoly of tech companies. For example, if your main form of communication online is through companies owned by Meta, it’s very easy to effectively censor a point of view or group of people through deplatforming, but if there are dozens of platforms that becomes more difficult. While more authoritarian countries rely on direct censorship, the US instead promotes the viewpoints they want people to subscribe to: positive reinforcement. You can see this with the government’s involvement with the entertainment industry, or with the military paying sports leagues to promote patriotic displays. Tech companies being private entities means that they can censor or at least stop the viral effects of social media on ideas that don’t fit the mold. There’s a lot you can do to shape public opinion without violating the first amendment. It’s kind of similar to the way local news stations will run “stories” that amount to advertisements for various products or local businesses. Or you might see a funny meme on Reddit where the joke mostly has to do with a company. Not to say that there aren’t valid reasons to do stuff like this…there’s plenty of harmful speech out there that makes the world a worse place. Hateful, violent, or misleading speech is a legitimate problem. For example, there’s a report that claims most anti-vaccination online content comes from just 12 sources. [1] It seems a little bit alarming that such a small group can amplify speech in a way that has cost perhaps thousands of lives. [1] [PDF] https://f4d9b9d3-3d32-4f3a-afa6-49f8bf05279a.usrfiles.com/ugd/f4d9b9_df6e2ee56bbd4f53be11a3156dae0b63.pdf https://f4d9b9d3-3d32-4f3a-afa6-49f8bf05279a.usrfiles.com/ug...
incomingpain 5y ago
>We used to fund distributed disruptive technologies to subvert Soviet censorship. Chinese censorship was seen as proof of our superior freedom 20 years ago. Now it is viewed with envy by those in power. What moral high ground do we hold now? The bigger point to discuss. If twitter is under control of the US government. I have no idea if it is or not, it just seems to be the case. You dont get to make the comment 'twitter is private, free speech only applies to government' because twitter == government. The other consideration I had. What if the us government doesnt explicitly own twitter. They simply dont realize the us government has hacked access to moderate and censor things in a clandestine way? Now it's an even more complicated subject but wouldn't justify the stock market situation that brings me to the point.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  >You dont get to make the comment 'twitter is private, free speech only applies to government' because twitter == government. it's true, twitter == government but not twitter === government. Meaning that the conversion happens in the underlying JIT engine where government hacks twitter to do what it wants. So the idea is that you could make a first amendment complaint against the government for hacking twitter if it infringed your free speech with that hack, but you could not say twitter cannot just turn off my account because while twitter == government it does not === government.
  - incomingpain 5y ago
    I get the complication of the position. Occams razor puts me back to the plain option that twitter is simply controlled by us gov.
    - JKCalhoun 5y ago
      Controlled how? I ask because I'm pretty sure real (non-US government) people post to Twitter and get real retweets. How is the US government controlling it? I imagine this would have blown wide open a long time ago if true. (Also Occam's Razor?)

eganist 5y ago

Found: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31057193 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31057193 Thanks, vouched even though I'm not sure your claim about "every major player" being out is correct (https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?symb=TWTR&subView=institutional https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?s...). Still, easier to have that conversation elsewhere now that there's a general public conversation about it, so it's harder to hand-wave it away as conspiratorial.

incomingpain 5y ago
>Thanks, vouched even though I'm not sure your claim about "every major player" being out is correct (https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?s https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?s...). Still, easier to have that conversation elsewhere now that there's a general public conversation about it, so it's harder to hand-wave it away as conspiratorial. Institutions like Blackrock or Vanguard don't get to vote, they may at most provide a proxy vote at cost. The typical 'conspiracy' around those 2 is that their management can threaten entities like twitter with delisting. Twitter is then removed from their holdings at tremendous cost. So they have kind of a little threat and they get some say to do stuff like climate change and diversity stuff. Ultimately the orgs still take this upon themselves. It's an easy thing to bluff against. Yes maybe some of these institutions have some players involved but I dont see it. Twitter looks tremendously undefended.

spamizbad 5y ago

Former intelligence people churn out all sorts of goofy takes in an attempt to build their brand. They’re also all over the spectrum depending on what audience they’re chasing. Not that much difference than any other media influencer or substack author. It's ultimately a free speech issue. You can't demand people to self-censor because their previous employment places unjustified credibility their nonsensical views. The way to combat this is through better civic and media literacy.

incomingpain 5y ago
>Former intelligence people churn out all sorts of goofy takes in an attempt to build their brand. They’re also all over the spectrum depending on what audience they’re chasing. You're right but is this one a goofy take? Or is there a real something here?
- spamizbad 5y ago
  I don't think so, but to indulge my own cranky theories: Perhaps Elon Musk's takeover attempt was done at the behest of the US government to take control of the platform under the cover of "censorship". Musk himself indicated he wanted to make the platform more miserable for the "extremes" on both the left and right (both perceived as being anti-government) - leaving you with the establishment consensus unharmed in the middle.
  - incomingpain 5y ago
    That's a cool idea. Largely speaking you can see Elon's point of view. He was on Babylon Bee's show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvGnw1sHh9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvGnw1sHh9M 2.4 million views in last 3 months. In this video they in detail discuss the problem with political banning. 2 months later, Babylon Bee got banned off twitter for a joke. Clear political banning and violation of section 230.
    - everforward 5y ago
      > Clear political banning and violation of section 230. This has been posted a bunch of times, and it's wrong. Section 230 doesn't prohibit political bannings. It doesn't actually prohibit any banning at all. This is the relevant section (from https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230). > (2) Civil liability > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of— > (A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or > availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, > lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise > objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; Even banning for constitutionally protected speech is explicitly allowed. Whether that's a good thing or not is a separate conversation, but nothing presently in section 230 would prevent Twitter/Facebook/etc from banning an entire political party.

tomrod 5y ago

From your comment, you went unnecessarily political regarding the January 6, 2021 insurrection. In my view, this is why people downvoted your comment. The common narrative is that it was insurrection. It was certainly a dangerous mob driven by Trump and cronies intending to interfere with the US election proceedings without justifiable cause beyond pseudo-creedal feelings that somewhere, somehow, the election was stolen.

incomingpain 5y ago
>From your comment, you went unnecessarily political regarding the January 6, 2021 insurrection. In my view, this is why people downvoted your comment. The common narrative is that it was insurrection That hasn't been true for months. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_United_States_Capitol_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_United_States_Capitol_att... Wiki used to call it insurrection but it's not that. I understand the criticism that perhaps it's because it's political, but that's the because the whole subject is political. >It was certainly a dangerous mob driven by Trump and cronies intending to interfere with the US election proceedings without justifiable cause beyond pseudo-creedal feelings that somewhere, somehow, the election was stolen. Dangerous seems an over reach. Contemporary comparison you have mostly peaceful riots and actual insurrections like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Occupied_Protest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Occupied_Protest It's really important to see what's happening here. It's ultra important to be able to talk about these things. Republicans need to address the police brutality and objectively proven racism. Democrats need to address some things as well. These conversations have to happen and they are going to hurt.
- notacoward 5y ago
  > Wiki used to call it insurrection but it's not that. They don't call it insurrection only because "seditious conspiracy" is the more legally accurate term, and the charge on which convictions have already been obtained. But ask a layperson to describe the difference and you'll get nothing. Even the US house and senate voted on impeachment for "incitement of insurrection" despite the legal distinction. Saying that it's "not insurrection[legal]" might be true, but HN is not a court and saying "not insurrection[common]" here is false.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

I don't think people think it's impossible but you need a source. The article in the headline does not prove this. Of course US security/war hawks want control over twitter but that doesn't make it true.