21 ms·

They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care

311 points by waqasx 4y ago

gumby 4y ago
Site seems unresponsive but was archived: https://archive.ph/KSAjk https://archive.ph/KSAjk
fennecfoxy 4y ago
Sounds like this dude expects Twitter to be the World Police? I wouldn't expect Twitter as a company to help me if my right to be a gay man in the UK were being infringed; I'd expect the UK government to help me - and beyond that, in the case of a corrupt government, I'd expect other countries to apply pressure internationally to try to resolve the situation. But no, I would not expect Twitter to be responsible in the same way I wouldn't blame a brand of honey for my murder if that's what my murderer had had for breakfast. There are two parties in this: this dude and the Pakistani Gov, Twitter is just a communications channel - it could just as easy be WhatsApp or TikTok or Facebook or HN.
lenkite 4y ago
This coup is supported by the current administration of the US of A - you can ask your friendly, neighbourhood retired intelligence officers for their analysis. Imran Khan was causing issues and he was ousted with US support. There is nothing you can do against the American state when it decides on "regime change".
0xedd 4y ago
Extremely sad to hear. I don't think Twitter can be used to promote change. Or get your voice to the masses. They only care about propagating their own propaganda. Leave Twitter. Try one of the mastodon instances, instead. Be anonymous.
- Overtonwindow 4y ago
  Twitter is such a cacophony, like trying to have a conversation in the middle of a rock concert. I get better quality information and news from Hacker News.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- Canada 4y ago
  Wouldn't trying to remain anonymous as a journalist be rather ineffective?
  - waqasx 4y ago
    yes, i would lose my audience too that i have built over ten years.
    - ebcode 4y ago
      As a US Citizen who has had their twitter posts censored, I consider myself to be a critic of the US Government who has been effectively silenced. At a certain point you have to decide whether you are willing to die for your cause, or live with your shame. > I feel Twitter should have protected me, instead of protecting the henchmen of a facist regime bent upon silencing critics. The West no longer deserves its reputation for fighting fascists. Quite the opposite, in fact.
    - CHB0403085482 4y ago
      Sympathies to you, man.
- CharlesW 4y ago
  > I don't think Twitter can be used to promote change. Or get your voice to the masses. To me, both the effects of and responses to Mr. Ahmed's tweets seem to show that Twitter can be used to promote change and get your voice to the masses. It just doesn't distinguish between "good" change/voices and "bad" change/voices.
thatguy0900 4y ago
He complains that Twitter doesn't know local Pakistani politics, but what would be the answer in this case? Set up national moderation offices? In this very case, they would just say yeah he's a spy... Unless you want random unaccountable expats making judgment calls about your government
- computerfriend 4y ago
  Moderation is already localised by language. It's not such a stretch to extend this to some basic regional knowledge.
  - PeterisP 4y ago
    What the parent post seems to be saying is that it's quite plausible that localised moderation might follow the 'new regime' and instead of the current ignorance, they would strongly side against the OP - there's no reason to presume that 'some basic regional knowledge' would lead moderators to support the OPs political position instead of the position according to which he should be silenced and arrested - it might swing the one way, it might swing the other.
    - computerfriend 4y ago
      OP claims that synthetic commentators are making claims about them that are demonstrably untrue. This can be (and in other locales is) moderated in a politically neutral way.
      - PeterisP 4y ago
        I'm fairly sure that in other locales it is moderated in a politically neutral way that does not even attempt to evaluate whether the claims are untrue - the moderators verify if the claims are directly threatening or crude insults, but otherwise moderators don't attempt to determine what is true or not and correct people who say something untrue either intentionally or accidentally.
- 4y ago
cmeacham98 4y ago
I'm not saying Twitter is in the right here, but I'm not convinced by the article that Twitter is meaningfully increasing the danger to the OP. Is a corrupt government really going to avoid kidnapping/torturing someone because they're popular on Twitter?
- Manfred 4y ago
  I believe their point is that Twitter should delete or flag the accounts that are spreading false information about him (the journalist).
- waqasx 4y ago
  it becomes far easier for the government to kidnap someone after these allegations are circulated. we have seen this countless times, to pave the path of illegal kidnappings detention and torture, they spread this negative propaganda and fake news first.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > Is a corrupt government really going to avoid kidnapping/torturing someone because they're popular on Twitter? Is your assumption that corrupt governments must be omnipotent, and don't have to make excuses for their behavior in order to maintain support, or at least to prevent riots?
bell-cot 4y ago
Sad to say, but people often [want|need|expect] a corporation to act as a [competent|reliable|trustworthy] [government|law-enforcement agency|court]. Corporations are very clearly none of those things, and generally have lots of disincentive against attempting to fake being any of those things.
- Manfred 4y ago
  So a liquor store should not be responsible for age restrictions and sell alcohol to minors? I think there is always a sliding point between where the government or companies police the rules. It's an interesting conversation where that point should be.
  - dcow 4y ago
    Abiding by laws is different from creating and/or enforcing them. You can bet a snowballs chance in hell liquor stores wouldn’t sell to 16+ year olds in the US if the law changed to allow it.
  - lstodd 4y ago
    Of course they absolutely should be. It's how I learned to build rectification columns from cookware after all. Education is a responsibility of the entire society after all. It's just the stated goal - minimising alcohol consumption - is phony and misleading.
- politelemon 4y ago
  They have plenty of incentive to fake being those things, and regularly do so, unless there are repercussions for doing that thing.
  - bell-cot 4y ago
    True, but that's nothing special. If my next door neighbor is a jerk, he may try to pretend that the legal property boundary is 3' into my yard from where it really is, and that his say-so is what determines that boundary. The types of "faking it" that very quickly separate the real governments from the corporations & pretenders are "make the laws", "collect the taxes", "run the courts", and "back it with force". If the FBI slaps handcuffs on a Twitter CxO and hauls him off to jail, do not expect Twitter to send in their Marine Corps.
dcow 4y ago
This really sucks to hear. What’s unclear to me is whether Twitter is being negligent or abnormal here or whether this is just shitty world politics unfolding partly on Twitter. Twitter is being used by both sides to fight over a narrative. Nothing new in that respect. The author doesn't really propose a solution other than Twitter essentially siding with him and take (what appears to me to be) a political stance. Of course moderating political topics isn’t outside Twitter’s wheelhouse, but this is what you get as a society when you let arbitrary entities arbitrate speech: ambiguity and unclear expectations. On the one hand, it’s reasonable for the author to expect that Twitter removes clear misinformation from their platform since that’s what they purportedly claim to do. On the other hand doing so would go against a national narrative and piss off lots of Pakistanis. Uh oh. Maybe Twitter was never about being arbiters of facts and instead just pandering to the popular political narrative of the time? Or maybe they are objective and they’re just trying their best and we’re all human and we’ll do better next time? Regardless, this is the reason people get so frustrated with censorship: it cannot be applied objectively and fairly in every case. Twitter and social commentary aside: sounds like the author needs political asylum or at least real protection. Twitter is not the right entity to depend on to handle this situation, I fear.
- waqasx 4y ago
  I dont want political asylum because of many reasons, i have my parents and my family back home. I am not asking Twitter to side with me, you have read my post, you can clearly see that misinfo is being spread about me. These are verifiable lies. They are verifiably dangerous after basic scrutiny, i am asking Twitter to do their job that they already claim that they do. That is provide a space that is safer from harassment and targeted attacks like this one.
  - dcow 4y ago
    I’ll admit it’s not clear to me as an outsider to this conflict whether there is clear misinformation or whether this is a matter of political perspective (not because I’m sympathetic to what’s happened in Pakistan, rather because of they style in which you communicated in the post). It is only through discussing this here that I think the tractable request to just remove misinformation is becoming clear. The whole thing about comedy accounts is distracting since parody is allowed, as you know. So I was left confused wether there is factual misinformation, or just a gravely damaging narrative being painted. If I may, it might help for you to clearly lead with the factually incorrect things being said about you and then dive into supporting evidence to back the misinformation claim. Still, part of my comment was a serious reminder that Twitter is not a a real authority even if they pretend to be one in fair-weather and if your life is credibly in danger you should seek people and organizations who can actually help you protect it. I truly hope this site can help you find the needed connections.
selimthegrim 4y ago
Surprised they didn't call him a Qadiani or Gustakh-e-rasul, that might have been actionable.
twirlock 4y ago
ricardobeat 4y ago
I can see where he’s coming from, but Twitter is a media company. They are not directly responsible for anyone’s safety and have no reason to take down content that isn’t a direct threat or clear defamation. That’s the police or justice system’s job. An unfortunate situation but he is barking at the wrong tree it seems.
- waqasx 4y ago
  there is clear defamation. they are claiming that i work for intel agencies of foreign countries, which is not true.
  - ricardobeat 4y ago
    I sympathize with your situation but it doesn’t look that simple. How could Twitter verify that claim? Who should they trust? If someone was indeed hired by another foreign agency, they might as well deny it for that persons own safety. The same information war could be playing out on WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook or other networks, TV, radio, newspapers.
  - encryptluks2 4y ago
    Defamation is a civil matter and harassment is civil or criminal depending where you live. You'd have better luck going through the police or courts. People deal with similar harassment or misinformation campaigns all the time. It isn't Twitter's job to step in unless you can point to some clear violation of their ToS.
    - hackerlight 4y ago
      So Twitter provides a platform that actively facilitates defamation, then the individual and justice system has to spend lots of time and money addressing it, then Twitter gets to pocket all the ad revenue from the entire horrible ordeal? That is not fair or just, even if it is legal. And what about people in countries that don't have a functioning justice system. Twitter assists the defamer in screwing over the individual, making money in the process, and there is actually no path to justice? It's a worldview that's only possible to hold from a position of privilege.
ubukhary 4y ago
its interesting to see supporter of the previous govt who silenced most of the journalists and activists from twitter with heavy handed law enforcement tactics, now claiming to be a freedom of speech proponent For those who do not know, PTI owned and operated largest bots and trolls network who habitually abused people who ever would disagree with them. Consider them TRUMP supporters like mentality people in Pakistan
- oa335 4y ago
  I don't think thats a fair characterization of PTI supporters. PML-N and PPP have literally created cults of personality around their families, in many ways their followers can be described as cult-like also.
  - ubukhary 4y ago
    question is who misused the twitter the most, its not who is the cult or not.
- booboofixer 4y ago
  That's the first thought that occurred to me as well, especially after reading the line "...some of the top journalists and activists...". Well, they've been under more sophisticated harrassment and abuse for close to 4 years now, but all this time... Crickets. It is clearly wrong that people should be subjected to any abuse/torture/coordinated campaigns regardless of party associations. But forgive me for not being completely empathetic when anyone claims to have become a victim of these campaigns starting around the time of "the coup a few months ago".
MichaelCollins 4y ago
Being realistic: if your life hangs by the thread of twitter moderation, you should either run and hide, or get your affairs in order. If they really want you dead, even the best possible twitter moderation won't keep you safe. This whole circumstance of people wanting you dead is not twitters fault and there is very little twitter could do to protect you even if their moderation was perfect.
- DoreenMichele 4y ago
  He's not asking Twitter to protect him from murder. He's asking them to do their damn job so the platform cannot be used to facilitate a smear campaign that makes it easy to get away with murder. It's a very reasonable request.
  - xwdv 4y ago
    No, this is not Twitter’s problem, and if they fulfill this request it just goes down a rabbit hole that eventually creates more liability for the company than what they want to take on. Twitter has taken the correct action here.
    - jona-f 4y ago
      Wow, you're morally bankrupt. It's nice to see a well written article like that on the frontpage of this site, but unfortunately the venture capital fueled business model proposed by ycombinator is at the heart of the problem. Liability my ass. This is some disgusting dystopian bullshit. Also if you talk about liability, heard about the Streisand effect? Public opinion about these corporations is low and i think twitter itself isn't doing so well lately. Good riddance.
      - sroussey 4y ago
        There is a long history of liability in the USA when you take on editorializing roles. This was broken by the Communication Decency Act (CDA section 230) but case law has is slowly moving back. It is a valid concern. If CDA 230 were taken away, I wouldn’t be surprised if common carrier laws fell as well. The telephone companies can listen to all phone calls, so they may need to editorialize (mute, disconnect, report to police) on various illegal calls.
DoreenMichele 4y ago
I am sorry for the responses I am seeing on HN. People with cushy lives who've likely never faced similar danger seem to just not really get it. I will say that your framing is one that most Westerners will have trouble taking seriously. It might go over better to document known cases where this pattern occurred and show the similarities. Walk people through it like they are five, so to speak. I know it's hard to do that kind of objective writing when you are feeling so threatened due to genuine threats, but in my experience that approach works better. I know you didn't ask for advice. I apologize for my bad habit of trying to be helpful in the only way I know how. I hope something improves soon.
- deltree7 4y ago
  People with cushy lives, working for some mid-level corp writing CRUD apps used by 20 people, also have never faced the challenges of moderation at million people scale. So, it kind of cuts both ways
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    Yet somehow they still have the bandwidth to go after people for misgendering or for saying that they're happy that someone died.
  - remram 4y ago
    I would understand if the rhetoric was centered around "it's very hard for Twitter to do that" but the detraction in the comments reads more "Twitter shouldn't do that".
    - dcow 4y ago
      For me it’s more of a: “this is what happens when you are ideologically inconsistent”. I don't feel like people are saying “Twitter shouldn’t”. I think the correct interpretation is “Twitter can’t”. I thoroughly despise Twitter because they bless some issues and not others. Even though I support the end game of what they are trying to do (e.g. in the case of LGBTQ agenda topics), I vehemently disagree with the idea that the means to the end should involve policed speech and controlled narratives. Because that’s what fascists do. So my problem is actually with Twitter. I pity the author. But I blame Twitter for creating the perception that they support the western rights of all individuals across the globe. Because they don’t, and can’t.
unixbane 4y ago
Yes yes, we're all gonna die because people are allowed to post on the internet. Decentralized messaging platforms should be illegal because they can't be moderated. You should only be able to host an internet service with a license and yearly federal inspections to make sure you're properly storing and backing up accountability logs of all users. > blah blah blah there are insane people in my country who will kill people based on tweets This is a problem of people and not Twitter. Those are in the west too and growing especially in America. The problem is dumbed down people who believe stuff on the internet. And idiots who react to things, like a white/black shooting a black/white. There is a solution to this: going to jail for murder. Even boomers in the 90s knew not to believe anything online. Twitter has about a million problems with it and lack of moderation certainly is not one of them. You cannot reasonably ask Twitter to moderate for your locale's social and violent reactionary issues. That implies they need to hire a huge amount of people for every locale in every country and just gives Twitter more monopoly as another company would have to invest a billion dollars to do that before they can even get off the ground. You have just created this idea that storing 100 bytes of text on a server is now a thing that requires billions of dollars of up front investment to do. This is another issue: People are fucking stupid and expect companies to have some "responsibility" now (despite the fact that product quality is at an all time low and they somehow have no issue with that). This is also just conceding that companies are some kind of god (they really aren't. Twitter is a dog shit website that can't go more than one second without showing the text "undefined" in an important field on the page). Ironically, the people who demand so called justice by moderating more and more shit online (Unreal Engine now has voice analytics to report you to the police or whatever the fuck built right in), are just as bad as the people who foster misinformation against people. We are heading into an era of micro justice which just means the amount of malpolicing will grow in proportion. The end result of constantly trying to solve micro injustices is AI making sure humans don't do anything "bad" and you will literally be unable to involuntarily move your arm a certain way without being punished. There is not even a philosophically correct definition of justice in law. It's literally a bunch of dudes amending a global ruleset to solve the latest problem, based on wildly varying rationales from people each with entirely different value systems. It's actually hilarious how short sighted and oblivious statements like "it should be illegal to post misinformation online" are. You aren't a mature responsible adult or whatever you think you are. You are just reacting to something in the most straight forward way with no thought about the consequences. It's doubly hilarious for insinuating that posting things online is a big issue that we should focus law on. It's actually pretty fucking obnoxious actually, I'm sick of every thing I do online for the last 20 years being policed by hall monitors tunnel visioned on whatever social injustice issue of the day.
root_axis 4y ago
> Twitter, despite millions of Pakistani users, it seems has no moderation system that understands local dynamics. Many would argue they don't even understand the local dynamics of the U.S. It's impossible for twitter to be an arbiter of the truth around the world, and you shouldn't expect them to be. However, I understand that's cold comfort for someone facing the threat of torture, death, or exile from their home, and I think your decision to call out twitter using your own platform to act with respect to your specific circumstances is the right thing to do and really the only way to handle this kind of thing. Good luck, I hope you stay safe and that the government doesn't succeed in silencing you.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > It's impossible for twitter to be an arbiter of the truth around the world Twitter only seems interested in this job in the countries and on the side of the factions who are politically helpful to Twitter. Twitter wouldn't care about Pakistan unless the State Department told them to care about Pakistan, and they could just as easily enter the fray by labeling the OPs tweets as deceptive and connected to foreign misinformation as they could enter it on the side of preventing his harassment.
  - root_axis 4y ago
    > Twitter only seems interested in this job in the countries and on the side of the factions who are politically helpful to Twitter So what? This is true of every media gatekeeper and always will be. Again, it's impossible for twitter to keep up with every change in the wind across the entire planet; they can't even do a satisfactory job of it in their own country. > they could just as easily enter the fray by labeling the OPs tweets as deceptive and connected to foreign misinformation as they could enter it on the side of preventing his harassment. If this story continues to get exposure this will probably happen, meanwhile there are thousands of other stories of threats and abuse that will go unabated and unheard because it's happening to someone that wasn't lucky enough to go viral. Twitter can only do so much, especially while opposing factions fight them every time they do anything.
powera 4y ago
Poke the bear, and the bear might poke back. Interesting that this person's conception of free speech allows him to call a parliamentary no-confidence vote a "coup", but doesn't allow government-aligned forces to say he is inciting violence.
driverdan 4y ago
Something happened this year with Twitter's internal moderation policies. They seemed to have completely stopped enforcing the rules. I've reported many open bigots calling for violence against the group(s) and/or people they hate. Twitter used to ban people for promoting violence. They don't anymore. Not a single one of the posts or accounts I've reported in the past few months has been banned unless they reached a threshold of other reports that triggers an automatic ban. Moderators either aren't doing their job or don't exist anymore.
ondamonda 4y ago
bckr 4y ago
Interesting that he believes the regime change is a coup. Khan, the now-ousted former prime minister, appears to be a Trump-style strong man who is whipping up his supporters with claims that the vote of no confidence which removed him is actually a U.S.-led conspiratorial regime change. Might be right, and it's absolutely awful if these folks are being unjustly detained and tortured. Yet, I think it's more complicated than the author would lead us to believe. It's also fascinating how this kind of unrest is unfolding all around the world.
edmcnulty101 4y ago
This is why Elon backed out of the twitter deal due to fake accounts.
- iso1631 4y ago
  He backed out because he overpaid for a company at the height of the boom just as we head into a recession that could well be deeper than 2008
truthwhisperer 4y ago
brightball 4y ago
I have no idea how to help you in this situation, but you may want to reach out to Citizen Lab in Toronto. My understanding is that protecting people like you is their mission.
jongjong 4y ago
In the new (increasingly lawless) world order, not having any enemies is going to be a big advantage. It's a good time to make amends and disassociate from extremist or nationalist groups.
- tsol 4y ago
  You'd better also drop race, ideologies, and beliefs as well. People will always find something to make you their enemy
tsimionescu 4y ago
I think this is one case that goes to the heart of what we expect Twitter to be. If they are supposed to be a public square, a company that is simply meant to offer a technical means of broadcasting your opinions, then we can't also expect them to fight government propaganda, any more than we would expect that of, say, Google Search. On the other hand, if we want Twitter to be a kind of new media company, than we should indeed hold them to journalistic standards and expect them to cut through government lies wherever they decide to have a presence.
gweinberg 4y ago
Twitter is in a bit of a pickle here. One could argue that accusing someone of being an agent of a hostile foreign power is basically libel and should be banned. But it's hard to say how they could have a rule against baselessly accusing a Pakistani of being an agent of Israel or India while maintaining the rule that it is fine to baselessly accuse an american of being an agent of Russia.
pessimizer 4y ago
It's politically impossible for Twitter to start censoring people who are declaring without evidence that other people are on the payroll of a foreign government or organization and guilty of the capital crimes of espionage and treason. It's far more likely that they'll start labeling tweets with "This tweet was posted by a probable agent of a foreign government for the purpose of sowing discord."
chopete3j 4y ago
pkrotich 4y ago
Should twitter censor such tweets? I don’t think so unless it violates their terms - but if the target disputes it then they should label it as disputed - with link to dispute report if it passes basic checks. That said I know this can be abused just like dmca take down notices. It’s truly arduous to balance and context matters which in turn requires godly number of man hours.
ReptileMan 4y ago
Pakistan in a nutshell - the country is ruled by the military, the military is ruled by the ISI. If they have you in their crosshair - run. They will get you.
- selimthegrim 4y ago
  The military is not ruled by the ISI.
jacooper 4y ago
> against israel = antisemitism Being anti-israel against an illegal Apartheid occupation has nothing to do with being antisemitic.
LiberationUnion 4y ago
joemazerino 4y ago
Twitter didn't have a problem banning Trump. Not so easy to pick sides when you're in another country's politics.
wseqyrku 4y ago
Looks like HN doesn't either, sorry.
mikegxyz2 4y ago
I am selling this story to Boulder Weekly. I used to work with @dotMudge.
npc54321 4y ago
Web3 fixes this but people think it's all about monkey pictures and scams.
StanislavPetrov 4y ago
If OP simple claim that these people had misgendered him instead of threatening his life they would be forever banned from Twitter.
up2isomorphism 4y ago
Twitter can not care about that. It is just a platform.
richardfey 4y ago
Suppose we have access to Twitter's metrics and we can see the profit made via Pakistani accounts and the associated cost (moderation is a cost). I suspect that the balance is negative for most countries and that is why we cannot expect better moderation.
dzhiurgis 4y ago
Does anyone know how companies like Twitter do moderation in countries like Pakistan. Hiring locals could be dangerous when coup happens. Hiring Pakistani expats (there’s plenty) tricky too as their families are still in danger (I assume their military is sophisticated enough to track whose relative works where). What is the ration of moderators to active user count. Do they specifically hire oppressed groups (i.e. Kurds in Turkey, Tibetans and Uighurs in China, etc) to shed a different opinion?
Omavel 4y ago

311 points by waqasx 4y ago

Site seems unresponsive but was archived: https://archive.ph/KSAjk https://archive.ph/KSAjk

Sounds like this dude expects Twitter to be the World Police? I wouldn't expect Twitter as a company to help me if my right to be a gay man in the UK were being infringed; I'd expect the UK government to help me - and beyond that, in the case of a corrupt government, I'd expect other countries to apply pressure internationally to try to resolve the situation. But no, I would not expect Twitter to be responsible in the same way I wouldn't blame a brand of honey for my murder if that's what my murderer had had for breakfast. There are two parties in this: this dude and the Pakistani Gov, Twitter is just a communications channel - it could just as easy be WhatsApp or TikTok or Facebook or HN.

lenkite 4y ago

This coup is supported by the current administration of the US of A - you can ask your friendly, neighbourhood retired intelligence officers for their analysis. Imran Khan was causing issues and he was ousted with US support. There is nothing you can do against the American state when it decides on "regime change".

0xedd 4y ago

Extremely sad to hear. I don't think Twitter can be used to promote change. Or get your voice to the masses. They only care about propagating their own propaganda. Leave Twitter. Try one of the mastodon instances, instead. Be anonymous.

Overtonwindow 4y ago
Twitter is such a cacophony, like trying to have a conversation in the middle of a rock concert. I get better quality information and news from Hacker News.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Canada 4y ago
Wouldn't trying to remain anonymous as a journalist be rather ineffective?
- waqasx 4y ago
  yes, i would lose my audience too that i have built over ten years.
  - ebcode 4y ago
    As a US Citizen who has had their twitter posts censored, I consider myself to be a critic of the US Government who has been effectively silenced. At a certain point you have to decide whether you are willing to die for your cause, or live with your shame. > I feel Twitter should have protected me, instead of protecting the henchmen of a facist regime bent upon silencing critics. The West no longer deserves its reputation for fighting fascists. Quite the opposite, in fact.
  - CHB0403085482 4y ago
    Sympathies to you, man.
CharlesW 4y ago
> I don't think Twitter can be used to promote change. Or get your voice to the masses. To me, both the effects of and responses to Mr. Ahmed's tweets seem to show that Twitter can be used to promote change and get your voice to the masses. It just doesn't distinguish between "good" change/voices and "bad" change/voices.

thatguy0900 4y ago

He complains that Twitter doesn't know local Pakistani politics, but what would be the answer in this case? Set up national moderation offices? In this very case, they would just say yeah he's a spy... Unless you want random unaccountable expats making judgment calls about your government

computerfriend 4y ago
Moderation is already localised by language. It's not such a stretch to extend this to some basic regional knowledge.
- PeterisP 4y ago
  What the parent post seems to be saying is that it's quite plausible that localised moderation might follow the 'new regime' and instead of the current ignorance, they would strongly side against the OP - there's no reason to presume that 'some basic regional knowledge' would lead moderators to support the OPs political position instead of the position according to which he should be silenced and arrested - it might swing the one way, it might swing the other.
  - computerfriend 4y ago
    OP claims that synthetic commentators are making claims about them that are demonstrably untrue. This can be (and in other locales is) moderated in a politically neutral way.
    - PeterisP 4y ago
      I'm fairly sure that in other locales it is moderated in a politically neutral way that does not even attempt to evaluate whether the claims are untrue - the moderators verify if the claims are directly threatening or crude insults, but otherwise moderators don't attempt to determine what is true or not and correct people who say something untrue either intentionally or accidentally.
4y ago

cmeacham98 4y ago

I'm not saying Twitter is in the right here, but I'm not convinced by the article that Twitter is meaningfully increasing the danger to the OP. Is a corrupt government really going to avoid kidnapping/torturing someone because they're popular on Twitter?

Manfred 4y ago
I believe their point is that Twitter should delete or flag the accounts that are spreading false information about him (the journalist).
waqasx 4y ago
it becomes far easier for the government to kidnap someone after these allegations are circulated. we have seen this countless times, to pave the path of illegal kidnappings detention and torture, they spread this negative propaganda and fake news first.
pessimizer 4y ago
> Is a corrupt government really going to avoid kidnapping/torturing someone because they're popular on Twitter? Is your assumption that corrupt governments must be omnipotent, and don't have to make excuses for their behavior in order to maintain support, or at least to prevent riots?

bell-cot 4y ago

Sad to say, but people often [want|need|expect] a corporation to act as a [competent|reliable|trustworthy] [government|law-enforcement agency|court]. Corporations are very clearly none of those things, and generally have lots of disincentive against attempting to fake being any of those things.

Manfred 4y ago
So a liquor store should not be responsible for age restrictions and sell alcohol to minors? I think there is always a sliding point between where the government or companies police the rules. It's an interesting conversation where that point should be.
- dcow 4y ago
  Abiding by laws is different from creating and/or enforcing them. You can bet a snowballs chance in hell liquor stores wouldn’t sell to 16+ year olds in the US if the law changed to allow it.
- lstodd 4y ago
  Of course they absolutely should be. It's how I learned to build rectification columns from cookware after all. Education is a responsibility of the entire society after all. It's just the stated goal - minimising alcohol consumption - is phony and misleading.
politelemon 4y ago
They have plenty of incentive to fake being those things, and regularly do so, unless there are repercussions for doing that thing.
- bell-cot 4y ago
  True, but that's nothing special. If my next door neighbor is a jerk, he may try to pretend that the legal property boundary is 3' into my yard from where it really is, and that his say-so is what determines that boundary. The types of "faking it" that very quickly separate the real governments from the corporations & pretenders are "make the laws", "collect the taxes", "run the courts", and "back it with force". If the FBI slaps handcuffs on a Twitter CxO and hauls him off to jail, do not expect Twitter to send in their Marine Corps.

dcow 4y ago

This really sucks to hear. What’s unclear to me is whether Twitter is being negligent or abnormal here or whether this is just shitty world politics unfolding partly on Twitter. Twitter is being used by both sides to fight over a narrative. Nothing new in that respect. The author doesn't really propose a solution other than Twitter essentially siding with him and take (what appears to me to be) a political stance. Of course moderating political topics isn’t outside Twitter’s wheelhouse, but this is what you get as a society when you let arbitrary entities arbitrate speech: ambiguity and unclear expectations. On the one hand, it’s reasonable for the author to expect that Twitter removes clear misinformation from their platform since that’s what they purportedly claim to do. On the other hand doing so would go against a national narrative and piss off lots of Pakistanis. Uh oh. Maybe Twitter was never about being arbiters of facts and instead just pandering to the popular political narrative of the time? Or maybe they are objective and they’re just trying their best and we’re all human and we’ll do better next time? Regardless, this is the reason people get so frustrated with censorship: it cannot be applied objectively and fairly in every case. Twitter and social commentary aside: sounds like the author needs political asylum or at least real protection. Twitter is not the right entity to depend on to handle this situation, I fear.

waqasx 4y ago
I dont want political asylum because of many reasons, i have my parents and my family back home. I am not asking Twitter to side with me, you have read my post, you can clearly see that misinfo is being spread about me. These are verifiable lies. They are verifiably dangerous after basic scrutiny, i am asking Twitter to do their job that they already claim that they do. That is provide a space that is safer from harassment and targeted attacks like this one.
- dcow 4y ago
  I’ll admit it’s not clear to me as an outsider to this conflict whether there is clear misinformation or whether this is a matter of political perspective (not because I’m sympathetic to what’s happened in Pakistan, rather because of they style in which you communicated in the post). It is only through discussing this here that I think the tractable request to just remove misinformation is becoming clear. The whole thing about comedy accounts is distracting since parody is allowed, as you know. So I was left confused wether there is factual misinformation, or just a gravely damaging narrative being painted. If I may, it might help for you to clearly lead with the factually incorrect things being said about you and then dive into supporting evidence to back the misinformation claim. Still, part of my comment was a serious reminder that Twitter is not a a real authority even if they pretend to be one in fair-weather and if your life is credibly in danger you should seek people and organizations who can actually help you protect it. I truly hope this site can help you find the needed connections.

selimthegrim 4y ago

Surprised they didn't call him a Qadiani or Gustakh-e-rasul, that might have been actionable.

twirlock 4y ago

ricardobeat 4y ago

I can see where he’s coming from, but Twitter is a media company. They are not directly responsible for anyone’s safety and have no reason to take down content that isn’t a direct threat or clear defamation. That’s the police or justice system’s job. An unfortunate situation but he is barking at the wrong tree it seems.

waqasx 4y ago
there is clear defamation. they are claiming that i work for intel agencies of foreign countries, which is not true.
- ricardobeat 4y ago
  I sympathize with your situation but it doesn’t look that simple. How could Twitter verify that claim? Who should they trust? If someone was indeed hired by another foreign agency, they might as well deny it for that persons own safety. The same information war could be playing out on WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook or other networks, TV, radio, newspapers.
- encryptluks2 4y ago
  Defamation is a civil matter and harassment is civil or criminal depending where you live. You'd have better luck going through the police or courts. People deal with similar harassment or misinformation campaigns all the time. It isn't Twitter's job to step in unless you can point to some clear violation of their ToS.
  - hackerlight 4y ago
    So Twitter provides a platform that actively facilitates defamation, then the individual and justice system has to spend lots of time and money addressing it, then Twitter gets to pocket all the ad revenue from the entire horrible ordeal? That is not fair or just, even if it is legal. And what about people in countries that don't have a functioning justice system. Twitter assists the defamer in screwing over the individual, making money in the process, and there is actually no path to justice? It's a worldview that's only possible to hold from a position of privilege.

ubukhary 4y ago

its interesting to see supporter of the previous govt who silenced most of the journalists and activists from twitter with heavy handed law enforcement tactics, now claiming to be a freedom of speech proponent For those who do not know, PTI owned and operated largest bots and trolls network who habitually abused people who ever would disagree with them. Consider them TRUMP supporters like mentality people in Pakistan

oa335 4y ago
I don't think thats a fair characterization of PTI supporters. PML-N and PPP have literally created cults of personality around their families, in many ways their followers can be described as cult-like also.
- ubukhary 4y ago
  question is who misused the twitter the most, its not who is the cult or not.
booboofixer 4y ago
That's the first thought that occurred to me as well, especially after reading the line "...some of the top journalists and activists...". Well, they've been under more sophisticated harrassment and abuse for close to 4 years now, but all this time... Crickets. It is clearly wrong that people should be subjected to any abuse/torture/coordinated campaigns regardless of party associations. But forgive me for not being completely empathetic when anyone claims to have become a victim of these campaigns starting around the time of "the coup a few months ago".

MichaelCollins 4y ago

Being realistic: if your life hangs by the thread of twitter moderation, you should either run and hide, or get your affairs in order. If they really want you dead, even the best possible twitter moderation won't keep you safe. This whole circumstance of people wanting you dead is not twitters fault and there is very little twitter could do to protect you even if their moderation was perfect.

DoreenMichele 4y ago
He's not asking Twitter to protect him from murder. He's asking them to do their damn job so the platform cannot be used to facilitate a smear campaign that makes it easy to get away with murder. It's a very reasonable request.
- xwdv 4y ago
  No, this is not Twitter’s problem, and if they fulfill this request it just goes down a rabbit hole that eventually creates more liability for the company than what they want to take on. Twitter has taken the correct action here.
  - jona-f 4y ago
    Wow, you're morally bankrupt. It's nice to see a well written article like that on the frontpage of this site, but unfortunately the venture capital fueled business model proposed by ycombinator is at the heart of the problem. Liability my ass. This is some disgusting dystopian bullshit. Also if you talk about liability, heard about the Streisand effect? Public opinion about these corporations is low and i think twitter itself isn't doing so well lately. Good riddance.
    - sroussey 4y ago
      There is a long history of liability in the USA when you take on editorializing roles. This was broken by the Communication Decency Act (CDA section 230) but case law has is slowly moving back. It is a valid concern. If CDA 230 were taken away, I wouldn’t be surprised if common carrier laws fell as well. The telephone companies can listen to all phone calls, so they may need to editorialize (mute, disconnect, report to police) on various illegal calls.

DoreenMichele 4y ago

I am sorry for the responses I am seeing on HN. People with cushy lives who've likely never faced similar danger seem to just not really get it. I will say that your framing is one that most Westerners will have trouble taking seriously. It might go over better to document known cases where this pattern occurred and show the similarities. Walk people through it like they are five, so to speak. I know it's hard to do that kind of objective writing when you are feeling so threatened due to genuine threats, but in my experience that approach works better. I know you didn't ask for advice. I apologize for my bad habit of trying to be helpful in the only way I know how. I hope something improves soon.

deltree7 4y ago
People with cushy lives, working for some mid-level corp writing CRUD apps used by 20 people, also have never faced the challenges of moderation at million people scale. So, it kind of cuts both ways
- pessimizer 4y ago
  Yet somehow they still have the bandwidth to go after people for misgendering or for saying that they're happy that someone died.
- remram 4y ago
  I would understand if the rhetoric was centered around "it's very hard for Twitter to do that" but the detraction in the comments reads more "Twitter shouldn't do that".
  - dcow 4y ago
    For me it’s more of a: “this is what happens when you are ideologically inconsistent”. I don't feel like people are saying “Twitter shouldn’t”. I think the correct interpretation is “Twitter can’t”. I thoroughly despise Twitter because they bless some issues and not others. Even though I support the end game of what they are trying to do (e.g. in the case of LGBTQ agenda topics), I vehemently disagree with the idea that the means to the end should involve policed speech and controlled narratives. Because that’s what fascists do. So my problem is actually with Twitter. I pity the author. But I blame Twitter for creating the perception that they support the western rights of all individuals across the globe. Because they don’t, and can’t.

unixbane 4y ago

Yes yes, we're all gonna die because people are allowed to post on the internet. Decentralized messaging platforms should be illegal because they can't be moderated. You should only be able to host an internet service with a license and yearly federal inspections to make sure you're properly storing and backing up accountability logs of all users. > blah blah blah there are insane people in my country who will kill people based on tweets This is a problem of people and not Twitter. Those are in the west too and growing especially in America. The problem is dumbed down people who believe stuff on the internet. And idiots who react to things, like a white/black shooting a black/white. There is a solution to this: going to jail for murder. Even boomers in the 90s knew not to believe anything online. Twitter has about a million problems with it and lack of moderation certainly is not one of them. You cannot reasonably ask Twitter to moderate for your locale's social and violent reactionary issues. That implies they need to hire a huge amount of people for every locale in every country and just gives Twitter more monopoly as another company would have to invest a billion dollars to do that before they can even get off the ground. You have just created this idea that storing 100 bytes of text on a server is now a thing that requires billions of dollars of up front investment to do. This is another issue: People are fucking stupid and expect companies to have some "responsibility" now (despite the fact that product quality is at an all time low and they somehow have no issue with that). This is also just conceding that companies are some kind of god (they really aren't. Twitter is a dog shit website that can't go more than one second without showing the text "undefined" in an important field on the page). Ironically, the people who demand so called justice by moderating more and more shit online (Unreal Engine now has voice analytics to report you to the police or whatever the fuck built right in), are just as bad as the people who foster misinformation against people. We are heading into an era of micro justice which just means the amount of malpolicing will grow in proportion. The end result of constantly trying to solve micro injustices is AI making sure humans don't do anything "bad" and you will literally be unable to involuntarily move your arm a certain way without being punished. There is not even a philosophically correct definition of justice in law. It's literally a bunch of dudes amending a global ruleset to solve the latest problem, based on wildly varying rationales from people each with entirely different value systems. It's actually hilarious how short sighted and oblivious statements like "it should be illegal to post misinformation online" are. You aren't a mature responsible adult or whatever you think you are. You are just reacting to something in the most straight forward way with no thought about the consequences. It's doubly hilarious for insinuating that posting things online is a big issue that we should focus law on. It's actually pretty fucking obnoxious actually, I'm sick of every thing I do online for the last 20 years being policed by hall monitors tunnel visioned on whatever social injustice issue of the day.

root_axis 4y ago

> Twitter, despite millions of Pakistani users, it seems has no moderation system that understands local dynamics. Many would argue they don't even understand the local dynamics of the U.S. It's impossible for twitter to be an arbiter of the truth around the world, and you shouldn't expect them to be. However, I understand that's cold comfort for someone facing the threat of torture, death, or exile from their home, and I think your decision to call out twitter using your own platform to act with respect to your specific circumstances is the right thing to do and really the only way to handle this kind of thing. Good luck, I hope you stay safe and that the government doesn't succeed in silencing you.

pessimizer 4y ago
> It's impossible for twitter to be an arbiter of the truth around the world Twitter only seems interested in this job in the countries and on the side of the factions who are politically helpful to Twitter. Twitter wouldn't care about Pakistan unless the State Department told them to care about Pakistan, and they could just as easily enter the fray by labeling the OPs tweets as deceptive and connected to foreign misinformation as they could enter it on the side of preventing his harassment.
- root_axis 4y ago
  > Twitter only seems interested in this job in the countries and on the side of the factions who are politically helpful to Twitter So what? This is true of every media gatekeeper and always will be. Again, it's impossible for twitter to keep up with every change in the wind across the entire planet; they can't even do a satisfactory job of it in their own country. > they could just as easily enter the fray by labeling the OPs tweets as deceptive and connected to foreign misinformation as they could enter it on the side of preventing his harassment. If this story continues to get exposure this will probably happen, meanwhile there are thousands of other stories of threats and abuse that will go unabated and unheard because it's happening to someone that wasn't lucky enough to go viral. Twitter can only do so much, especially while opposing factions fight them every time they do anything.

powera 4y ago

Poke the bear, and the bear might poke back. Interesting that this person's conception of free speech allows him to call a parliamentary no-confidence vote a "coup", but doesn't allow government-aligned forces to say he is inciting violence.

driverdan 4y ago

Something happened this year with Twitter's internal moderation policies. They seemed to have completely stopped enforcing the rules. I've reported many open bigots calling for violence against the group(s) and/or people they hate. Twitter used to ban people for promoting violence. They don't anymore. Not a single one of the posts or accounts I've reported in the past few months has been banned unless they reached a threshold of other reports that triggers an automatic ban. Moderators either aren't doing their job or don't exist anymore.

ondamonda 4y ago

bckr 4y ago

Interesting that he believes the regime change is a coup. Khan, the now-ousted former prime minister, appears to be a Trump-style strong man who is whipping up his supporters with claims that the vote of no confidence which removed him is actually a U.S.-led conspiratorial regime change. Might be right, and it's absolutely awful if these folks are being unjustly detained and tortured. Yet, I think it's more complicated than the author would lead us to believe. It's also fascinating how this kind of unrest is unfolding all around the world.

edmcnulty101 4y ago

This is why Elon backed out of the twitter deal due to fake accounts.

iso1631 4y ago
He backed out because he overpaid for a company at the height of the boom just as we head into a recession that could well be deeper than 2008

truthwhisperer 4y ago

brightball 4y ago

I have no idea how to help you in this situation, but you may want to reach out to Citizen Lab in Toronto. My understanding is that protecting people like you is their mission.

jongjong 4y ago

In the new (increasingly lawless) world order, not having any enemies is going to be a big advantage. It's a good time to make amends and disassociate from extremist or nationalist groups.

tsol 4y ago
You'd better also drop race, ideologies, and beliefs as well. People will always find something to make you their enemy

tsimionescu 4y ago

I think this is one case that goes to the heart of what we expect Twitter to be. If they are supposed to be a public square, a company that is simply meant to offer a technical means of broadcasting your opinions, then we can't also expect them to fight government propaganda, any more than we would expect that of, say, Google Search. On the other hand, if we want Twitter to be a kind of new media company, than we should indeed hold them to journalistic standards and expect them to cut through government lies wherever they decide to have a presence.

gweinberg 4y ago

Twitter is in a bit of a pickle here. One could argue that accusing someone of being an agent of a hostile foreign power is basically libel and should be banned. But it's hard to say how they could have a rule against baselessly accusing a Pakistani of being an agent of Israel or India while maintaining the rule that it is fine to baselessly accuse an american of being an agent of Russia.

pessimizer 4y ago

It's politically impossible for Twitter to start censoring people who are declaring without evidence that other people are on the payroll of a foreign government or organization and guilty of the capital crimes of espionage and treason. It's far more likely that they'll start labeling tweets with "This tweet was posted by a probable agent of a foreign government for the purpose of sowing discord."

chopete3j 4y ago

pkrotich 4y ago

Should twitter censor such tweets? I don’t think so unless it violates their terms - but if the target disputes it then they should label it as disputed - with link to dispute report if it passes basic checks. That said I know this can be abused just like dmca take down notices. It’s truly arduous to balance and context matters which in turn requires godly number of man hours.

ReptileMan 4y ago

Pakistan in a nutshell - the country is ruled by the military, the military is ruled by the ISI. If they have you in their crosshair - run. They will get you.

selimthegrim 4y ago
The military is not ruled by the ISI.

jacooper 4y ago

> against israel = antisemitism Being anti-israel against an illegal Apartheid occupation has nothing to do with being antisemitic.

LiberationUnion 4y ago

joemazerino 4y ago

Twitter didn't have a problem banning Trump. Not so easy to pick sides when you're in another country's politics.

wseqyrku 4y ago

Looks like HN doesn't either, sorry.

mikegxyz2 4y ago

I am selling this story to Boulder Weekly. I used to work with @dotMudge.

npc54321 4y ago

Web3 fixes this but people think it's all about monkey pictures and scams.

StanislavPetrov 4y ago

If OP simple claim that these people had misgendered him instead of threatening his life they would be forever banned from Twitter.

up2isomorphism 4y ago

Twitter can not care about that. It is just a platform.

richardfey 4y ago

Suppose we have access to Twitter's metrics and we can see the profit made via Pakistani accounts and the associated cost (moderation is a cost). I suspect that the balance is negative for most countries and that is why we cannot expect better moderation.

dzhiurgis 4y ago

Does anyone know how companies like Twitter do moderation in countries like Pakistan. Hiring locals could be dangerous when coup happens. Hiring Pakistani expats (there’s plenty) tricky too as their families are still in danger (I assume their military is sophisticated enough to track whose relative works where). What is the ration of moderators to active user count. Do they specifically hire oppressed groups (i.e. Kurds in Turkey, Tibetans and Uighurs in China, etc) to shed a different opinion?

Omavel 4y ago