5 ms·

But is it what you're calling "legal" speech to disclose confidential info? If so, is it not just like they issued themselves a takedown notice and immediately

But is it what you're calling "legal" speech to disclose confidential info? If so, is it not just like they issued themselves a takedown notice and immediately executed on it?

jonny_eh 4y ago
Yes, it's legal. Twitter can always sue the person that tweeted it to have them remove it, let a judge decide.
- throwaway858 4y ago
  This isn't how it works. If a website is hosting content that infringes on some NDA, then you are supposed to sue the website (and not the person who posted it to the website -- who are often anonymous and can't be directly sued). So Twitter would need to sue itself to demand that it take down the content. And the judge would reject the suit and scold Twitter for wasting the courts time, and tell Twitter that if it wants something removed from its own website then it should just remove it.
  - ytpete 4y ago
    I don't believe that's true. For copyrighted work, you can issue a takedown notice to the website - but copyright is federal law. NDAs are just private contracts. If you could sue someone for hosting/posting NDA content, then any leaks or whistleblower content could be hidden from the public just by suing the all the news websites. Generally I think you can only sue the person who violated the NDA, not anyone further down the chain who posted the material. The same is even true for classified info in most cases - the NY Times won a famous Supreme Court cases about that over publishing the Pentagon Papers in the Vietnam era. Same principle that protected publishing the Snowden leaks, etc.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    > If a website is hosting content that infringes on some NDA, then you are supposed to sue the website > So Twitter would need to sue itself to demand that it take down the content. is this how it actually works, or is it make a request to the website and sue if request is deemed unduly denied? if the latter, then some Twitter HR/lawyer person can make a request to a Twitter moderation person and the request would be immediately approved. At that point, there's no "difference" in the procedures for internal/external moderation requests.
  - olliej 4y ago
    > This isn't how it works. If a website is hosting content that infringes on some NDA, then you are supposed to sue the website (and not the person who posted it to the website -- who are often anonymous and can't be directly sued). That's nonsense, because under that interpretation of the law no news agency could ever report anything with anonymous sources, or people "familiar with the situation", because under your definition they are now violating an agreement about which they know nothing.
  - heavyset_go 4y ago
    You could sue the website, but it wouldn't go very far, because website operators are not liable for user uploaded content because of Section 230 of the CDA.
tablespoon 4y ago
> But is it what you're calling "legal" speech to disclose confidential info? If so, is it not just like they issued themselves a takedown notice and immediately executed on it? I think there are a lot of things that are legal that may cause civil penalties. E.g. there's no law banning the dissemination of screenshots of Twitter's internal Slack (so the screenshot is legal speech), but Twitter may have grounds to sue the leaker for breach of a private contract.
- lupire 4y ago
  You are conflating "illegal" with "criminal". Civil law is still law.
  - tshaddox 4y ago
    Assuming this all goes back to Elon's tweet: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519036983137509376 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519036983137509376, which reads: """ By “free speech”, I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people. """ I don't think it's reasonable to interpret this as referring to any speech which constitutes a civil wrong. There is simply no way for a third party to have the slightest clue based on the content of a tweet whether that tweet causes someone to suffer a loss, or constitutes a breach of contract,
hn_go_brrrrr 4y ago
Is a bunch of heart emojis confidential information? If so, lol.
- theonething 4y ago
  Internal slack communication is confidential.
boc 4y ago
IANAL but restrictions on confidential information only apply to government classification of information. Private classification isn’t a “real” thing, it’s just a breach of a private contract. If you’re a “free speech platform”, who are you to adjudicate whether a leak of corporate information is malicious vs a brave whistleblower? This is why we have a court system. Twitter needs to decide what they are actually trying to accomplish with their direction, because right now it appears that this was all about changing the censors, not removing them.
- moistofreason 4y ago
  All those employees signed NDAs that said they would not disclose private company communications… this is way different than censoring a user who is under no such agreement.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    The difference is that Twitter does not enforce those agreements as quickly for any company that's not Twitter. Hence what people are complaining about: one set of rules for Twitter (the company) making requests of Twitter (the platform) and another set of rules for everyone else. And really, it's the own-goalness of this that's likely irking everyone. Musk wants to get the high ground of a public space... and then he/someone at Twitter immediately burns that narrative on something trivial that doesn't even matter. The sheer stupidity of taking it down makes me think it's probably internal HR.
    - hbrn 4y ago
      But that's because Twitter has no capabilities to enforce them at the same speed for other companies. If processing speed depends on proximity to their legal department, of course Twitter will be able to verify their own agreements faster. That's just physics, not necessarily double standards. It's like complaining that Amazon ships faster to areas that are close to Amazon warehouses. Well duh.
      - 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
lupire 4y ago
It's a potential antitrust violation to serve themselves better than other users of the platform. This is what Google and Apple get in trouble for all the time.
encryptluks2 4y ago
Did the screenshot actually expose any confidential information though? Musk seemed fine with leaking confidential information when Mudge was doing it, but now he is suddenly concerned about it?

But is it what you're calling "legal" speech to disclose confidential info? If so, is it not just like they issued themselves a takedown notice and immediately executed on it?

jonny_eh 4y ago

Yes, it's legal. Twitter can always sue the person that tweeted it to have them remove it, let a judge decide.

throwaway858 4y ago
This isn't how it works. If a website is hosting content that infringes on some NDA, then you are supposed to sue the website (and not the person who posted it to the website -- who are often anonymous and can't be directly sued). So Twitter would need to sue itself to demand that it take down the content. And the judge would reject the suit and scold Twitter for wasting the courts time, and tell Twitter that if it wants something removed from its own website then it should just remove it.
- ytpete 4y ago
  I don't believe that's true. For copyrighted work, you can issue a takedown notice to the website - but copyright is federal law. NDAs are just private contracts. If you could sue someone for hosting/posting NDA content, then any leaks or whistleblower content could be hidden from the public just by suing the all the news websites. Generally I think you can only sue the person who violated the NDA, not anyone further down the chain who posted the material. The same is even true for classified info in most cases - the NY Times won a famous Supreme Court cases about that over publishing the Pentagon Papers in the Vietnam era. Same principle that protected publishing the Snowden leaks, etc.
- dylan604 4y ago
  > If a website is hosting content that infringes on some NDA, then you are supposed to sue the website > So Twitter would need to sue itself to demand that it take down the content. is this how it actually works, or is it make a request to the website and sue if request is deemed unduly denied? if the latter, then some Twitter HR/lawyer person can make a request to a Twitter moderation person and the request would be immediately approved. At that point, there's no "difference" in the procedures for internal/external moderation requests.
- olliej 4y ago
  > This isn't how it works. If a website is hosting content that infringes on some NDA, then you are supposed to sue the website (and not the person who posted it to the website -- who are often anonymous and can't be directly sued). That's nonsense, because under that interpretation of the law no news agency could ever report anything with anonymous sources, or people "familiar with the situation", because under your definition they are now violating an agreement about which they know nothing.
- heavyset_go 4y ago
  You could sue the website, but it wouldn't go very far, because website operators are not liable for user uploaded content because of Section 230 of the CDA.

tablespoon 4y ago

> But is it what you're calling "legal" speech to disclose confidential info? If so, is it not just like they issued themselves a takedown notice and immediately executed on it? I think there are a lot of things that are legal that may cause civil penalties. E.g. there's no law banning the dissemination of screenshots of Twitter's internal Slack (so the screenshot is legal speech), but Twitter may have grounds to sue the leaker for breach of a private contract.

lupire 4y ago
You are conflating "illegal" with "criminal". Civil law is still law.
- tshaddox 4y ago
  Assuming this all goes back to Elon's tweet: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519036983137509376 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519036983137509376, which reads: """ By “free speech”, I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people. """ I don't think it's reasonable to interpret this as referring to any speech which constitutes a civil wrong. There is simply no way for a third party to have the slightest clue based on the content of a tweet whether that tweet causes someone to suffer a loss, or constitutes a breach of contract,

hn_go_brrrrr 4y ago

Is a bunch of heart emojis confidential information? If so, lol.

theonething 4y ago
Internal slack communication is confidential.

boc 4y ago

IANAL but restrictions on confidential information only apply to government classification of information. Private classification isn’t a “real” thing, it’s just a breach of a private contract. If you’re a “free speech platform”, who are you to adjudicate whether a leak of corporate information is malicious vs a brave whistleblower? This is why we have a court system. Twitter needs to decide what they are actually trying to accomplish with their direction, because right now it appears that this was all about changing the censors, not removing them.

moistofreason 4y ago
All those employees signed NDAs that said they would not disclose private company communications… this is way different than censoring a user who is under no such agreement.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  The difference is that Twitter does not enforce those agreements as quickly for any company that's not Twitter. Hence what people are complaining about: one set of rules for Twitter (the company) making requests of Twitter (the platform) and another set of rules for everyone else. And really, it's the own-goalness of this that's likely irking everyone. Musk wants to get the high ground of a public space... and then he/someone at Twitter immediately burns that narrative on something trivial that doesn't even matter. The sheer stupidity of taking it down makes me think it's probably internal HR.
  - hbrn 4y ago
    But that's because Twitter has no capabilities to enforce them at the same speed for other companies. If processing speed depends on proximity to their legal department, of course Twitter will be able to verify their own agreements faster. That's just physics, not necessarily double standards. It's like complaining that Amazon ships faster to areas that are close to Amazon warehouses. Well duh.
    - 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

lupire 4y ago

It's a potential antitrust violation to serve themselves better than other users of the platform. This is what Google and Apple get in trouble for all the time.

encryptluks2 4y ago

Did the screenshot actually expose any confidential information though? Musk seemed fine with leaking confidential information when Mudge was doing it, but now he is suddenly concerned about it?