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The fact that they listen to the government requests is the scary part. They should just have a consistent content moderation policy and enforce it.
by brchn 4y ago
The fact that they listen to the government requests is the scary part. They should just have a consistent content moderation policy and enforce it.
- anderber 4y agoShouldn't they listen to anyone who showcasing someone violating their TOS? Does it matter that it was a staffer in Washington?
- brchn 4y agoThey can just report the tweet like I or you could.
- ModernMech 4y agoHow many times do we see someone turning to HN as a side channel into big tech because the official channels aren’t as responsive? It’s normal and expected for people to use any methods available in their wider social network to achieve an objective. If there’s no law against it (as there isn’t here) then what’s the problem?
- UncleMeat 4y agoAnd like virtually every system on the planet, there are false negatives. So external groups might send over things and say "hey, I think you missed this."
- brchn 4y agoThat’s alright, but when the tweet doesn’t actually violate the ToS, it’s a true negative that requires no intervention by interested political parties.
- haswell 4y agoA consistent content moderation policy would accept reports of problematic content regardless of the source of the report. To me, the bigger issue is the white glove treatment, and the appearance of preferential moderation. But I think that’s where political realities come into play. I don’t doubt that these companies feel the need to make lawmakers feel heard or risk legislation/regulation that will harm the platforms. I think this is touching on something much bigger, in that these kinds of government/company relationships are everywhere, and have been for decades. The difference with the Twitter situation is one of public visibility and direct impact on individuals trying to do something as seemingly innocuous as post and share links on social media. Which is absolutely not to excuse the behavior. If anything, I hope this wakes up more average Americans to the kinds of quid pro quo and shady handshake deals that have been going on forever.
- evanb 4y agoThe linked tweet points to October 2020. That's before the election and long before Biden was installed; the requests were not from the government.
- brchn 4y agoI stand corrected- it was not the government but the Biden campaign team 1 month before the 2020 election.
- RavingGoat 4y agoNot part of the government. Biden was a private citizen. Trump was the president at the time.
- brchn 4y agoEven worse, why can’t they just report the tweets via the app like every other Twitter user?
- candybar 4y agoWhen Twitter tried to just apply consistent content moderation policies and right-wing politicians ended up being banned for repeated violations of Twitter ToS, there was a ton of outrage, among much of the exact same group of people that are talking about how bad it is that politicians appear to have a direct line of communication with Twitter policy teams.
- s3p 4y agoThis was not a government request. No one who asked Twitter to remove these tweets on behalf of Biden was in government. Biden was not in government at the time.