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> Oh, just like when pre-Musk Twitter banned NY Post/journalists over a true story about Hunter Biden's laptop. I don't see how an anti-doxxing rule banning peo

> Oh, just like when pre-Musk Twitter banned NY Post/journalists over a true story about Hunter Biden's laptop. I don't see how an anti-doxxing rule banning people tracking Elon Musk's whereabouts is worse. Calling it "Hunter Biden's laptop" ignores the fact that it was hacked information provided by a foreign adversary to sow division and influence an election. That is not comparable to sharing publicly available information about aircraft movements. That being said, I also think the extent to which they went to bury and remove the real photos and videos of Hunter Biden smoking crack was a huge overreach. They tried to paint it as a conspiracy theory that had no factual basis — that's biased censorship.

Georgelemental 4y ago
> it was hacked information provided by a foreign adversary to sow division and influence an election. Every single one of these claims is false. Hunter Biden gave his laptop to a repair shop, the repair shop shared its contents with the New York Post and the FBI. At no point was any foreign agent involved, at no point was anything "hacked"
- richbell 4y ago
  > Every single one of these claims is false You're right, Rudy Giuliani is clearly a credible figure and his account of how he happened to come across Hunter Biden's laptop is sensible and not-suspicous in the least. Hey, quick question completely unrelated to this, was Trump pro or anti Putin? Did Julian Assange leak information in good faith or did he co-ordinate with Republicans to release only information that made Democrats look bad, in the 2016 election? Who provided Assange that information? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-assange-idUSKBN20D2A2 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-assange-idUSKBN20...
  - Georgelemental 4y ago
    I never mentioned Rudy Guiliani? The story you linked is about a completely separate and unrelated story. WikiLeaks and Assange were not involved with Hunter Biden's laptop. As for the provenance of the laptop: Hunter Biden never denied giving the laptop to the repair shop. And the repair shop, voluntarily and on its own initiative, gave the laptop and all its contents to the FBI, who would presumably have found any foreign involvment, if it existed, in their investigation of the matter.
    - richbell 4y ago
      > The story you linked is about a completely separate and unrelated story. WikiLeaks and Assange were not involved here. I am aware. My point is that there is a precedent for this behaviour and neither Trump nor Republicans are credible. > As for the provenance of the laptop: Hunter Biden never denied giving the laptop to the repair shop. And the repair shop gave the laptop and all its contents to the FBI, who would presumably have found any foreign involvment, if it existed, in their investigation of the matter. Let me be clear: I have no doubt in the veracity of any of the information or materials leaked. I distinctly recall seeing posts on /pol/ containing videos of Hunter smoking crack and banging hookers (that have since been scrubbed from the Internet), and people allegedly attempting to hack his iCloud account. However, the I do not find the story and chain-of-custody of his laptop credible. I have been looking further since your prior comment and I cannot find anything that unambiguously confirms its provenance. On the flip side, I also do not find a lack of official condemnation or attribution to Russia to be sufficient in disproving it. Joe Biden and the Democrats were clearly trying to kill the story and scrub any mention of it, so acknowledging it only gives it legitimacy. Happy to ammend my comment if you can point me to something that proves otherwise, though. Jeffrey Epstein was discovered in part because a woman stumbled across his black book on the sidewalk — sometimes unlikely coincidences happen.
      - Georgelemental 4y ago
        > neither Trump nor Republicans are credible ~~Donald J. Trump was not directly involved in the breaking of the laptop story.~~ (edit: my bad) "Republicans" is a group containing tens of millions of people (though I am not aware of the repair shop owner's party affiliation, if any?)
        richbell 4y ago
        > Donald J. Trump was not directly involved in the breaking of the laptop story. Do you really believe that Rudy Guiliani, a man acting as Trump's lackey for numerous things, received bombshell information and publicized it without Trump having any knowledge or involvement? Michael Cohen testified under oauth that Trump knew about leaked DNC emails in advance of the 2016 election. Fast-forward to ~2019 and Trump had already personally tried to pressure Ukraine into providing damaging information about Joe Biden. There is very little plausible deniability here. > "Republicans" is a group containing tens of millions of people (though I am not aware of the repair shop owner's party affiliation, if any?) I am obviously not referring to a collective conspiracy of between hundreds of millions of American citizens. I meant the Republican Party.
- Brybry 4y ago
  Under Twitter's definition[1] the repair shop accessing the contents and sharing them would be considered "hacked". During the NY Post story, on Twitter you weren't allowed to link to "hacked" material (though this was probably not well enforced).[2] Twitter changed that policy and reverted the account freezes[3] so that it was fine to link to "hacked" material as long as you weren't directly affiliated with the entity that produced the "hacked" material. [4] [1] https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/hacked-materials https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/hacked-materi... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20200603215859/https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/hacked-materials https://web.archive.org/web/20200603215859/https://help.twit... [3] https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/twitter-ceo-nypost-block-wrong-hacked-materials-policy-1234807399/ https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/twitter-ceo-nypost-blo... [4] https://web.archive.org/web/20210301054617/https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/hacked-materials https://web.archive.org/web/20210301054617/https://help.twit...
  - richbell 4y ago
    If nothing else, this story (along with countless others) really affirms the value of full-disk encryption. A stranger should not be able to unplug your hard-drive and access your nudes.
philwelch 4y ago
> Calling it "Hunter Biden's laptop" ignores the fact that it was hacked information provided by a foreign adversary It was neither of those things.
dillondoyle 4y ago
There is not proof it was by a foreign government afaik. Though from the reporting I've read it does seem to be murky at a minimum, and not proven to be as clear as top comment-or said. Doesn't matter though. That specific context you mention is VERY important: Russia already did this. The FBI specifically warned to TW that a leak like this had high chance of happening just at the time it did. Twitter was right to be cautious. Maybe didn't do everything consistently or perfectly, but I would far prefer them limiting the reach of Hunter dick pics and crack photos than letting a foreign government do so much damage again. I think their main error was being slow as more background & info was uncovered.
eggy 4y ago
The computer store owner in the USA is not a foreign adversary. The content is real and criminal. Ties to foreign adversary China and Russia too. Be honest, and ask yourself if that had been Trump's son's laptop would Twitter, The Washington Post, and the others have done the same? I don't think so. If I collate publicy available information and publish it continuously on any person, you are OK with that? If it happens to you?
- richbell 4y ago
  > The computer store owner in the USA is not a foreign adversary. Sure, if you presuppose that the people responsible for disclosing it are credible and honest. I personally have some questions why a computer store owner would, faced with an abandoned laptop from a customer, decided to snoop through its contents and give it to Rudy Giuliani, of all people. If you take the story at face value it's still a massive breach of privacy. You have to go out of your way to find this stuff; an ethical repair shop would go out of their way to avoid accidentally stumping across private information. Even still, if you assume that he stumbled across extremely concerning information in a manner no fault of his own, why did he feel it necessary to leak videos of Hunter Biden smoking crack and having sex? Imagine how creepy it would be if a woman dropped her laptop off at a repair shop and the owner leaked her nudes? The most charitable interpretation is that Hunter Biden dropped his laptop off at a computer repair shop, and the owner decided to snoop for compromising information and give it to his father's political rival, presumably for politically-motivated reasons. > Be honest, and ask yourself if that had been Trump's son's laptop would Twitter, The Washington Post, and the others have done the same? I don't think so. I agree.

Georgelemental 4y ago

> it was hacked information provided by a foreign adversary to sow division and influence an election. Every single one of these claims is false. Hunter Biden gave his laptop to a repair shop, the repair shop shared its contents with the New York Post and the FBI. At no point was any foreign agent involved, at no point was anything "hacked"

richbell 4y ago
> Every single one of these claims is false You're right, Rudy Giuliani is clearly a credible figure and his account of how he happened to come across Hunter Biden's laptop is sensible and not-suspicous in the least. Hey, quick question completely unrelated to this, was Trump pro or anti Putin? Did Julian Assange leak information in good faith or did he co-ordinate with Republicans to release only information that made Democrats look bad, in the 2016 election? Who provided Assange that information? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-assange-idUSKBN20D2A2 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-assange-idUSKBN20...
- Georgelemental 4y ago
  I never mentioned Rudy Guiliani? The story you linked is about a completely separate and unrelated story. WikiLeaks and Assange were not involved with Hunter Biden's laptop. As for the provenance of the laptop: Hunter Biden never denied giving the laptop to the repair shop. And the repair shop, voluntarily and on its own initiative, gave the laptop and all its contents to the FBI, who would presumably have found any foreign involvment, if it existed, in their investigation of the matter.
  - richbell 4y ago
    > The story you linked is about a completely separate and unrelated story. WikiLeaks and Assange were not involved here. I am aware. My point is that there is a precedent for this behaviour and neither Trump nor Republicans are credible. > As for the provenance of the laptop: Hunter Biden never denied giving the laptop to the repair shop. And the repair shop gave the laptop and all its contents to the FBI, who would presumably have found any foreign involvment, if it existed, in their investigation of the matter. Let me be clear: I have no doubt in the veracity of any of the information or materials leaked. I distinctly recall seeing posts on /pol/ containing videos of Hunter smoking crack and banging hookers (that have since been scrubbed from the Internet), and people allegedly attempting to hack his iCloud account. However, the I do not find the story and chain-of-custody of his laptop credible. I have been looking further since your prior comment and I cannot find anything that unambiguously confirms its provenance. On the flip side, I also do not find a lack of official condemnation or attribution to Russia to be sufficient in disproving it. Joe Biden and the Democrats were clearly trying to kill the story and scrub any mention of it, so acknowledging it only gives it legitimacy. Happy to ammend my comment if you can point me to something that proves otherwise, though. Jeffrey Epstein was discovered in part because a woman stumbled across his black book on the sidewalk — sometimes unlikely coincidences happen.
    - Georgelemental 4y ago
      > neither Trump nor Republicans are credible ~~Donald J. Trump was not directly involved in the breaking of the laptop story.~~ (edit: my bad) "Republicans" is a group containing tens of millions of people (though I am not aware of the repair shop owner's party affiliation, if any?)
      - richbell 4y ago
        > Donald J. Trump was not directly involved in the breaking of the laptop story. Do you really believe that Rudy Guiliani, a man acting as Trump's lackey for numerous things, received bombshell information and publicized it without Trump having any knowledge or involvement? Michael Cohen testified under oauth that Trump knew about leaked DNC emails in advance of the 2016 election. Fast-forward to ~2019 and Trump had already personally tried to pressure Ukraine into providing damaging information about Joe Biden. There is very little plausible deniability here. > "Republicans" is a group containing tens of millions of people (though I am not aware of the repair shop owner's party affiliation, if any?) I am obviously not referring to a collective conspiracy of between hundreds of millions of American citizens. I meant the Republican Party.
Brybry 4y ago
Under Twitter's definition[1] the repair shop accessing the contents and sharing them would be considered "hacked". During the NY Post story, on Twitter you weren't allowed to link to "hacked" material (though this was probably not well enforced).[2] Twitter changed that policy and reverted the account freezes[3] so that it was fine to link to "hacked" material as long as you weren't directly affiliated with the entity that produced the "hacked" material. [4] [1] https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/hacked-materials https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/hacked-materi... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20200603215859/https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/hacked-materials https://web.archive.org/web/20200603215859/https://help.twit... [3] https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/twitter-ceo-nypost-block-wrong-hacked-materials-policy-1234807399/ https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/twitter-ceo-nypost-blo... [4] https://web.archive.org/web/20210301054617/https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/hacked-materials https://web.archive.org/web/20210301054617/https://help.twit...
- richbell 4y ago
  If nothing else, this story (along with countless others) really affirms the value of full-disk encryption. A stranger should not be able to unplug your hard-drive and access your nudes.

philwelch 4y ago

> Calling it "Hunter Biden's laptop" ignores the fact that it was hacked information provided by a foreign adversary It was neither of those things.

dillondoyle 4y ago

There is not proof it was by a foreign government afaik. Though from the reporting I've read it does seem to be murky at a minimum, and not proven to be as clear as top comment-or said. Doesn't matter though. That specific context you mention is VERY important: Russia already did this. The FBI specifically warned to TW that a leak like this had high chance of happening just at the time it did. Twitter was right to be cautious. Maybe didn't do everything consistently or perfectly, but I would far prefer them limiting the reach of Hunter dick pics and crack photos than letting a foreign government do so much damage again. I think their main error was being slow as more background & info was uncovered.

eggy 4y ago

The computer store owner in the USA is not a foreign adversary. The content is real and criminal. Ties to foreign adversary China and Russia too. Be honest, and ask yourself if that had been Trump's son's laptop would Twitter, The Washington Post, and the others have done the same? I don't think so. If I collate publicy available information and publish it continuously on any person, you are OK with that? If it happens to you?

richbell 4y ago
> The computer store owner in the USA is not a foreign adversary. Sure, if you presuppose that the people responsible for disclosing it are credible and honest. I personally have some questions why a computer store owner would, faced with an abandoned laptop from a customer, decided to snoop through its contents and give it to Rudy Giuliani, of all people. If you take the story at face value it's still a massive breach of privacy. You have to go out of your way to find this stuff; an ethical repair shop would go out of their way to avoid accidentally stumping across private information. Even still, if you assume that he stumbled across extremely concerning information in a manner no fault of his own, why did he feel it necessary to leak videos of Hunter Biden smoking crack and having sex? Imagine how creepy it would be if a woman dropped her laptop off at a repair shop and the owner leaked her nudes? The most charitable interpretation is that Hunter Biden dropped his laptop off at a computer repair shop, and the owner decided to snoop for compromising information and give it to his father's political rival, presumably for politically-motivated reasons. > Be honest, and ask yourself if that had been Trump's son's laptop would Twitter, The Washington Post, and the others have done the same? I don't think so. I agree.