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But aren’t they just flagging Tweets as potential violations of TOS? That sounds as tame as it could possibly be. The same option is open to me as an ordinary

But aren’t they just flagging Tweets as potential violations of TOS? That sounds as tame as it could possibly be. The same option is open to me as an ordinary user.

hgfdhgdhg 4y ago
They're not a normal user. Wouldn't you expect more transparency from your government? It appalls me that many find this okay.
- ethanbond 4y ago
  What more transparency do you want? Their right to request moderation actions and Twitter’s right to refuse those requests is extremely well documented in court cases. You want a published list of every request FBI made? So that way FBI can become the primary curator of information that FBI doesn’t like?
- synergyS 4y ago
  Exactly, we need more transparency.
- crimsoneer 4y ago
  You could absolutely submitted a freedom of information request to the FBI about this activity
xiphias2 4y ago
They had direct email exchange, it wasn't just normal flagging.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
cloutchaser 4y ago
> But aren’t they just flagging Tweets as potential violations of TOS? How benevolent of the fbi to be making sure twitters users are compliant with twitters TOS! What a nice federal agency, making twitters moderation so much easier!
nverno 4y ago
What bothers me most about the FBI's behaviour here is that it is unnecessary. Do we really want the FBI manning a task force of 80+(according to Taibbi) agents to monitor social media threads, and if so, what's to stop that number from just growing and growing? I'd prefer to see the FBI acting in a passive role, here, rather than a proactive one. Meaning, they act more in response to people reporting social media behavior, instead of creating their own missions, so to speak. One of the problems with this sort of governmental creep, is once it happens it's nearly impossible to take it back - look at the Patriot act/Homeland security, for example, or the god-awful and useless TSA. It's very easy to imagine this social media task force growing into another branch, and, as with all of these agencies, the Big Brother potential is a scary one.
- bigtex 4y ago
  They could be proactive in protection us companies from ransomware attacks but instead they worry about social media posts.
  - acdha 4y ago
    They do both, with considerable other effort in the federal government on infrastructure protection as well as election integrity. You might not hear about it as much because there isn’t a big lobby opposed to infosec but it’s definitely there.
- canucklady 4y ago
  I think using social media to gather intel is entirely reasonable. Given the number of people who have committed mass shootings and other acts of domestic terrorism after being radicalized online, they would be negligent to not be proactively looking at the internet. Your whole argument is just "sure this is reasonable now but what if there were 8000 agents online and they could extraordinary rendition you". 80 agents for the whole country is not absurd. That's less than 2 per state.
- somehnacct3757 4y ago
  Social media products have been critical to the exponential growth of domestic terrorism and CSAM. So I definitely want the FBI being proactive on these platforms and to have a much, much, bigger team than 80. It should be 80 per state. People with poor information diets hear the FBI is involved with Twitter and immediately think it has something to do with red team blue team politics. These are the people the Twitter Files content is produced for. It's written vaguely enough to give potato chip peddlers creative license, so they can monetize attention.
nec4b 4y ago
Amazing, a government agency paid by the taxpayers, voluntary combing through twitter and report users that violate twitter's TOS. Is FBI doing pro-bono work for other companies as well?
fallingknife 4y ago
Even if that's all they are doing, it is too much. The FBI is not the enforcement arm for Twitter's TOS. Their job is to investigate and prosecute crimes. If the FBI is attempting, in any way, to remove legal speech it doesn't like (even if the removal process is itself also completely legal) that is overstepping its authority as a government law enforcement agency.
mikrotikker 4y ago
So why didn't they use the same option you do rather than getting their own special web portal for it?
- viraptor 4y ago
  Prioritisation of requests. I'd be extremely surprised if Twitter wasn't already prioritising standard requests too. If you get at the same time 1 request each: from FBI, from someone with multiple actioned past reports, and from an account created 10 sec ago, it makes complete business and community safety sense to handle them in a specific order. (But not with different rules) And if FBI provides such requests often enough, it makes sense to ingest them in the most efficient way that works for both sides.

But aren’t they just flagging Tweets as potential violations of TOS? That sounds as tame as it could possibly be. The same option is open to me as an ordinary user.

hgfdhgdhg 4y ago

They're not a normal user. Wouldn't you expect more transparency from your government? It appalls me that many find this okay.

ethanbond 4y ago
What more transparency do you want? Their right to request moderation actions and Twitter’s right to refuse those requests is extremely well documented in court cases. You want a published list of every request FBI made? So that way FBI can become the primary curator of information that FBI doesn’t like?
synergyS 4y ago
Exactly, we need more transparency.
crimsoneer 4y ago
You could absolutely submitted a freedom of information request to the FBI about this activity

xiphias2 4y ago

They had direct email exchange, it wasn't just normal flagging.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

cloutchaser 4y ago

> But aren’t they just flagging Tweets as potential violations of TOS? How benevolent of the fbi to be making sure twitters users are compliant with twitters TOS! What a nice federal agency, making twitters moderation so much easier!

nverno 4y ago

What bothers me most about the FBI's behaviour here is that it is unnecessary. Do we really want the FBI manning a task force of 80+(according to Taibbi) agents to monitor social media threads, and if so, what's to stop that number from just growing and growing? I'd prefer to see the FBI acting in a passive role, here, rather than a proactive one. Meaning, they act more in response to people reporting social media behavior, instead of creating their own missions, so to speak. One of the problems with this sort of governmental creep, is once it happens it's nearly impossible to take it back - look at the Patriot act/Homeland security, for example, or the god-awful and useless TSA. It's very easy to imagine this social media task force growing into another branch, and, as with all of these agencies, the Big Brother potential is a scary one.

bigtex 4y ago
They could be proactive in protection us companies from ransomware attacks but instead they worry about social media posts.
- acdha 4y ago
  They do both, with considerable other effort in the federal government on infrastructure protection as well as election integrity. You might not hear about it as much because there isn’t a big lobby opposed to infosec but it’s definitely there.
canucklady 4y ago
I think using social media to gather intel is entirely reasonable. Given the number of people who have committed mass shootings and other acts of domestic terrorism after being radicalized online, they would be negligent to not be proactively looking at the internet. Your whole argument is just "sure this is reasonable now but what if there were 8000 agents online and they could extraordinary rendition you". 80 agents for the whole country is not absurd. That's less than 2 per state.
somehnacct3757 4y ago
Social media products have been critical to the exponential growth of domestic terrorism and CSAM. So I definitely want the FBI being proactive on these platforms and to have a much, much, bigger team than 80. It should be 80 per state. People with poor information diets hear the FBI is involved with Twitter and immediately think it has something to do with red team blue team politics. These are the people the Twitter Files content is produced for. It's written vaguely enough to give potato chip peddlers creative license, so they can monetize attention.

nec4b 4y ago

Amazing, a government agency paid by the taxpayers, voluntary combing through twitter and report users that violate twitter's TOS. Is FBI doing pro-bono work for other companies as well?

fallingknife 4y ago

Even if that's all they are doing, it is too much. The FBI is not the enforcement arm for Twitter's TOS. Their job is to investigate and prosecute crimes. If the FBI is attempting, in any way, to remove legal speech it doesn't like (even if the removal process is itself also completely legal) that is overstepping its authority as a government law enforcement agency.

mikrotikker 4y ago

So why didn't they use the same option you do rather than getting their own special web portal for it?

viraptor 4y ago
Prioritisation of requests. I'd be extremely surprised if Twitter wasn't already prioritising standard requests too. If you get at the same time 1 request each: from FBI, from someone with multiple actioned past reports, and from an account created 10 sec ago, it makes complete business and community safety sense to handle them in a specific order. (But not with different rules) And if FBI provides such requests often enough, it makes sense to ingest them in the most efficient way that works for both sides.