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Are there any scenarios where it is acceptable for the President to threaten private companies to change their moderation policies to suit his needs? That's wh

Are there any scenarios where it is acceptable for the President to threaten private companies to change their moderation policies to suit his needs? That's what Trump did repeatedly. There's a fundamental contradiction in the narrative presented in the Twitter Files, apparently we're supposed to believe that Twitter is this overwhelmingly liberal place where employees were highly biased against conservatives in their content moderation and also the FBI, of course that famously leftist institution, coerced Twitter in a highly biased way to get them to silence conservative narratives. If Twitter and FBI were aligned, there's no coercion. If Twitter was being forced, it remains to be shown exactly how. And to the extent that Twitter is institutionally biased towards liberals, then it's those that sit on the opposite political spectrum that are most suspicious. After all, if Twitter was going out of their way to help the Democrats, why would they need to be coerced in that same direction? There's plenty of public evidence that Republican politicians including the sitting President threatened Twitter and other social media companies in order to influence their moderation policies. Where's the outrage among the "FBI asking Twitter nicely is a First Amendment issue" crowd?

roenxi 4y ago
> Are there any scenarios where it is acceptable for the President to threaten private companies to change their moderation policies to suit his needs? If he's asking for something completely reasonable that ~80+% of people think is a good idea, sure. The appropriate thing for Twitter to do would still probably be to ignore him. Giving Trump influence of Twitter's moderation policies is one of those obviously bad ideas (much like giving the FBI influence, in fact, for similar reasons). > If Twitter and FBI were aligned, there's no coercion. Yeah it isn't really a question of coercion, obviously if Twitter wants to support the FBI in political causes they are free to do that. The issue is that the FBI is being funded by taxpayers, not leftists, and shouldn't be deployed in a political capacity to support partisan management policies like what Twitter turned out to have. The easy way to achieve that is a blanket rule - something like "the government doesn't police what people say" which is fair and reasonably objective. > ...also the FBI, of course that famously leftist institution... There was the institutional support for the Trump-Russia hoax and the FBI's help in suppression of the Hunter Biden story. While I agree the FBI probably isn't leftist (I'm arguing it is authoritarian and status-quo biased, for what it is worth - they'd pull all the same tricks on someone like Bernie Sanders if he had made it through the primary), it is politically active and spreading a lot of this "misinformation" stuff to try and keep Trump out of office. That is corrupt, and it shouldn't be working with Twitter like it is.
- candybar 4y ago
  So the big scandal here isn't that the FBI is implicitly threatening Twitter in a way that raises 1st Amendment concerns, but rather that the FBI is using public funds to help a social media company do its job. This has nothing to do with free speech and there's also no evidence the FBI's actions were motivated by partisan concerns. To me, it's rather clear that a bunch of people who are not particularly principled or have a strong understanding of the ethics or laws involved, but are prone to thinking that anyone working against their own agenda must be evil or nefarious in some ways, reverse-engineering their way into finding faults with how things more or less have always worked. This also isn't some nefarious hidden secret motivated by partisan concerns. Trump's own Director of FBI, Christopher Wray stated that Russia was attempting to interfere in the presidential election: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-security-idUSKCN1UI1XW https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-security-idU... > Russia is determined to interfere in U.S. elections despite sanctions and other efforts to deter such actions before the next presidential election in 2020, FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Tuesday. And he specifically told the public what the FBI is doing about this: https://time.com/5548544/russian-internet-trolls-strategies-2020-elections/ https://time.com/5548544/russian-internet-trolls-strategies-... > FBI Director Christopher Wray, speaking at the RSA Conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, said social media remains a primary avenue for foreign actors to influence U.S. elections, and the bureau is working with companies on the problem. > “What has continued virtually unabated and just intensifies during the election cycles is this malign foreign influence campaign, especially using social media,” Wray said. “That continues, and we’re gearing up for it to continue and grow again for 2020.”
  - roenxi 4y ago
    Well, the scandal here is the FBI were rolling in, giving Twitter a list of random bystanders with the expectation that they will be silenced. US Federal government agencies are specifically not supposed to do that. All the stuff observing that the FBI is politically active (and has been pretty much since inception I suspect) is interesting but not really news. It is context for why they are supposed to avoid chummy relationships with Twitter's team of moderators. > Trump's own Director of FBI, Christopher Wray stated that Russia was attempting to interfere in the presidential election Yeah, but the Muller report came out around the time he said that and basically debunked the issue as a serious problem; raising the question of what exactly Wray was trying to stir up. He looks like part of the anti-Trump crowd that has been active in the FBI for the last few years.

roenxi 4y ago

> Are there any scenarios where it is acceptable for the President to threaten private companies to change their moderation policies to suit his needs? If he's asking for something completely reasonable that ~80+% of people think is a good idea, sure. The appropriate thing for Twitter to do would still probably be to ignore him. Giving Trump influence of Twitter's moderation policies is one of those obviously bad ideas (much like giving the FBI influence, in fact, for similar reasons). > If Twitter and FBI were aligned, there's no coercion. Yeah it isn't really a question of coercion, obviously if Twitter wants to support the FBI in political causes they are free to do that. The issue is that the FBI is being funded by taxpayers, not leftists, and shouldn't be deployed in a political capacity to support partisan management policies like what Twitter turned out to have. The easy way to achieve that is a blanket rule - something like "the government doesn't police what people say" which is fair and reasonably objective. > ...also the FBI, of course that famously leftist institution... There was the institutional support for the Trump-Russia hoax and the FBI's help in suppression of the Hunter Biden story. While I agree the FBI probably isn't leftist (I'm arguing it is authoritarian and status-quo biased, for what it is worth - they'd pull all the same tricks on someone like Bernie Sanders if he had made it through the primary), it is politically active and spreading a lot of this "misinformation" stuff to try and keep Trump out of office. That is corrupt, and it shouldn't be working with Twitter like it is.

candybar 4y ago
So the big scandal here isn't that the FBI is implicitly threatening Twitter in a way that raises 1st Amendment concerns, but rather that the FBI is using public funds to help a social media company do its job. This has nothing to do with free speech and there's also no evidence the FBI's actions were motivated by partisan concerns. To me, it's rather clear that a bunch of people who are not particularly principled or have a strong understanding of the ethics or laws involved, but are prone to thinking that anyone working against their own agenda must be evil or nefarious in some ways, reverse-engineering their way into finding faults with how things more or less have always worked. This also isn't some nefarious hidden secret motivated by partisan concerns. Trump's own Director of FBI, Christopher Wray stated that Russia was attempting to interfere in the presidential election: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-security-idUSKCN1UI1XW https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-security-idU... > Russia is determined to interfere in U.S. elections despite sanctions and other efforts to deter such actions before the next presidential election in 2020, FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Tuesday. And he specifically told the public what the FBI is doing about this: https://time.com/5548544/russian-internet-trolls-strategies-2020-elections/ https://time.com/5548544/russian-internet-trolls-strategies-... > FBI Director Christopher Wray, speaking at the RSA Conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, said social media remains a primary avenue for foreign actors to influence U.S. elections, and the bureau is working with companies on the problem. > “What has continued virtually unabated and just intensifies during the election cycles is this malign foreign influence campaign, especially using social media,” Wray said. “That continues, and we’re gearing up for it to continue and grow again for 2020.”
- roenxi 4y ago
  Well, the scandal here is the FBI were rolling in, giving Twitter a list of random bystanders with the expectation that they will be silenced. US Federal government agencies are specifically not supposed to do that. All the stuff observing that the FBI is politically active (and has been pretty much since inception I suspect) is interesting but not really news. It is context for why they are supposed to avoid chummy relationships with Twitter's team of moderators. > Trump's own Director of FBI, Christopher Wray stated that Russia was attempting to interfere in the presidential election Yeah, but the Muller report came out around the time he said that and basically debunked the issue as a serious problem; raising the question of what exactly Wray was trying to stir up. He looks like part of the anti-Trump crowd that has been active in the FBI for the last few years.