4 ms·

All the responses from “left leaning” people claiming that this is all no big deal has fully cemented the notion that the left I signed up for is dead and gone.

All the responses from “left leaning” people claiming that this is all no big deal has fully cemented the notion that the left I signed up for is dead and gone. I thought free expression and not trusting the government and not trusting corporations and recognizing that when governments and corporations work together it’s almost always a bad thing for regular people. What the hell happened? How is this a nothingburger? The latest drop reveals that the pentagon was involved too, and it was using special access to promote US propaganda in the middle east. Now that it’s not about “hunter biden’s penis” anymore, can we start getting upset? I feel like I’m losing my mind! https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1605292454261182464 https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1605292454261182464

lostdog 4y ago
The Twitter files emphasized stupid things and ignored real issues, and that's why it's being treated as a nothingburger overall. The real issues are (1) What government requests are reasonable and what should Twitter respond to outside of subpoenas, and (2) Should certain groups, such as celebrities and political campaigns, have their review requests prioritized. However, the Twitter files are trying to convince you that Twitter threw the election to Biden, and that any moderation discussions are inappropriate. These are stupid and highly biased points of view. It's no wonder we cannot discuss it meaningfully. The Twitter files themselves poisoned the discussion. It's very similar to the lab leak theory? Should we check whether the virus had origins in a lab? Of course! However, the real question being asked by its store supporters is "Can we blame the Covid crisis on the scientific community, and also maybe democrats?" Again, how do you even address the important question when it's drowned out by a ludicrous and biased political question? That's the thing about the Twitter files. They almost purposefully sank their own message. It's so frustrating.
- colpabar 4y ago
  That’s not how I’ve interpreted the reporting on it so far. I haven’t read anything that explicitly claims twitter “threw the election” for biden, at least not in the actual twitter files. What I have read is that a lot of the moderation requests at the behest of the FBI were favorable to biden and democrats in general. Whether that swayed the election isn’t exactly clear, but the coverup happening right before the election makes it impossible to ignore. I also think you’re being a bit disingenuous and assuming bad faith from the get go. I’m sure there are tons of replies to the original tweets saying the things you’re claiming are being said, but the original tweets don’t make such bold claims. The main message I got from everything so far is that the feds had a lot of influence over twitters moderation decisions, from inside and out. As a leftist, I think that’s a bad thing. I do think that the hunter biden laptop story is a massive scandal and I detest how it’s been reframed as “it’s just dick pics bro.” That was a coverup of pretty clear cut corruption and it seems that the FBI ordered it, and I think that’s bad. I do really hate that they were forced to release this stuff on twitter, and I’m optimistically hoping that’s the main reason it isn’t being discussed as much as I think it should be. (I almost never click twitter links on hn.) It could absolutely have been done better and I know it’s just to drive traffic to the site. I’m hoping mainstream outlets actually cover it once everything has been released, but I’m pretty doubtful. Frustrating indeed.
  - cauthon 4y ago
    > What I have read is that a lot of the moderation requests at the behest of the FBI were favorable to biden and democrats in general. It sounds like you’re interpreting this as “the FBI colluded with twitter to influence the election,” when a more parsimonious interpretation might be “Democratic candidates received more violent rhetoric and domestic terror threats that warranted FBI involvement.”
  - evrydayhustling 4y ago
    > What I have read is that a lot of the moderation requests at the behest of the FBI were favorable to biden and democrats in general > That was a coverup of pretty clear cut corruption and it seems that the FBI ordered I just re-read files 7 and don't see them claim either of those things, let alone offer proof. There is a lot of insinuation - shared documents (content unknown), and an internal conversation with a guy who USED to be FBI. But no request from the FBI to suppress the story. In other circumstances the fact pattern might count for something. But when you have an owner with full access to company records trying desperately to make this a Thing, the absence of direct evidence is deafening. Why do multiple days of the dumps keep referencing public campaign contributions, when it would be easy for Twitter to demonstrate a bias in moderation requests quantitatively if it existed? Why focus on Baker if there were any direct requests from the FBI? The answer is obvious: the truth was boring enough that they had to rely on insinuation to spice it up. All of the leaked info before today is consistent with the public story: Twitter had policies for dealing with the confirmed threat of hack-and-plant interference, including channels for the government to share specific concerns. When a real situation came up, they had trouble figuring out what to do and discussed it. With all that said, I think this latest dump is newsworthy if not surprising. Everyone expects that tech companies have special policies for the government of the country they are based in, and that governments play psy-ops while decrying each others'. But it's still important to call them on it periodically.
- tanseydavid 4y ago
  No one said "threw the election." But "Election Interference" has been a very popular term in past few years and that seems to describe what was done quite accurately.
Dudelander 4y ago
All privately owned business work with the government. Ownership of private property means that armed people who work for the government will enforce your claim. If no government employees are enforcing your claim, then you don't actually own the thing you think you own. Businesses get favors from the government whenever they call the police or are involved in a lawsuit. They help the government when they pay taxes, and when they give information to the police. The BTK killer was busted because T-Mobile shared his information with the FBI. This was considered normal at the time, and is considered normal today. None of this should be surprising to anyone. It's how capitalism works. If you don't like capitalism that's fine, but you shouldn't be surprised when the capitalist country you live in does capitalism.
- colpabar 4y ago
  Ah my bad. I didn’t realize you understood my position better than I do. I’ll stop questioning things!
  - MrMan 4y ago
    I get it - you're just asking questions! we cant trust anyone right?
- wen_1k_btc 4y ago
  Thanks, I had never heard the follow up excuse that comes after "but Twitter is a private company, they can censor whomever they want" "well actually they were getting paid to censor whatever the government told them to" And a pivot to capitalism at the end too, nice
  - Dudelander 4y ago
    I think you're kind of playing dumb here, but I'll indulge. Private companies can censor whomever they want, and that has been the case as long as the US has existed. I'd prefer it if Twitter was more consistent about it, but that's just my opinion. The government never paid Twitter to censor anyone. The FBI paid Twitter 4 million as reimbursement for processing their information requests, and Twitter pushed back against a lot of those requests. Companies getting paid by the government is absolutely how capitalism works. Lockheed Martin and Boeing get trillions of dollars of government money to build weapons. SpaceX gets paid to launch satellites. Tesla gets paid to make electric cars. Hell Elon wouldn't be the (second) richest man in the world if it wasn't for our tax dollars. Nobody should be surprised by any of this. It's how our system has worked for over 250 years.

lostdog 4y ago

The Twitter files emphasized stupid things and ignored real issues, and that's why it's being treated as a nothingburger overall. The real issues are (1) What government requests are reasonable and what should Twitter respond to outside of subpoenas, and (2) Should certain groups, such as celebrities and political campaigns, have their review requests prioritized. However, the Twitter files are trying to convince you that Twitter threw the election to Biden, and that any moderation discussions are inappropriate. These are stupid and highly biased points of view. It's no wonder we cannot discuss it meaningfully. The Twitter files themselves poisoned the discussion. It's very similar to the lab leak theory? Should we check whether the virus had origins in a lab? Of course! However, the real question being asked by its store supporters is "Can we blame the Covid crisis on the scientific community, and also maybe democrats?" Again, how do you even address the important question when it's drowned out by a ludicrous and biased political question? That's the thing about the Twitter files. They almost purposefully sank their own message. It's so frustrating.

colpabar 4y ago
That’s not how I’ve interpreted the reporting on it so far. I haven’t read anything that explicitly claims twitter “threw the election” for biden, at least not in the actual twitter files. What I have read is that a lot of the moderation requests at the behest of the FBI were favorable to biden and democrats in general. Whether that swayed the election isn’t exactly clear, but the coverup happening right before the election makes it impossible to ignore. I also think you’re being a bit disingenuous and assuming bad faith from the get go. I’m sure there are tons of replies to the original tweets saying the things you’re claiming are being said, but the original tweets don’t make such bold claims. The main message I got from everything so far is that the feds had a lot of influence over twitters moderation decisions, from inside and out. As a leftist, I think that’s a bad thing. I do think that the hunter biden laptop story is a massive scandal and I detest how it’s been reframed as “it’s just dick pics bro.” That was a coverup of pretty clear cut corruption and it seems that the FBI ordered it, and I think that’s bad. I do really hate that they were forced to release this stuff on twitter, and I’m optimistically hoping that’s the main reason it isn’t being discussed as much as I think it should be. (I almost never click twitter links on hn.) It could absolutely have been done better and I know it’s just to drive traffic to the site. I’m hoping mainstream outlets actually cover it once everything has been released, but I’m pretty doubtful. Frustrating indeed.
- cauthon 4y ago
  > What I have read is that a lot of the moderation requests at the behest of the FBI were favorable to biden and democrats in general. It sounds like you’re interpreting this as “the FBI colluded with twitter to influence the election,” when a more parsimonious interpretation might be “Democratic candidates received more violent rhetoric and domestic terror threats that warranted FBI involvement.”
- evrydayhustling 4y ago
  > What I have read is that a lot of the moderation requests at the behest of the FBI were favorable to biden and democrats in general > That was a coverup of pretty clear cut corruption and it seems that the FBI ordered I just re-read files 7 and don't see them claim either of those things, let alone offer proof. There is a lot of insinuation - shared documents (content unknown), and an internal conversation with a guy who USED to be FBI. But no request from the FBI to suppress the story. In other circumstances the fact pattern might count for something. But when you have an owner with full access to company records trying desperately to make this a Thing, the absence of direct evidence is deafening. Why do multiple days of the dumps keep referencing public campaign contributions, when it would be easy for Twitter to demonstrate a bias in moderation requests quantitatively if it existed? Why focus on Baker if there were any direct requests from the FBI? The answer is obvious: the truth was boring enough that they had to rely on insinuation to spice it up. All of the leaked info before today is consistent with the public story: Twitter had policies for dealing with the confirmed threat of hack-and-plant interference, including channels for the government to share specific concerns. When a real situation came up, they had trouble figuring out what to do and discussed it. With all that said, I think this latest dump is newsworthy if not surprising. Everyone expects that tech companies have special policies for the government of the country they are based in, and that governments play psy-ops while decrying each others'. But it's still important to call them on it periodically.
tanseydavid 4y ago
No one said "threw the election." But "Election Interference" has been a very popular term in past few years and that seems to describe what was done quite accurately.

Dudelander 4y ago

All privately owned business work with the government. Ownership of private property means that armed people who work for the government will enforce your claim. If no government employees are enforcing your claim, then you don't actually own the thing you think you own. Businesses get favors from the government whenever they call the police or are involved in a lawsuit. They help the government when they pay taxes, and when they give information to the police. The BTK killer was busted because T-Mobile shared his information with the FBI. This was considered normal at the time, and is considered normal today. None of this should be surprising to anyone. It's how capitalism works. If you don't like capitalism that's fine, but you shouldn't be surprised when the capitalist country you live in does capitalism.

colpabar 4y ago
Ah my bad. I didn’t realize you understood my position better than I do. I’ll stop questioning things!
- MrMan 4y ago
  I get it - you're just asking questions! we cant trust anyone right?
wen_1k_btc 4y ago
Thanks, I had never heard the follow up excuse that comes after "but Twitter is a private company, they can censor whomever they want" "well actually they were getting paid to censor whatever the government told them to" And a pivot to capitalism at the end too, nice
- Dudelander 4y ago
  I think you're kind of playing dumb here, but I'll indulge. Private companies can censor whomever they want, and that has been the case as long as the US has existed. I'd prefer it if Twitter was more consistent about it, but that's just my opinion. The government never paid Twitter to censor anyone. The FBI paid Twitter 4 million as reimbursement for processing their information requests, and Twitter pushed back against a lot of those requests. Companies getting paid by the government is absolutely how capitalism works. Lockheed Martin and Boeing get trillions of dollars of government money to build weapons. SpaceX gets paid to launch satellites. Tesla gets paid to make electric cars. Hell Elon wouldn't be the (second) richest man in the world if it wasn't for our tax dollars. Nobody should be surprised by any of this. It's how our system has worked for over 250 years.