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> I think gutting the teams was the correct move If you don't trust the previous teams, then fire them and hire new people. Firing these teams and leaving them

> I think gutting the teams was the correct move If you don't trust the previous teams, then fire them and hire new people. Firing these teams and leaving them gutted was definitely not the correct move. If you're worried about the effectiveness of your current fire department, the solution is not to stop having a fire department, it's to get a better one. ---- Going after the legal team in particular is a little strange, because you can call out Twitter's upper management, moderation teams, and policy stakeholders as lacking nuance/neutrality, but Twitter's lawyers were arguably the best free-speech advocates in the room. They challenged government/police orders to unmask users, went to court on behalf of users during lawsuits. They were good at their jobs. If there was any team you were going to keep to help you push back against government requests, it probably would have been the lawyers. ---- But it goes back to -- it doesn't seem like Musk is actually interested in building effective structures to support free speech, it seems like his interest begins and ends with complaining about the existing structures. Hire whoever you want, but having a shoestring moderation/legal team at Twitter will make these problems worse.

phpisthebest 4y ago
How do you know that did not happen? I know for sure the consolidated and moved around positions. Just because the people salty they got fired from their job due to poor performance, and political basis does not mean they did not put people in those positions. Personally I think the platform is better today. The most "journalist" scream about it being unsafe the more I believe Elon is doing a great job, because I do not trust anyone at Washington Post, NyTimes, NBC, CBS, CNN, or any other major main stream propaganda source, and I trust even less their politically baised "research" non-profits. >but Twitter's lawyers were arguably the best free-speech advocates in the room. No they were not, the most recent one fired was literally former FBI. Under what basis to you believe Twitters lawyers were the "best free-speech advocates". they are for "free speech" the same way the modern ACLU is, only if you have the "correct" speech >>They challenged government/police orders to unmask users, went to court on behalf of users during lawsuits. They were good at their jobs. Sorry that does not make you the best free-speech advocates. >>Hire whoever you want, but having a shoestring moderation/legal team at Twitter will make these problems worse. If you listen to the people that took over from the ones that were fired it seems like the former Management was not providing money and resources for real enforcement for things like CSAM, instead were more worried about suppressing political speech and carrying the water for one political party.
- danShumway 4y ago
  > How do you know that did not happen? Because Twitter's staff numbers are public? What are you talking about, are you going to try and claim that Twitter has the same number of moderators now that it used to? It doesn't. This is not something that's debatable, Twitter's moderation teams today are smaller than they were before he took over the company. > Under what basis to you believe Twitters lawyers were the "best free-speech advocates". [...] Sorry that does not make you the best free-speech advocates. It's a heck of a lot more practical and useful than just complaining about it. They did what lawyers are supposed to do, they showed up in court and defended free speech rights. Twitter's lawyers took on government cases and challenged police orders that other social media companies would have rolled over and accepted -- in particular around the right to anonymity and parody. This is important foundational stuff that free speech rights online are built on. But again, if Musk disagrees, more power to him. It's not a problem for Musk to hire different lawyers, the problem is that he hasn't really done that. The most he's done is brought over some lawyers from Tesla that are essentially doing double-duty now, but he doesn't seem to have built a legal team that's centered around specifically defending free speech rights for users or challenging government requests. ---- > If you listen to the people that took over from the ones that were fired it seems like the former Management was not providing money and resources for real enforcement for things like CSAM See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Musk makes a big deal about this stuff, but he has literally just gutted these teams. There are way fewer moderators right now on Twitter looking for CSAM, and Musk is leaning into automated/contracted moderation to try and fill in the gaps -- which pretty much everyone dealing with child safety agrees is not a sufficient approach for this kind of moderation. He's dropped CSAM teams for some countries down to the single-digits of workers. Musk has criticisms about the amount of resources that Twitter was devoting to CSAM. But his response isn't to increase those resources. His policy seems to be that if you say something is important, it just magically gets better because you say you care about it. But it doesn't, you have to actually put work into it and devote resources to making it better. The CSAM example is just so wild to me, because it's such a clear example of Musk criticizing Twitter for something and then doubling down and doing the same thing to an even greater degree. ---- > Personally I think the platform is better today. Good for you, but this is a wildly simplistic take on free speech. It undermines legitimate conversations about real problems Twitter had with moderation in the past to simplify the issue down to "he banned some journalists I don't like and let some right-wing people back on the platform." Structurally, he's not really doing anything. He's just gutting teams and complaining about the way they used to run.

phpisthebest 4y ago

How do you know that did not happen? I know for sure the consolidated and moved around positions. Just because the people salty they got fired from their job due to poor performance, and political basis does not mean they did not put people in those positions. Personally I think the platform is better today. The most "journalist" scream about it being unsafe the more I believe Elon is doing a great job, because I do not trust anyone at Washington Post, NyTimes, NBC, CBS, CNN, or any other major main stream propaganda source, and I trust even less their politically baised "research" non-profits. >but Twitter's lawyers were arguably the best free-speech advocates in the room. No they were not, the most recent one fired was literally former FBI. Under what basis to you believe Twitters lawyers were the "best free-speech advocates". they are for "free speech" the same way the modern ACLU is, only if you have the "correct" speech >>They challenged government/police orders to unmask users, went to court on behalf of users during lawsuits. They were good at their jobs. Sorry that does not make you the best free-speech advocates. >>Hire whoever you want, but having a shoestring moderation/legal team at Twitter will make these problems worse. If you listen to the people that took over from the ones that were fired it seems like the former Management was not providing money and resources for real enforcement for things like CSAM, instead were more worried about suppressing political speech and carrying the water for one political party.

danShumway 4y ago
> How do you know that did not happen? Because Twitter's staff numbers are public? What are you talking about, are you going to try and claim that Twitter has the same number of moderators now that it used to? It doesn't. This is not something that's debatable, Twitter's moderation teams today are smaller than they were before he took over the company. > Under what basis to you believe Twitters lawyers were the "best free-speech advocates". [...] Sorry that does not make you the best free-speech advocates. It's a heck of a lot more practical and useful than just complaining about it. They did what lawyers are supposed to do, they showed up in court and defended free speech rights. Twitter's lawyers took on government cases and challenged police orders that other social media companies would have rolled over and accepted -- in particular around the right to anonymity and parody. This is important foundational stuff that free speech rights online are built on. But again, if Musk disagrees, more power to him. It's not a problem for Musk to hire different lawyers, the problem is that he hasn't really done that. The most he's done is brought over some lawyers from Tesla that are essentially doing double-duty now, but he doesn't seem to have built a legal team that's centered around specifically defending free speech rights for users or challenging government requests. ---- > If you listen to the people that took over from the ones that were fired it seems like the former Management was not providing money and resources for real enforcement for things like CSAM See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Musk makes a big deal about this stuff, but he has literally just gutted these teams. There are way fewer moderators right now on Twitter looking for CSAM, and Musk is leaning into automated/contracted moderation to try and fill in the gaps -- which pretty much everyone dealing with child safety agrees is not a sufficient approach for this kind of moderation. He's dropped CSAM teams for some countries down to the single-digits of workers. Musk has criticisms about the amount of resources that Twitter was devoting to CSAM. But his response isn't to increase those resources. His policy seems to be that if you say something is important, it just magically gets better because you say you care about it. But it doesn't, you have to actually put work into it and devote resources to making it better. The CSAM example is just so wild to me, because it's such a clear example of Musk criticizing Twitter for something and then doubling down and doing the same thing to an even greater degree. ---- > Personally I think the platform is better today. Good for you, but this is a wildly simplistic take on free speech. It undermines legitimate conversations about real problems Twitter had with moderation in the past to simplify the issue down to "he banned some journalists I don't like and let some right-wing people back on the platform." Structurally, he's not really doing anything. He's just gutting teams and complaining about the way they used to run.