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This is one paragraph that I thought was salient: In other words, the creeping merger of the national security state with Twitter doesn’t just bring up issues

by akolbe 4y ago

This is one paragraph that I thought was salient: In other words, the creeping merger of the national security state with Twitter doesn’t just bring up issues of political censorship. It also suggests that the website supposedly meant to be the “global public square” is being used as a geopolitical tool in the service of one government’s foreign policy interests. If it's true, then that is indeed a big deal, seen from an international perspective. (And it doesn't just affect Twitter, of course.)

smoldesu 4y ago
How is this news, though? The Snowden leaks, nearly a decade old at this point, directly highlighted the fact that the NSA and FBI personally oversee operations at Facebook, Twitter, and the rest of FAANG. Not only does the US know, but everyone does. If you're foolish enough to treat Twitter like a global public square, you deserve everything that's coming to you. That's just the way the free market works in it's current incarnation.
- akolbe 4y ago
  Well, as you say, the Snowden leaks are ten years old. It's good to have some more recent details. The result was a deluge of censorship requests from the FBI. The bureau, Taibbi reports, sent over “lists of hundreds of problem accounts” to Twitter executives, often so lengthy they came in the form of Excel spreadsheets, and “thousands of mostly domestic reports,” despite the fact that the FITF was meant to be focused on foreign influence.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    Maybe so, but how does that make any of this a "big deal"? Nothing new has been revealed, let alone any wrongdoing. Of course people aren't going to give a shit about the Twitter Files if their biggest revelation is the same one we dug up years ago.
  - moe091 4y ago
    I agree with that point, but this article basically just a report of one small piece of a huge issue we've known about for years, that so obviously encompasses both sides of the political spectrum, and tries to use it to make the left look bad. Which I agree, they do suck, for things like this and many others, but so does the right and the center and every other direction you can think of. This actively harms the progress in general social awareness made by Snowden, by reducing the issue to a single party who is no more responsible than the other party - as if we could fix it by voting out democrats. This article would be so much better if it were merely useless
    - akolbe 4y ago
      I agree that it is a bipartisan problem, but then I thought that was the exact point the article was trying to make: ... many things could change in the years ahead that make the existing status quo more perilous for leftists: Twitter could start hiring conservatives; it could overcorrect in the face of right-wing criticism, or buckle under mounting FBI pressure; national security agencies could embark on a fiercer crackdown of the Left; a Republican could return to the White House; or a GOP Congress could follow Democrats’ example and pressure tech firms to censor what conservatives consider dangerous speech, to name a few possibilities. The best defense against this is to start opposing these trends now, not when it’s too late. I didn't think they were trying to make the Left look bad. I thought they were trying to mobilise their fellow progressives, to get them to take an interest.
      - smoldesu 4y ago
        There's a simple misconception in the article that might help re-frame this: > The best defense against this is to start opposing these trends now, not when it’s too late. It is, ostensibly, too late. We had a chance to protest this, back when the roadmaps were leaking and government collaboration wasn't fully instated yet. But it wasn't just progressives who didn't care, conservatives also rolled over and let this happen. It's both a failure of the Free Market and our democratic process that this happens in the first place. The point is, now is a hell of a time to start getting mad at government intervention. We've proven that Twitter is a private platform that can be owned and traded like a deck of Pokemon cards. We've proven that every major social media company is in collusion with the government's surveillance agencies. Now, that people discover shadowbanning is a real thing, everyone is expecting riots in the street on behalf of Twitter's users. Really though, if you're lazy enough to stay on Twitter after the acquisition, you're probably not motivated enough to protest it's leadership. Here are three potential solutions to the problem you perceive: - Allow courts to compel private platforms to host free speech - Use the free market to develop a compelling alternative - Accept Twitter's corruption as a natural process of the free market

by akolbe 4y ago

smoldesu 4y ago

How is this news, though? The Snowden leaks, nearly a decade old at this point, directly highlighted the fact that the NSA and FBI personally oversee operations at Facebook, Twitter, and the rest of FAANG. Not only does the US know, but everyone does. If you're foolish enough to treat Twitter like a global public square, you deserve everything that's coming to you. That's just the way the free market works in it's current incarnation.

akolbe 4y ago
Well, as you say, the Snowden leaks are ten years old. It's good to have some more recent details. The result was a deluge of censorship requests from the FBI. The bureau, Taibbi reports, sent over “lists of hundreds of problem accounts” to Twitter executives, often so lengthy they came in the form of Excel spreadsheets, and “thousands of mostly domestic reports,” despite the fact that the FITF was meant to be focused on foreign influence.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  Maybe so, but how does that make any of this a "big deal"? Nothing new has been revealed, let alone any wrongdoing. Of course people aren't going to give a shit about the Twitter Files if their biggest revelation is the same one we dug up years ago.
- moe091 4y ago
  I agree with that point, but this article basically just a report of one small piece of a huge issue we've known about for years, that so obviously encompasses both sides of the political spectrum, and tries to use it to make the left look bad. Which I agree, they do suck, for things like this and many others, but so does the right and the center and every other direction you can think of. This actively harms the progress in general social awareness made by Snowden, by reducing the issue to a single party who is no more responsible than the other party - as if we could fix it by voting out democrats. This article would be so much better if it were merely useless
  - akolbe 4y ago
    I agree that it is a bipartisan problem, but then I thought that was the exact point the article was trying to make: ... many things could change in the years ahead that make the existing status quo more perilous for leftists: Twitter could start hiring conservatives; it could overcorrect in the face of right-wing criticism, or buckle under mounting FBI pressure; national security agencies could embark on a fiercer crackdown of the Left; a Republican could return to the White House; or a GOP Congress could follow Democrats’ example and pressure tech firms to censor what conservatives consider dangerous speech, to name a few possibilities. The best defense against this is to start opposing these trends now, not when it’s too late. I didn't think they were trying to make the Left look bad. I thought they were trying to mobilise their fellow progressives, to get them to take an interest.
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      There's a simple misconception in the article that might help re-frame this: > The best defense against this is to start opposing these trends now, not when it’s too late. It is, ostensibly, too late. We had a chance to protest this, back when the roadmaps were leaking and government collaboration wasn't fully instated yet. But it wasn't just progressives who didn't care, conservatives also rolled over and let this happen. It's both a failure of the Free Market and our democratic process that this happens in the first place. The point is, now is a hell of a time to start getting mad at government intervention. We've proven that Twitter is a private platform that can be owned and traded like a deck of Pokemon cards. We've proven that every major social media company is in collusion with the government's surveillance agencies. Now, that people discover shadowbanning is a real thing, everyone is expecting riots in the street on behalf of Twitter's users. Really though, if you're lazy enough to stay on Twitter after the acquisition, you're probably not motivated enough to protest it's leadership. Here are three potential solutions to the problem you perceive: - Allow courts to compel private platforms to host free speech - Use the free market to develop a compelling alternative - Accept Twitter's corruption as a natural process of the free market