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I agree that specifics matter, but we don't need to argue about semantics. Thanks to the twitter files we know how this played out in practice. And it wasn't ho

by zachmu 3y ago

I agree that specifics matter, but we don't need to argue about semantics. Thanks to the twitter files we know how this played out in practice. And it wasn't how you're describing: it was federal agencies acting as de facto censors of Americans posting information they didn't like. This happened at scale, to hundreds of thousands of posts. That's what "contacting social media companies" is referring to here, and it's a disgusting euphemism on the part of NYT. https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/1607378386338340867 https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/1607378386338340867

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Thanks to the twitter files we know how this played out in practice. And it wasn't how you're describing: it was federal agencies acting as de facto censors Sorry, where in the Twitter files did it show this? What I saw was campaigns on both sides giving Twitter feedback, and then Twitter employees independently deliberating.
- vundercind 3y ago
  I’ve seen a few cases from that and they absolutely looked like agencies pointing things out and sometimes Twitter’d go “oh yeah, that’s bad and against our TOS” and take action, and other times they’d go “nah, it’s ok” and… not take action. Also curious to see if there’s evidence that what I’ve seen were outliers rather than the norm, and in fact Twitter was normally just doing whatever was asked of them even if it wasn’t actually a clear violation of Twitter’s rules being pointed out.
- VectorLock 3y ago
  There seemed to be a lot of confusion between "govt brought something to companies attention" and "Jack Booted Thugs neck squeezed social media company to censor for them."
  - vundercind 3y ago
    Everything I’ve seen from the Twitter Files makes it look like nothing bad was going on. It’s done the opposite of making me believe there’s a scandal being exposed. “Oh, that’s the worst that was ‘uncovered’? Cool, glad everything was actually fine.” Wild how the same primary source can be taken so completely differently by different sets of people.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > how the same primary source Very few people looked at the primary source.
  - zachmu 3y ago
    The federal government just pointedly asked why certain users haven't been kicked off the platform, what's the big deal https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/1607383214452080647 https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/1607383214452080647 They're just angrily berating tech companies that aren't aggressive enough in their censorship, what's the big deal https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/1607383819287515137 https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/1607383819287515137 I'm sorry, I object in the strongest possible terms to characterizing the USG's involvement with social media to be "bringing something to their attention". They are not some friendly internet anon or third-party researchers, they are state agencies with the power to make life very difficult for any company they decide isn't compliant enough.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      Thank you for the link. That does strike me as inappropriate (if not quite coercive). > power to make life very difficult for any company they decide isn't compliant enough This is what I don’t see evidence of. (Take Twitter/X in its current form.) Reading those messages, I see employees at Twitter who are ideologically aligned with the President acting a little too chummily in restricting someone’s speech. Twitter wasn’t doing anything it didn’t want to do.
    - jcranmer 3y ago
      In First Amendment jurisprudence, there is a very specific bar as to when government involvement becomes unconstitutional coercive state action. That bar requires direction from the government and a (potentially implicit) threat of government action or retaliation if compliance is not met. Bellyaching about what a company or individual doing doesn't meet that bar, otherwise pretty much every single congressional hearing would be illegal. As far as I'm aware, no one has yet produced any evidence that the US government reached that bar with respect to Twitter. There's definitely been several lawsuits that have attempted to allege this--and some where the judges tried to push the plaintiffs to actually properly allege this--but nothing has ever stuck, primarily because everyone filing these suits seem to think that the government looking in a social media company's direction somehow makes it automatically a First Amendment violation.

by zachmu 3y ago

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> Thanks to the twitter files we know how this played out in practice. And it wasn't how you're describing: it was federal agencies acting as de facto censors Sorry, where in the Twitter files did it show this? What I saw was campaigns on both sides giving Twitter feedback, and then Twitter employees independently deliberating.

vundercind 3y ago
I’ve seen a few cases from that and they absolutely looked like agencies pointing things out and sometimes Twitter’d go “oh yeah, that’s bad and against our TOS” and take action, and other times they’d go “nah, it’s ok” and… not take action. Also curious to see if there’s evidence that what I’ve seen were outliers rather than the norm, and in fact Twitter was normally just doing whatever was asked of them even if it wasn’t actually a clear violation of Twitter’s rules being pointed out.
VectorLock 3y ago
There seemed to be a lot of confusion between "govt brought something to companies attention" and "Jack Booted Thugs neck squeezed social media company to censor for them."
- vundercind 3y ago
  Everything I’ve seen from the Twitter Files makes it look like nothing bad was going on. It’s done the opposite of making me believe there’s a scandal being exposed. “Oh, that’s the worst that was ‘uncovered’? Cool, glad everything was actually fine.” Wild how the same primary source can be taken so completely differently by different sets of people.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > how the same primary source Very few people looked at the primary source.
- zachmu 3y ago
  The federal government just pointedly asked why certain users haven't been kicked off the platform, what's the big deal https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/1607383214452080647 https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/1607383214452080647 They're just angrily berating tech companies that aren't aggressive enough in their censorship, what's the big deal https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/1607383819287515137 https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/1607383819287515137 I'm sorry, I object in the strongest possible terms to characterizing the USG's involvement with social media to be "bringing something to their attention". They are not some friendly internet anon or third-party researchers, they are state agencies with the power to make life very difficult for any company they decide isn't compliant enough.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    Thank you for the link. That does strike me as inappropriate (if not quite coercive). > power to make life very difficult for any company they decide isn't compliant enough This is what I don’t see evidence of. (Take Twitter/X in its current form.) Reading those messages, I see employees at Twitter who are ideologically aligned with the President acting a little too chummily in restricting someone’s speech. Twitter wasn’t doing anything it didn’t want to do.
  - jcranmer 3y ago
    In First Amendment jurisprudence, there is a very specific bar as to when government involvement becomes unconstitutional coercive state action. That bar requires direction from the government and a (potentially implicit) threat of government action or retaliation if compliance is not met. Bellyaching about what a company or individual doing doesn't meet that bar, otherwise pretty much every single congressional hearing would be illegal. As far as I'm aware, no one has yet produced any evidence that the US government reached that bar with respect to Twitter. There's definitely been several lawsuits that have attempted to allege this--and some where the judges tried to push the plaintiffs to actually properly allege this--but nothing has ever stuck, primarily because everyone filing these suits seem to think that the government looking in a social media company's direction somehow makes it automatically a First Amendment violation.