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That's literally a fishing expedition that could be exploited to harvest information on whoever one likes. It's the reason our legal system requires a substanti

That's literally a fishing expedition that could be exploited to harvest information on whoever one likes. It's the reason our legal system requires a substantial burden of evidence before one can even think of pursuing a warrant. I mean seriously think about the implications of your concept here. X is a worldwide service. Should X just be an information broker dealing out the details on users to any country that makes claims as nebulous as 'foreign influence'? It's a term which can be (and often is) whimsically applied to essentially anybody who happens to disagree with some regime in a given country.

aredox 1y ago
X is already doing it with India and many other countries, so your argument is nul. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/08/india-twitter-online-censorship/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/08/india-twitte...
- somenameforme 1y ago
  The situations seem unrelated. There's a much more informative article on what's happening in India here. [1] India is censoring accounts in India which X complies with by making it clear that's what is happening as well as providing information to the user on how to legally challenge it. France, by contrast, seems to be making poorly defined and largely unfalsifiable claims about X's algorithm itself. I do not believe X would comply if a country began demanding algorithmic changes, as the main reason you'd go after the algorithm is to enact censorship with no transparency, which is very much in the spirit of contemporary French politics. [1] - https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/elon-musks-x-says-deeply-concerned-about-press-censorship-in-india-after-reuters-accounts-blocked-101751973948445.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/elon-musks-x-says-...
  - aredox 1y ago
    Of course it is falsifiable, that is why they ask to review what is the algorithm, what was changed and why. Given how mercurial Musk is, you can be sure that he's asked his team to bias the algo - not least to boost himself. Again, perfectly demonstrable in a factual way. X already complies with Germany's ban on nazi material. If that's not an lagorithmic change, what is? >which is very much in the spirit of contemporary French politics. Put your own (glass)house in order. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/19/us-free-speech-rights-trump https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/19/us-free-spee...
    - somenameforme 1y ago
      You're again describing something where there is straight forward censorship. This is relatively easily done without algorithmic changes and enables X to provide complete transparency to the user about the censorship, as well as any legal recourse or other options a user might have. France, instead, wants the algorithm to promote material in a certain way which is radically different, and can be utilized to censor things without any accountability or transparency. As for falsifiability, proving a negative is generally impossible. This is how witch trials were able to be successful. You can't really prove you aren't a witch, when the person accusing you already assumes that you are. This is why the burden of proof is on the person making accusations, as opposed to 'Let me go into your house and see if I can find anything that I might be able to use as evidence to justify my hunch that you're a witch. Ah hah, I found a dead frog! Burn the witch!'
      - aredox 1y ago
        >can be utilized to censor things without any accountability or transparency What is the current accountability or transparency of the X algorithm? Ah yes, Musk promised to make it public, and... it hasn't been updated in two years. https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm And clearly, the promotion of Musk's tweets on everyone's timeline is completely organic. >This is why the burden of proof is on the person making accusations Yeah, this is all a WITCH HUNT! No justice department has ever done any investigation in the history of humanity, warrants don't exist, people are only judged by what is publicly known without police ever seizing any private material. WITCH HUNT! Go back to truth social, mister President.
        somenameforme 1y ago
        There is obviously no accountability for social media algorithms, anywhere. Facebook/Instagram/YouTube are conspicuously algorithmically downranking (and on occasion overtly censoring) pro-Palestinian content, but the political establishment in Western bloc nations don't care, because they don't want unbiased algorithms - they want algorithms that are biased to push their issues of the day. And Elon is being followed by some 220 million+ people. That's a not insubstantial chunk of the entire human race, let alone the subset of X users. It's unsurprising that his comments would end up highly promoted by most of any algorithm that significantly weights account popularity, which all do - excepting perhaps TikTok. To get a warrant you need to present strong probable cause to a judge - not liking what is being promoted would not suffice.
polotics 1y ago
"Should X just be an information broker dealing out the details on users to any country that makes claims as nebulous as 'foreign influence'?" Yes. A poster that specifically tries to influence a French elections with false statements is breaking French law wherever and whoever they are.
- somenameforme 1y ago
  So should X give information to Iran on any Jewish account it suspects of engaging in "foreign influence"? How about to Russia on any Ukraine account, or vice versa? What about to everywhere else in the world and information on US accounts some country somewhere suspects of engaging in "foreign influence"? Somehow rules seem to no longer apply when we start consider them being applied against our interests. This is a big part of the reason why the 'rules based order' is now mostly just sardonic mockery.

aredox 1y ago

X is already doing it with India and many other countries, so your argument is nul. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/08/india-twitter-online-censorship/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/08/india-twitte...

somenameforme 1y ago
The situations seem unrelated. There's a much more informative article on what's happening in India here. [1] India is censoring accounts in India which X complies with by making it clear that's what is happening as well as providing information to the user on how to legally challenge it. France, by contrast, seems to be making poorly defined and largely unfalsifiable claims about X's algorithm itself. I do not believe X would comply if a country began demanding algorithmic changes, as the main reason you'd go after the algorithm is to enact censorship with no transparency, which is very much in the spirit of contemporary French politics. [1] - https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/elon-musks-x-says-deeply-concerned-about-press-censorship-in-india-after-reuters-accounts-blocked-101751973948445.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/elon-musks-x-says-...
- aredox 1y ago
  Of course it is falsifiable, that is why they ask to review what is the algorithm, what was changed and why. Given how mercurial Musk is, you can be sure that he's asked his team to bias the algo - not least to boost himself. Again, perfectly demonstrable in a factual way. X already complies with Germany's ban on nazi material. If that's not an lagorithmic change, what is? >which is very much in the spirit of contemporary French politics. Put your own (glass)house in order. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/19/us-free-speech-rights-trump https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/19/us-free-spee...
  - somenameforme 1y ago
    You're again describing something where there is straight forward censorship. This is relatively easily done without algorithmic changes and enables X to provide complete transparency to the user about the censorship, as well as any legal recourse or other options a user might have. France, instead, wants the algorithm to promote material in a certain way which is radically different, and can be utilized to censor things without any accountability or transparency. As for falsifiability, proving a negative is generally impossible. This is how witch trials were able to be successful. You can't really prove you aren't a witch, when the person accusing you already assumes that you are. This is why the burden of proof is on the person making accusations, as opposed to 'Let me go into your house and see if I can find anything that I might be able to use as evidence to justify my hunch that you're a witch. Ah hah, I found a dead frog! Burn the witch!'
    - aredox 1y ago
      >can be utilized to censor things without any accountability or transparency What is the current accountability or transparency of the X algorithm? Ah yes, Musk promised to make it public, and... it hasn't been updated in two years. https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm And clearly, the promotion of Musk's tweets on everyone's timeline is completely organic. >This is why the burden of proof is on the person making accusations Yeah, this is all a WITCH HUNT! No justice department has ever done any investigation in the history of humanity, warrants don't exist, people are only judged by what is publicly known without police ever seizing any private material. WITCH HUNT! Go back to truth social, mister President.
      - somenameforme 1y ago
        There is obviously no accountability for social media algorithms, anywhere. Facebook/Instagram/YouTube are conspicuously algorithmically downranking (and on occasion overtly censoring) pro-Palestinian content, but the political establishment in Western bloc nations don't care, because they don't want unbiased algorithms - they want algorithms that are biased to push their issues of the day. And Elon is being followed by some 220 million+ people. That's a not insubstantial chunk of the entire human race, let alone the subset of X users. It's unsurprising that his comments would end up highly promoted by most of any algorithm that significantly weights account popularity, which all do - excepting perhaps TikTok. To get a warrant you need to present strong probable cause to a judge - not liking what is being promoted would not suffice.

polotics 1y ago

"Should X just be an information broker dealing out the details on users to any country that makes claims as nebulous as 'foreign influence'?" Yes. A poster that specifically tries to influence a French elections with false statements is breaking French law wherever and whoever they are.

somenameforme 1y ago
So should X give information to Iran on any Jewish account it suspects of engaging in "foreign influence"? How about to Russia on any Ukraine account, or vice versa? What about to everywhere else in the world and information on US accounts some country somewhere suspects of engaging in "foreign influence"? Somehow rules seem to no longer apply when we start consider them being applied against our interests. This is a big part of the reason why the 'rules based order' is now mostly just sardonic mockery.