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It's very different from Watergate! The Watergate scandal involved the U.S. government, which is accountable to its citizens, and this is about a privately held

by psawaya 17y ago

It's very different from Watergate! The Watergate scandal involved the U.S. government, which is accountable to its citizens, and this is about a privately held company, accountable only to itself and its investors. Also, the Deep Throat information helped reveal a major violation of federal law. This kind of information (according to TC themselves) would only be useful to Twitter's competitors. With that said, I still can't help but be curious. It'll be interesting to see how all of this plays out, and if some of the documents do end up released to the public, I'll probably cave and check up on the juicy tech gossip.

lucumo 17y ago
> a privately held company, accountable only to itself and its investors. Well, no. Companies are also accountable to their customers and to society. If they were dumping large amounts of toxics into rivers, that's something society has a stake in and where the company is accountable to it. If Twitter were to sell access to protected updates, that's something their users need to know. If they were doing so illegally, that's something that society must know. It all depends on the information that will be revealed whether or not it's ethical. I'm inclined to not give an "unethical" verdict too quickly. TC is at least caring about individual persons that may be damaged by the revealing of some information.
- ahoyhere 17y ago
  Have you paid Twitter money lately? Then you're not a customer... Govt comparisons fail -- this is Twitter. Dumping toxic waste comparisons fail -- this is Twitter. Likelihood that Twitter is organized enough to sell access to private messages, or any actual saleable product? Extremely low.
- psawaya 17y ago
  I agree with you about the customers needing to know about Twitter selling private data, but the TC article mentioned nothing about any nefarious going on inside of Twitter. I'm sure they'd be more than happy to be a whistleblower, but in this case, publishing those docs would amount only to gossip. And that's why this is a totally different situation from Watergate.

by psawaya 17y ago

lucumo 17y ago

> a privately held company, accountable only to itself and its investors. Well, no. Companies are also accountable to their customers and to society. If they were dumping large amounts of toxics into rivers, that's something society has a stake in and where the company is accountable to it. If Twitter were to sell access to protected updates, that's something their users need to know. If they were doing so illegally, that's something that society must know. It all depends on the information that will be revealed whether or not it's ethical. I'm inclined to not give an "unethical" verdict too quickly. TC is at least caring about individual persons that may be damaged by the revealing of some information.

ahoyhere 17y ago
Have you paid Twitter money lately? Then you're not a customer... Govt comparisons fail -- this is Twitter. Dumping toxic waste comparisons fail -- this is Twitter. Likelihood that Twitter is organized enough to sell access to private messages, or any actual saleable product? Extremely low.
psawaya 17y ago
I agree with you about the customers needing to know about Twitter selling private data, but the TC article mentioned nothing about any nefarious going on inside of Twitter. I'm sure they'd be more than happy to be a whistleblower, but in this case, publishing those docs would amount only to gossip. And that's why this is a totally different situation from Watergate.