On Tuesday morning, former politician Tulsi Gabbard, who had to have the 1st Amendment clearly explained to her by a judge after she filed a ridiculous lawsuit to restrict the free speech of others, announced that she had cut a deal with Elon Musk to bring a “news show” to ExTwitter. Hilariously, she claimed that she did this because “freedom of speech is a fundamental right in America” (again, a court had to teach her what that meant not that long ago).
At around the exact same time, “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk was busy banning a bunch of reporters from ExTwitter for saying things that upset him and his pal Bill Ackman.
The social media platform gave no explanation for the sudden purge, saying only that the accounts “violate the X rules.” The X rules prohibit violent or hateful speech, child exploitation, private information sharing, and fake information.
But the accounts in question do not post that kind of content. The reporters who were banned include Steven Monacelli, a journalist at the Texas Observer who covers extremism, and Ken Klippenstein, who covers national security for The Intercept. Last year, Klippenstein published a piece on the errors with Tesla’s self-driving feature, and Monacelli noted that X shadow-banned the Intercept author since then.
MintPress News reporter Alan MacLeod, who recently has extensively covered Israel’s approach to the war in Gaza, and leftist podcaster Rob Rousseau were also suspended Tuesday.
The accounts for @liamnissan, @zei_squirrel, and the TrueAnon podcast were suspended, as well. The @liamnissan account posts mostly comedic commentary, including criticisms of Musk. The TrueAnon podcast provides left-wing analysis of current political events and conspiracy theories.
The @zei_squirrel account is another left-leaning commentator who has been critical of Musk in the past. In a post on their Substack Tuesday, the @zei_squirrel writer noted that they had recently begun to criticize Bill Ackman, a hedge fund billionaire and friend of Musk’s who helped lead the campaign against former Harvard University President Claudine Gay. Ackman’s wife was recently accused of plagiarism, the same charge that brought down Gay.
For what it’s worth Ackman has been going on a bit of a bender lately following the accusations of plagiarism against his wife. He’s been making up nonsense about how in the “early days” of 2009 no one thought there was anything wrong with straight up copying Wikipedia without attribution, which is just wrong. Wikipedia uses a CreativeCommons Attribution-ShareAlike license, which means it expects “attribution.” And was not, in any way, in the early days in 2009.
Still, Ackman, who helped push the witch hunt against Claudine Gay over her speech, and who is now threatening to file a laughably bogus SLAPP defamation suit against Business Insider for reporting on his wife’s alleged plagiarism — suggesting his support for “free speech” is a bit questionable as well — also falsely claims that Elon Musk is somehow a supporter of free speech. I mean, the content excerpted in two separate tweets just days apart is something else (I’d post screenshots of the tweets, but Ackman uses ExTwitter like it’s a blog and posts what appear to be trillion-word tweets.)
So, first he claims (falsely) that because MIT’s integrity handbook didn’t explicitly call out Wikipedia until 2013, it was okay to copy text directly from Wikipedia until then, and that this might somehow be defamatory (it is absolutely not):
To be clear, Neri did not use Wikipedia as a source, but only for the definitions of 15 words and/or terms for her dissertation.
While there was no way for us to do this research in the 91 minutes we were given before Business Insider published its story, our lawyers found it in about 24 hours.
This finding wipes away 15, or more than half of the plagiarism claims made by Business Insider at 5:19pm last Friday night.
According to the Cornell Law Legal Information Institute: In order to prove “prima facie defamation,” “a plaintiff must show four things: 1) a false statement purporting to be fact; 2) publication or communication of that statement to a third person; 3) fault amounting to at least negligence; and 4) damages, or some harm caused to the reputation of the person or entity who is the subject of the statement.”
This leads me to a few question for the @X legal community. If you look at all of the evidence that has emerged over the last few days, do you think Neri has been defamed under the four factor test above?
As multiple people pointed out to him in response, the actual standard for defamation of a public figure is actual malice, and he claims (again, not understanding the law) that because his wife is “an intensely private person” that makes her not a public figure, which is also… not how any of this works.
Anyway, just days earlier, Ackman went on a different rant (also about his wife) in which he concludes two ponderously long tweets that no one actually read in full with:
Lastly, if X was not independently controlled and governed by a free speech absolutist, Neri and I would not have had the ability to respond in a rapid fashion in a public forum where free speech is allowed, encouraged, and respected. I would also not have had the ability to reach millions of people with what I believe are important messages.
And I would not have been able to be nearly as effective in my campaign to help save the higher education system in our country, and I represent just one of hundreds of millions of grateful users.
So thank you @elonmusk !!! and thank you @lindayaX for holding strong
And, the two “free speech absolutists” are pushing each other to file a lawsuit to silence free speech they dislike:
Eventually, Elon unbanned the accounts after a nonsense peddler asked him what was happening, and Elon promised “to investigate.” He later claimed that they “do sweeps for spam/scam accounts and sometimes real accounts get caught up in them.”
Of course, this is what plenty of people (such as myself) pointed out about mistakes that were made in the past under Twitter’s old management, and people like Elon insisted that it couldn’t possibly be mistakes, and was all about ideological censorship.
The simple fact is, any platform has to do some level of moderation, and as soon as you do that, you’re going to make mistakes. I’d give Elon and ExTwitter the benefit of the doubt that this was just a mistake if (a) he had done that to previous management, though he did not and (b) if the accounts in question weren’t all found to have recently criticized Elon and/or Bill Ackman.
Given Elon’s own unwillingness to give the benefit of the doubt to others, why should we give him the benefit of the doubt here?
Either way, Elon is free to do whatever he wants on his platform. But absolutely no one should be under the illusion that what he’s doing has anything even remotely related to “defending free speech.” He is making decisions based on his own personal whims and foibles, which includes an extraordinarily warped sense of free speech that permits suing critics.
Israeli malware developer NSO Group found itself the subject of international headlines a couple of years ago. Not the good kind either. A leaked document apparently showed who was being targeted by the company’s cell phone exploits — a long, disturbing list that contained journalists, lawyers, activists, dissidents, religious leaders, and plenty of politicians.
The months following that initial leak have been even less kind to NSO. To be fair, NSO deserved every bit of this backlash since it had spent several years courting the business of some of the most abusive governments in the world.
NSO is pretty much out of the malware business at the moment, but even if it chooses to get back at it, it will be an extremely uphill battle. It’s been sanctioned, sued, and the subject of multiple investigations by governments apparently shocked to discover they themselves have been maliciously deploying malicious software.
India is one of several countries to open an investigation into NSO and possible use of its phone exploits. This investigation was actually opened by the nation’s top court, which has already been told by the Modi government that it’s not interested in cooperating with the Supreme Court’s inquiry. And the government still wants surveillance tech to (presumably) abuse. But, for the moment, it’s not interested in purchasing it from NSO Group.
Factoring into this latest news is a move Apple made after these revelations about NSO. It sued NSO towards the end of 2021 — a lawsuit that came with a new notification program attached. Apple stated it would notify any users it suspected to be targeted by state-sponsored hacking attempts. It made good on this promise almost immediately, notifying a Polish prosecutor that their phone had been subjected to hacking attempts. Many more notifications soon followed, with the company notifying victims in Thailand, El Salvador, and Uganda.
All of that has added up to this: the government of India being super-pissed Apple is letting people know state-sponsored hackers are trying to access their devices. Gerry Shih and Joseph Menn, reporting for the Washington Post, have the details:
A day after Apple warned independent Indian journalists and opposition party politicians in October that government hackers may have tried to break into their iPhones, officials under Prime Minister Narendra Modi promptly took action — against Apple.
Officials from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) publicly questioned whether the Silicon Valley company’s internal threat algorithms were faulty and announced an investigation into the security of Apple devices.
Understandably, it’s embarrassing getting caught doing the sorts of things people already suspect you of doing. But rather than say something useful — like the government will be looking into this to see if this is a misuse of the tech — the Modi government chose to accuse Apple of being incompetent and place it under investigation instead.
According to anonymous Modi administration officials, the government is placing a ton of pressure on Apple’s India reps to come up with an alternative to the notification program and/or the notifications themselves. Apparently, the government believes the notifications are having a negative “political impact.” Again, rather than alter its tactics, it’s pressuring Apple India reps to alter theirs. They’re seeking alternative wording that might suggest the Modi government has a better reason for hacking phones than simply to spy on people who aren’t fans of Modi or his administration.
That’s going to be a tough sell. The facts speak for themselves.
Many of the more than 20 people who received Apple’s warnings at the end of October have been publicly critical of Modi or his longtime ally, Gautam Adani, an Indian energy and infrastructure tycoon.
Things look even worse when you take a look at which journalists were apparently targeted by state-sponsored hacking:
Of the journalists who received notifications, two stood out: Anand Mangnale and Ravi Nair of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a nonprofit alliance of dozens of independent, investigative newsrooms from around the world.
If the Modi administration wanted to draw attention away from its abusive tactics and alleged corruption, it couldn’t have picked a worse way to do it. Thanks to Apple’s notification program, the entire world now has a clearer picture of how (and why) the Indian government deploys phone exploits. And the malware detected on Mangnale’s phone was none other than NSO Group’s flagship product: Pegasus.
NSO did respond to requests for comment from the Washington Post, but as usual, its contribution to the discussion was less than useful. Once again, NSO stressed it only sells to governments and only for the purposes of combating terrorism and “major crimes.” But this part of the statement is even more useless than the usual stuff NSO says when yet another report shows even more abusive deployments of its spyware.
“The company’s policies and contracts provide mechanisms to avoid targeting of journalists, lawyers and human rights defenders or political dissidents that are not involved in terror or serious crimes.”
“Provide” all the “mechanisms” you want, but it doesn’t actually prevent anyone from targeting the kind of people who shouldn’t be targeted by governments that bought malware and agreed to use it to fight terrorism and “major crime.” The correct response would be to terminate contracts and refuse to sell to governments caught abusing the tech. The incorrect response would be… well, pretty much everything NSO has done since the leak blew the lid off its plausible deniability.
It’s pretty easy to tell a powerful foreign government to fuck off from Cupertino, California. But things are far less simple for those having to deal with Indian government officials face-to-face. The Apple reps located in India appear to have been intimidated into at least some level of cooperation with the government’s preferred narrative.
Apple India soon sent out emails observing that it could have made mistakes and that “detecting such attacks relies on threat intelligence signals that are often imperfect and incomplete.”
But that appears to be the end of the concessions being made by Apple India. And Apple, for its part, flew an outside rep to India to meet with the government in an effort to disabuse it of its (clearly false) notions that Apple hacking warnings are generally just the result of incompetence by Apple’s security team.
For now, it appears the Modi administration believes it has won this match. Pressure to alter notifications has eased a bit as the government’s narrative is continually pushed by politicians who insist the notices were nothing but mistakes or, as one legislator put it, “fake” (as in news). The Indian government can try to enjoy this non-victory, but it’s still losing the long game. India’s citizens already know they can’t trust this government. This is just more evidence indicating the distrust is genuine and earned.
The DOJ promised it wouldn’t target journalists and their sources during leak investigations. It also said wouldn’t engage in questionable CFAA prosecutions that appeared to involve nothing more than unapproved (or unexpected) access to data. Both of those self-imposed restrictions seem to have been ignored in a case involving former Deadspin contributor Tim Burke and some recordings Fox News clearly didn’t want made public.
Reports following the FBI raid of Burke’s home suggested he had published “leaked” footage obtained perhaps illegally from the site itself. According to Burke and his legal reps, there was no leak and there was no hacking. All Burke did is upload footage found on Fox’s website — footage Fox perhaps meant to bury but possibly left accessible to those who knew how to look for it.
The footage Burke obtained and shared with other journalists was obviously embarassing for the Fox brand. And that’s saying something, considering what Fox is willing to publish and air of its own free will and volition. A pair of videos featuring unreleased footage of a Kanye West interview allegedly illegally obtained by Tim Burke featured the rap star saying things even more abhorrent than his usual blend of sexism, bigotry, and conspiracy theories.
The videos Burke shared with Vice featured West expounding on some bizarre eugenics theory that involved Planned Parenthood, the KKK, and a concerted effort to control the Jewish population in the United States. The other video also said things Fox didn’t want to publicize: namely, that Kanye West — a White House guest of super-spreader Donald Trump — had been vaccinated.
Fox was obviously angry. But anger doesn’t change facts and it appears this CFAA prosecution — one that resulted in a raid of Burke’s house — threatens not only the very act of journalism, but those who seek to find information public figures wish to keep hidden, but have failed to take the necessary precautions to ensure they’re never publicly embarrassed by their words and deeds.
But Burke is fighting back. Represented by Mark Rasch — a former computer crimes prosecutor — Burke is hoping to force the DOJ to right the wrongs it has perpetrated against him over actions that don’t actually appear to be illegal.
Tim Burke’s home office is gutted.
In May, FBI agents searched his house while looking for evidence related to leaked Fox News footage, including an anti-Semitic rant from Kanye West and behind-the-scenes footage of Tucker Carlson on his now-canceled show.
Burke, 44, had his phone, computers, hard drives and other electronic devices confiscated, though he still hasn’t been charged with a crime.
On Friday, his lawyers filed a motion to the U.S. Department of Justice demanding that Burke’s devices be returned.
Burke also provided a written statement to the Tampa Bay Times, his first public comments to any media outlet since the May 8 FBI search. He and his legal team argue that he didn’t break any laws, and he wants the government to return his equipment and end what he called a “months-long nightmare.”
“Finding and reporting on newsworthy content is not a crime, no matter who is embarrassed by the reporting,” Burke said in a statement emailed to the Times.
You read that right: the FBI has retained all of the seized electronics despite the DOJ not actually charging (either via indictment or probable cause presentation to a judge) with any criminal activity. The DOJ has yet to offer any explanation for the raid, much less its refusal to return Burke’s devices. If it has any reason to believe Burke has committed a criminal act, it has yet to grant Burke access to its rationale.
The Department of Justice and FBI have confirmed to the Times that agents searched Burke’s housebut have declined to provide more information, citing an active investigation. The affidavit that explains the reasoning and method for obtaining the search warrant is still sealed by the federal court.
According to Burke’s lawyer, all Burke did was access URLs that were accessible by the public, but not readily accessible via links on Fox’s sites. The stuff was available online. All anyone had to do was know where (or how) to look for them.
Mark Rasch has filed a motion [PDF] for the return of Burke’s property. He’s also sent the DOJ a letter [PDF] that exposes the DOJ and FBI’s handling of this investigation — information both of these agencies would probably have preferred remain secret. (The Tampa Bay Times inexplicably decided these weren’t worth posting with its coverage, even though its reporting quotes from both of the documents.)
Both are worth reading as both highlight the government’s willingness to walk all over the First Amendment in order to punish someone for apparently doing nothing more than exposing recordings Fox never intended the public to see.
The letter from Burke’s lawyer opens with this. Sure, grain of salt and all of that, but Burke has steadily maintained no hacking took place.
As far as we can see, they are predicated on an incorrect narrative that Mr. Burke committed some offense, and therefore forfeited his rights as a journalist. He did not. He accessed no computers without authorization, and intercepted no private communications. He engaged in acts and works of journalism.
That’s the assertion. And it goes up against the DOJ’s allegations… which, at this point, are completely unknown. The search warrant affidavit remains sealed and Burke has yet to be charged with a criminal act.
Here are the undeniable facts, which Burke (and his legal rep) are fully apprised of because this is what has actually happened to Burke and his devices.
While the FBI and DOJ have agreed to allow Burke to shift his MFA (multi-factor authentication) credentials to the device he needed to obtain after the government seized the ones he was using, the government wants something in return. Burke is unwilling to give them what they’re demanding.
It does not appear that the process you contemplate would be workable. First, you insist that Mr. Burke waive his Fifth Amendment rights, and provide the agents the passcode necessary to unlock the cell phone to assist agents in cloning his phone as a condition precedent to Mr. Burke having access to either the original or cloned device. Mr. Burke declines to waive his Constitutional right against self-incrimination.
Remember, this is a case dealing with someone who has had a majority of their electronics seized, but has not been charged with a crime. At this point, Burke can only speculate as to why he’s been targeted by the feds, as the DOJ refuses to turn over (or unseal) the search warrant affidavit. And yet, the DOJ still feels comfortable in demanding someone waive constitutional rights just so they can regain access to internet services they routinely used until their life was rudely interrupted by a still unexplained “investigation.”
Then there are the drives seized by the government. While some of what’s stored there might be relevant to this (ultra-vague) investigation, there’s a lot that isn’t. But Burke and his lawyer have no idea what the government is allowed to search or retain because — as has been noted several times already — the government refuses to hand over the warrant affidavit or anything the magistrate judge that approved the warrant might have said about what the government can or can’t search/retain.
So, Burke is fighting blind. And he’s fighting for journalism, because what the government is doing here certainly looks like an attempt to sniff out sources, means, and methods utilized by journalists. And that sort of thing has been on the wrong side of the law (not to mention the wrong side of history) since the 1971 publication of the “Pentagon Papers.” (Emphasis added.)
You have indicated that you do not intend, at this time, to return to Mr. Burke (or his counsel) any data or information about these “live feeds,” including the live feeds themselves. You likened these live feeds to stolen personal information like Social Security Numbers or medical records obtained and used by fraudsters unlawfully, which you routinely refuse to return to the fraudsters during the scope of the investigation.
Putting aside the question of whether there was probable cause to believe that the live feeds were evidence of any crime (as you know, we wholeheartedly believe that they are not) or whether they were unlawfully obtained (again, we believe the evidence shows that they were not), the live feeds themselves are not “stolen” information, or information obtained by fraud. The live feeds are, in fact, Mr. Burke’s journalistic work product. They are the raw materials from which Mr. Burke reports. They are Mr. Burke’s “Pentagon Papers” if the Pentagon Papers were not classified, and were obtained lawfully as opposed to having been taken without authorization by Dr. Ellsberg. Many of the seized “live feeds” contain newsworthy content about which Mr. Burke and other journalists have reported, or intend to report on in the future. It is through these “live feeds” that Mr. Burke has developed his reputation as a reporter.
If the government intends to continue pursuing this avenue of investigation, it will be leaving its boot prints all over the First Amendment. And it will have a direct, immediate chilling effect on newsgathering.
You will know who Mr. Burke’s sources are for identifying, finding, and reporting on information in live feeds. You will know who Mr. Burke and other reporters “target” for investigative reporting. You will know what specific programs or information they have decided to report about. You will also know what they have decided not to report about. Even within the live feeds themselves, your access to them (and retention thereof) will tell you what portions of those live feeds Mr. Burke and other journalists have determined to be “newsworthy” and which portions they determine not to be “newsworthy.” This winnowing process is the essence of journalism, and we strongly believe that compelled revelation and continued possession and retention by the government of this information constitutes a continuing affront to the First Amendment rights of Mr. Burke and those with whom he works both as a journalist and as a technical advisor to other journalists.
It certainly looks like the government is in the wrong here. If it isn’t, it can easily prove its case by unsealing the affidavit or, at the very least, handing over this information to Burke and his lawyer. But if it continues to engage in opacity, the public has no reason to give it the benefit of a doubt. The First Amendment is at stake here.
In this case, Mr. Burke has a presumptive right to publish the works he has collected. A mere unproven allegation that the originator of the original stream did not expressly authorize Mr. Burke to store the stream does not change his right to publish. Any argument that Mr. Burke is prohibited from publishing the live feeds he obtained lawfully because the media outlets that made them public did so “inadvertently” or “mistakenly” is unavailing.
[…]
Moreover, the live feeds Mr. Burke lawfully collected were all formerly in the public domain — they were all publicly accessible — irrespective of whether the news, entertainment, sports or public enterprises published them “on air.” Indeed, because “live” feeds must be captured while they are being broadcast “live,” part of Mr. Burke’s value to the journalistic community lies in his finding, collecting, storing, winnowing, organizing and making available these “stored” live broadcasts. Seizing and refusing to return that which was previously public, in a manner that serves to prevent Mr. Burke and other reporters from reporting on this content is the ultimate “prior restraint,” using armed FBI agents to prevent publication.
Hopefully, this motion and this letter will at least shame the government into doing the right thing. At the very least, it should hand over the affidavit and warrant to the target of its investigation, since there’s no need to retain secrecy once the target of warrant has already been searched and had personal property seized.
But these filings should do more than that: they should make it clear the government is intruding on territory owned by the people (you know, of “We the People”). This case has clear First Amendment implications and yet the DOJ seems to think it’s just some run-of-the-mill hacking case where it can do what it wants at whatever speed it chooses to do it.
You indicated that this case is “not your priority” and “not your most important case.” I do not have any reason to question this assertion. It is, of course, Mr. Burke’s most important case.
[…]
As I have repeatedly emphasized to you, despite the magistrate’s finding of probable cause to conduct the search of Mr. Burke’s office/residence and the seizure of his newsroom, Mr. Burke committed no crime and engaged in no behavior which violated either the CFAA or the wiretap statutes. […] Again, you have declined to tell us why you think Mr. Burke violated the CFAA or the wiretap law, and have adamantly insisted that disclosure to Mr. Burke of the affidavit in support of the warrant would cause some unspecified harm to your investigation. Each time I present our position that no crime occurred, you note that you “understand” our position, but that you nevertheless intend to further investigate.
This investigation appears to be 99% bullshit. Of course, the DOJ could change the presumed percentage by apprising Burke and his lawyer of the facts only it knows at this point. But it has refused to do so, which means there’s only one narrative in play at the moment. And that narrative says the DOJ is targeting a journalist solely because Fox News is angry someone made publicly accessible data public.
It’s been so weird the way Elon Musk and his friends have been jealous of underpaid, overworked journalists who happened to have blue check marks next to their name. There’s some sort of deep-seated insecurity to think that just because Twitter decided some people should be verified to avoid problems with impersonation that it was some sort of status symbol (again, as full disclosure, at some point in 2020 or 2021, my account got verified, though this was through no request on my own: until then I had been happily unverified, and one day I showed up and there was a mark next to my name with me not having asked for it and without any interest in getting it).
I’m sure some people who got it did think it was a status symbol, but for most people the actual purpose was purely utilitarian: to avoid impersonation. The new system practically seems to encourage impersonation, seeing as Musk and friends were so totally mixed up into thinking that the main benefit of having the blue checkmark is as a status symbol.
Among those who got the checkmark though, no group was more mocked and attacked for having it than journalists. There were, of course, legitimate concerns about journalist impersonation, which is likely why Twitter had a whole program around verifying journalists. But so many of the assumptions Musk seems to make are based on the idea that journalists, whom he mostly seems to hate, would so want to cling to this status symbol that their employers would pony up $1,000 per month and an additional $50 for each journalist.
On Thursday evening Twitter put out one of its increasingly common, confusingly worded statements about the new program, talking up how companies could now pay to verify their own “accounts they’re affiliated with.” So, now, rather than having Twitter protect your brand and your employees, you have to PAY TWITTER a ridiculously large monthly sum… to do all the work yourself?
And while they claim that lots of organizations are already on board (can’t wait to see which companies are so gullible), the media — the ones that people were so jealous of — appear to have zero interest in contributing to and giving credibility to this madness. Oliver Darcy over at CNN has the roundup:
“We aren’t planning to pay the monthly fee for check mark status for our institutional Twitter accounts,” a spokesperson for The New York Times said Thursday. “We also will not reimburse reporters for Twitter Blue for personal accounts, except in rare instances where this status would be essential for reporting purposes.”
The Los Angeles Times told staffers that Twitter is “not as reliable as it once was” and that it will “not be paying to verify our organization” on Twitter.
“Some of you may be wondering whether or not the L.A. Times will pay for Twitter Blue subscriptions, and the answer right now is no, for several reasons: First of all, verification no longer establishes authority or credibility, instead it will only mean that someone has paid for a Twitter Blue subscription,” said Sara Yasin, managing editor of the Los Angeles Times.
The Washington Post said it “will not pay for Twitter Blue service as an institution or on behalf of our journalists” because “it’s evident that verified checkmarks no longer represent authority and expertise.”
BuzzFeed also told staffers at BuzzFeed News and HuffPost that it will not pay for them to retain their checkmarks on Twitter.
“As an organization, we will not cover fees for individuals to keep their blue checkmarks moving forward,” Karolina Waclawiak, editor in chief of BuzzFeed News, and Danielle Belton, editor in chief of HuffPost, told staffers in a message to both newsrooms. “There are several reasons for this, but one outweighs them all: a blue checkmark no longer means the handle is ‘verified.’”
Vox Media also advised staffers that “it will generally not pay for employees to keep or gain Twitter verification,” according to a memo from group publisher Christopher Grant.
POLITICO additionally said it will not pay for Twitter Blue.
It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out.
However, there’s one interesting element in all of this: as lots of people discuss, Twitter has never been as widely used as some of the other, bigger, social media platforms. But it punched above its weight, in part because so many journalists relied on it. It was basically the water cooler chat for many, many journalists (myself included). And, because of that, it became super valuable in driving news stories.
But with the moves that Musk is making, beyond driving away advertisers, he’s been driving away what made Twitter the center of attention: journalists’ reliance on the site. And if he makes the site less useful for them, by making it less safe for them and driving away their colleagues, then it loses the one actual competitive advantage the site ever had.
I keep hearing people pretend that the GOP in general, and Florida GOPers more specifically, and Governor Ron DeSantis most specifically, are fighting for “free speech,” when they continually seem to push blatantly unconstitutional legislation designed to attack free speech and the 1st Amendment in a way that keeps getting Florida shot down in court by judges (while wasting tons of taxpayer money).
But they just don’t stop. The latest is a laughably unconstitutional bill from Florida Senator Jason Brodeur, SB 1316, that violates the 1st Amendment in so many different ways.
The bill has a section on “blogger registration and reporting.” Basically, any blogger reporting on the Florida government in a professional (paid) capacity has to register with the government and file “monthly reports” on who is paying them and how much they’re being paid.
286.31 Blogger registration and reporting.—
(1) As used in this section, the term:
(a) “Blog” means a website or webpage that hosts any blogger and is frequently updated with opinion, commentary, or business content. The term does not include the website of a newspaper or other similar publication.
(b) “Blogger” means any person as defined in s. 1.01(3) that submits a blog post to a blog which is subsequently published.
(c) “Blog post” is an individual webpage on a blog which contains an article, a story, or a series of stories.
(d) “Compensation” includes anything of value provided to a blogger in exchange for a blog post or series of blog posts. If not provided in currency, it must be the fair-market value of the item or service exchanged.
(e) “Elected state officer” means the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature.
(f) “Office” means, in the context of a blog post about a member of the Legislature, the Office of Legislative Services or, in the context of a blog post about a member of the executive branch, the Commission on Ethics, as applicable.
(2) If a blogger posts to a blog about an elected state officer and receives, or will receive, compensation for that post, the blogger must register with the appropriate office, as identified in paragraph (1)(f), within 5 days after the first post by the blogger which mentions an elected state officer.
(3)(a) Upon registering with the appropriate office, a blogger must file monthly reports on the 10th day following the end of each calendar month from the time a blog post is added to the blog, except that, if the 10th day following the end of a calendar month occurs on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, the report must be filed on the next day that is not a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday.
(b) If the blogger does not have a blog post on a blog during a given month, the monthly report for that month does not need to be filed.
(c) The blogger must file reports with the appropriate office using the electronic filing system:
1. As provided in s. 11.0455 if the blog post concerns an elected member of the Legislature; or
2. As provided in s. 112.32155 if the blog post concerns an officer of the executive branch.
(d) The reports must include all of the following:
1. The individual or entity that compensated the blogger for the blog post.
2. The amount of compensation received from the individual or entity, regardless of how the compensation was structured.
a. The amount must be rounded to the nearest $10 increment.
b. If the compensation is for a series of blog posts or for a defined period of time, the blogger must disclose the total amount to be received upon the first blog post being published. Thereafter, the blogger must disclose the date or dates additional compensation is received, if any, for the series of blog posts.
3. The date the blog post was published. If the blog post is part of a series, the date each blog post is published must be included in the applicable report.
4. The website and website address where the blog post can be found.
This is… not how any of this works. The government cannot require “journalists” to register. They especially cannot have this registration only apply to journalists writing about elected officials. The government cannot demand they file monthly reports. The government cannot demand they reveal who is paying them or how much. The whole thing is nothing but blatant journalist intimidation, and clearly a violation of the 1st Amendment.
But, of course, Brodeur (and DeSantis) don’t care one bit about free speech or the 1st Amendment. They care about culture wars and setting up the media that is exposing their nonsense as “the enemy.” And throwing the 1st Amendment in the trash and lighting it on fire while dancing around the bonfire destroying free speech seems to be the method they’ve taken.
That doesn’t change the facts, of course. This is a blatant attack on free speech, the 1st Amendment, and a free press. I am sure that we will have the usual crew of commenters who have been pretending for months that they support free speech and will somehow twist themselves around to pretend that this is not an attack on free speech. Just think how pathetic that is: pretending to be a free speech warrior while cheering on the government spitting on the 1st Amendment.
Summary: Elon Musk has demonstrated contempt for free speech in general, and journalism in particular, with his behavior at Twitter. He is also demonstrating why it is foolhardy for anyone to rely on centralized platforms to create and distribute vital information. Journalists — among many information providers and users — should move to decentralized systems where they have control of what they say and how they distribute it. And philanthropic organizations have a major role to play. Here is a way forward.
Near the end of 2022, Elon Musk issued an edict to the journalism community. Obey me, he said, or you will be banned from posting on Twitter.
This should have been a pivotal moment in media history — an inflection point when journalists realized how dangerous it is to put their fates in the hands of people who claim to revere free speech but use their power to control it. It should have been the moment when media companies decided to take back control of their social media presence.
A few journalists — principally the ones whose Twitter accounts were suspended or otherwise restricted — understood the threat. And several of the Big Journalism news organizations issued (feeble) protests.
Beyond that, thanks to a combination of journalistic cowardice, inertia and calculation, business as usual prevailed. The journalists whose accounts were fully restored are back to tweeting, though some remain banned and/or restricted. Their organizations never stopped using the platform even when their employees were being restricted.
Based on current evidence, then, Musk has won this battle: except for a few individuals, Big Journalism has acceded to his edicts.
Many journalism organizations and public entities, such as local governments, believe Twitter is essential because it’s a place people know they can turn to when there’s big news — and find information from “verified accounts” that (barring a hack) ensure the source is who it’s claiming to be. So, they tell themselves, they have to stick around. This isn’t just short-sighted. It’s foolish.
Musk’s antics could easily lead to the worst of all worlds for anyone who’s come to rely on Twitter distribution. If you have the slightest concern for the future of freedom of expression, he’s already shown his hypocrisy, such as his capricious decision (since rescinded, at least for now) to block even links to some competing social media services. And advertisers have appropriately fled a service where right-wing extremism has been given a major boost; where mass firings of key employees threaten the site’s technical stability; and where at least some formerly avid users (like me) have moved on.
It will be ironic, to put it mildly, if Twitter disintegrates despite journalists’ refusal to exercise their own free expression rights — forcing a mass, chaotic migration rather than the obviously better answer: Develop a Plan B, and use it as an escape hatch sooner than later.
All of which is why I implore the journalists and journalism organizations, above all at this crucial point, to rethink what they’re doing — and move starting today to reclaim independence. I also ask well-resourced outsiders to help make this happen, especially when it comes to the many journalists and news organizations that lack the bandwidth or money to do this themselves.
Even a “Good” Twitter is Risky
Suppose, against all odds, that Twitter somehow survives Musk’s predations and becomes a clean, well-lit place for respectful discourse. The risks don’t disappear. They’ll only grow. And they’ve been apparent for years.
The risks are endemic to the mega-corporate, scalable-or-nothing, highly centralized version of the Internet that has emerged in recent years, and we need to keep them in the forefront. At the top of the list: Any centralized platform is subject to the whims of the person or people who control it. This isn’t news to those who’ve been paying attention, and some of them have been warning about the dangers for years. In a way, Musk has done us a favor by making it crystal clear.
Mike Masnick, who’s been on the case for a long time now, recently spelled out in chapter and verse why it’s crazy to rely on centralized platforms. He looked at the current alternatives, with a major focus on “federated” systems like Mastodon, where many people and organizations can run servers that talk with each other — and, this is key, where users can’t be locked in. In the “fediverse,” we users can’t be controlled because we can move, anytime we wish, to a different server — and take our relationships with us.
I joined a Mastodon server (called an “instance” in Mastodon jargon) called “mastodon.social” — you can find me there at this URL: https://mastodon.social/@dangillmor — and my full username is @dangillmor@mastodon.social if you’re already in the broader community. Others in the journalism world have signed onto instances such as “journa.host” and “newsie.social” — and there are many, many more.
It’s way too early to know whether Mastodon and its underpinning, a protocol (technical rules of the road) called ActivityPub, is the ultimate way forward. There are risks with any online system, and the Mastodon community will face their share. I’ve been impressed with, and Mike Masnick’s thorough analysis highlights, the resilience Mastodon has demonstrated already.
But at least two things are clear. The risks of giving up your autonomy to billionaire sociopaths are in your face at this point. And it is not remotely too early for those who rely on Twitter to find alternatives they control.
How Journalism’s Migration Should Proceed
Habits are tough to break. Inertia is one of the most powerful barriers to progress. But we can, and we should, realize that making this transition is well worth the time and effort. The rewards will be so great that we’ll wonder one day how we could have gotten ourselves into a situation that required such a shift.
Fear of the unfamiliar feeds inertia. And Mastodon is — emphatically — not a clone of Twitter. It has some flaws, from my perspective, that I trust will be addressed sooner rather than later; and in part because it’s based on open-source software, the pace of improvement already looks spectacular to me.
Journalists have to overcome their own trepidation. If they give it some time, not a lot by any means, they’ll be more than comfortable enough that the somewhat understandable early-days urge to retreat back into the Twitter comfort zone will go away.
In other words, please just get on with it. You’ll be fine. Here’s a basic plan of action:
First: Organizations with sufficient financial and technical resources should create their own Mastodon instances. At the same time, smaller journalism organizations — especially the rapidly expanding collection of non-profit sites — should set up a co-operative network. (More on this below).
Second: Verify the identities and bona-fides of the journalists. One of Musk’s more ill-considered interventions at Twitter — turning the verified-user system into a giant swamp — made Mastodon an even more obvious refuge. I won’t get into details here, and maybe I’m missing something important, but it appears to be trivially easy to verify Mastodon accounts by connecting user accounts on Mastodon servers to the news organization’s existing web presence.
Third: For the time being, keep posting to Twitter (and the rest of their social media accounts). But journalists should be actively using those accounts to let their audiences know that the best places to find rapid-response posts also include their Mastodon accounts and, of course, their own websites — and that, someday in the near future, the Twitter feed will be replaced by Mastodon.
Fourth: Set a date for the cut-over — ideally in collaboration with their peers — not longer than six months from now. And when the day arrives, do it.
That’s not the end of the process, of course. Journalists will need to help their audiences use Mastodon, just as they themselves learned. Again, while there is a learning curve, and it isn’t the same as Twitter, it won’t take long for people to adjust. (Let’s be real: If people can use their computers after a massive operating system “upgrade”, Mastodon will be a snap.)
The word “collaboration” is key here. This is a job for the entire journalism craft/industry, which created critical mass on Twitter over the years by just showing up randomly and, at a certain point, turning the site into something resembling a central nervous system of news.
De-emphasizing Twitter, and ultimately leaving it, needs more organization. Musk is surely counting on media companies to stick around on the principle that, well, there’s no other game in town with the same critical mass. This is no longer true, if it ever was. (I’ve been told by news people that Facebook, in the days when it actively promoted news in users’ feeds, drove vastly more traffic to their sites than Twitter ever has.)
Collaboration in journalism is growing, but it should become second nature. If ever there was a time to get together and take back control of the craft’s work, it should be now. Not collaborating will give Musk and people like him leverage to divide and conquer. Even if it was difficult to make this transition, and it isn’t, the alternative is ceding control to sociopaths.
A Major Opportunity for Philanthropic Investment
I shouldn’t have to say this, but the leadership for a migration off Twitter to Mastodon should come from the organizations whose editors complained about Musk’s treatment of their journalists. It’s pathetic that most of them didn’t follow through with actions, not just words.
So who will? The obvious candidates are major philanthropic foundations and civic-minded wealthy individuals.
Last month, I sent a note to people I know at several philanthropies. I wrote, in part:
This would be the perfect time to fund what could easily be a self-sustaining cooperative that sets up and operates Mastodon “instances” (servers) on behalf of journalism organizations that could verify their own journalists. That would solve a lot of problems, and restore (some) genuine independence to the craft at a time when capricious media owners like Musk are challenging it.
We can debate whether the co-op business model is best-suited for a project like this, though I believe it’s ideal. What we shouldn’t debate is whether journalism and its defenders need to move, right away, to deal with an immediate problem in a way that would have major long-term benefits. Helping journalism regain the control it misguidedly gave away — and do it in a way that increases the supply of easy-to-find information that benefits the public — is plainly beneficial for everyone but media monopolists and misinformation purveyors.
Foundations, please step up now, while people still understand the need — and before journalists, whose attention spans are notoriously short, settle back into their short-sighted patterns.
Critical Masses
As noted earlier in this piece, it isn’t just journalists who’ve come to rely on Twitter. Birds of a feather on various social and professional topics have flocked together there. We all need to help ensure that “Black Twitter” and “Science Twitter” — and so many more — have a way forward, too. They have become a vital source of information not just for the wider public but within their own ranks (or that relatively small part of the public that uses Twitter, anyway). As Bloomberg’s Lisa Jarvis wrote recently, “Science Twitter needs a new home.”
Meanwhile, countless government agencies also use the birdsite as a vehicle for messaging of all kinds. In situations where people want the vital news — such as forest fires, storms, etc. — Twitter has become one of the default places to check.
They, too, can and should migrate to services like Mastodon. They should plan collaboratively to cut over to their own verified instances, in an orderly way that gives their constituents notice and time to get adjusted to the new system.
The federal government could lead, given its greater resources, but it will take a lot of work by a lot of people to get smaller governments and agencies to turn off the “free” websites they now support and migrate to places that have setup costs, however modest, and maintenance requirements.
Which makes the need for collaboration just as great, if not more so, when it comes to public agencies. Happily, governments at all levels have associations which they sometimes call “conferences” — such as the National Conference of State Legislatures — that might be appropriate organizers and hosts of collaborative Mastodon instances.
Philanthropies — especially community foundations — could play a vital role in re-creating critical masses beyond journalism. It would be a dazzling display of civic spirit, for example, if the Silicon Valley Community Foundation funded Mastodon installations for local governments and agencies. And what if American Association for the Advancement of Science offered support for moving that community, and its burgeoning audience, from the risky, centralized Twitter to more decentralized environs?
Get Started, Soon
The best time for journalists and others to have recognized the threat of centralized systems run by unreliable, untrustworthy dictators would have been years ago. The next best time is tomorrow.
And while Musk’s fans have been (hilariously, frankly) trying to defend these decisions by (1) claiming this is somehow “different” because it’s about “safety” — an argument we cleanly debunked this morning — and (2) saying it’s okay because the “liberal” media are now screaming about censorship and free speech, so it’s all hilarious since everyone is switching positions. Except, I haven’t seen much of that supposed “switch.” Lots of people are pointing out that the reasons stated for these suspensions have been silly. And many more people are highlighting how hypocritical the statements and decisions made by Musk are. But most people readily recognize that he has every right to make dumb and hypocritical decisions.
There are a few, however, who do seem to be taking it further. And they should stop, because it’s nonsense. First up we have the EU, where the VP of the European Commission, Vera Jourova, is warning Musk that there will be consequences.
That’s her saying:
News about arbitrary suspension of journalists on Twitter is worrying. EU’s Digital Services Act requires respect of media freedom and fundamental rights. This is reinforced under our #MediaFreedomAct. @elonmusk should be aware of that. There are red lines. And sanctions, soon.
But being banned from private property doesn’t impact “media freedom or fundamental rights.” And it’s silly for Jourova to claim otherwise. No one has a “right” to be on Twitter. And even if the journalism bans are pathetic and silly (and transparently vindictive and petty) that doesn’t mean he’s violated anyone’s rights.
Some in the US are making similar claims, even though the 1st Amendment (backed up by Section 230) clearly protects Musk’s ability to ban whoever he wants for any reason whatsoever. Yet Jason Kint, the CEO of Digital Context Next, a trade organization of “digital media companies” — but which, in practice, often seems notably aligned with the desires of Rupert Murdoch’s news organizations — demanded Congressional hearings if Musk did not “fix this within an hour” (referencing the journalist suspensions).
But that’s silly. Again, his decisions are protected by the 1st Amendment. It’s his property. He can kick anyone out. Just like Fox News can choose not to put anyone on air who would call bullshit on “the big lie” or Rupert Murdoch. That’s their editorial freedom.
And I’d bet that if Congress hauled Lachlan Murdoch in for a hearing to demand he explain to them his editorial decision making practices for Fox News, Kint would be highlighting the massive 1st Amendment-connected chilling effects this would have on any of his member news organizations.
We can mock Musk’s decisions. We can highlight how nonsensical they are. We can pick apart his excuses and the ramblings of his fans and point out how inconsistent they are. But Musk has every right to do this, and that’s exactly how it should be. Getting government involved with editorial decisions leads down a dangerous road.
Look, I fucking warned Elon that this is exactly how it would go. It’s how it always goes.
Remember Parler? They promised that they would moderate “based off the FCC and the Supreme court of the United States” (a nonsensical statement for a variety of reasons, including that the FCC does not regulate websites). Then, as soon as people started abusing that on the site, they suddenly came out with, um, new rules, including no “posting pictures of your fecal matter.”
Or how about Gettr? Founded by a former Trump spokesperson, and funded by a sketchy Chinese billionaire, it promised to be a “free speech” haven. Then it had to ban a bunch of white nationalists for, you know, doing white nationalist shit. Then, suddenly, it started banning anyone who mentioned that the sketchy billionaire funder might actually be a Chinese spy.
And then there’s Truth Social. It’s also supposed to be all about free speech, right? That’s what its pitch man, Donald Trump, keeps insisting. Except, an actual study that compared its content moderation to other sites found that Truth Social’s moderation was far more aggressive and arbitrary than any other site. Among the forbidden things to “truth” about on Truth Social? Any talk of the Congressional hearings on January 6th. Much freedom. Very speech.
So, look, it’s no surprise that Musk was never actually going to be able to live up to his notoriously fickle word regarding “free speech” on Twitter. I mean, we wrote many, many articles highlighting all of this.
But, really, it would be nice if he didn’t then insult everyone’s intelligence about this and pretend that he’s still taking some principled righteous stand. It would be nice if he admitted that “oh shit, maybe content moderation is trickier than I thought” and maybe, just maybe, “Twitter actually had a really strong and thoughtful trust & safety team that actually worked extremely hard to be as permissive as possible, while still maintaining a website that users and advertisers liked.” But that would require an actual ability to look inward and recognize mistakes, which is not one of Elon’s strongsuits.
“Without commenting on any specific user accounts, I can confirm that we will suspend any accounts that violate our privacy policies and put other users at risk,” Irwin said. “We don’t make exceptions to this policy for journalists or any other accounts.”
Yeah… that’s not what people are complaining about. They weren’t saying journalists should get special treatment for breaking the rules. They’re asking how the fuck did what these journalists posted break the rules?
Eventually Musk jumped on Twitter, of course, and like Irwin, tried to pretend that they were just making sure the rules applied equally to journalists as to everyone else. Except… that was always the case? The issue was that yesterday, they created new laughably stupid rules to ban an account tweeting publicly available information regarding Elon Musk’s jet. Then Musk took it further and claimed that this (again) publicly available information was “assassination coordinates.”
Well, except for a few minor details. First, he just fucking changed the terms of service to shut down the jet tracker, and made them so broad and vague that tons of tweets would violate the rule — including anyone using Twitter’s built-in location indicator to tweet a photo of someone else. Second, the location of his plane is public information. It’s not “assassination coordinates.” If Musk is worried about getting assassinated, hiding this account isn’t going to help, because the assassin will just go straight to the ADS-B source and get the data anyway. Third, I get that Musk claims his child was in a car that was attacked the other night, but there remain some open questions about that story. For example, the location where it occurred, as deduced by BellingCat, was not close to any airport.
Given that, it’s not at all clear how this is connected to the jet tracking service.
Furthermore, the LAPD put out a statement on this:
LAPD’s Threat Management Unit (TMU) is aware of the situation and tweet by Elon Musk and is in contact with his representatives and security team. No crime reports have been filed yet.
Which, you know, seems notable. Because if a stalker actually went after him, you’d think that rather than just posting about it on social media, he might contact the police?
But, most importantly, none of the journalists in question actually posted “real time” assassination coordinates for Musk. They had posted about this whole story having to do with content moderation decisions made by Musk. Hell, one of the journalists, Donie Sullivan, got banned for tweeting that LAPD statement.
So, yeah, it’s not about “equal treatment” for journalists. It’s about coming up with bullshit arbitrary rules that just so happen to ban the journalists who have been calling out all the dumb shit Elon has been doing. Which, you know, was the kinda thing Elon insisted was the big problem under the last regime, and insisted he was brought in to solve.
From there it got even worse. A bunch of journalists, including a few of those who were banned (who, for unclear reasons were still able to log into Twitter Spaces, the real-time audio chat feature of Twitter) began discussing all of this, and Elon Musk showed up to… well… not quite defend himself? But, uh, to do whatever this was:
It starts with (banned) Washington Post journalist Drew Harwell asking a pretty good journalistic question:
One, I don’t think anyone in this room supports stalking. I’m sorry to hear about what happened with your family. Do you have evidence connecting the incident in LA with this flight tracking data? And separately, if this is an important enough issue to you, why not enact the rule change on Twitter and give accounts like Jack Sweeney’s, time to respond to, like you said, a slight delay in providing the data? Why say last month that you would support keeping his account online for free speech and then immediately suspend not just his account, but journalists reporting on it?
Unfortunately, before Elon could say anything, another reporter, Katie Notopoulos from Buzzfeed (who started the Twitter Space) jumped in with, perhaps, a less well composed question (this isn’t criticism — coming up with questions on the spot is difficult — but I do wonder what would have happened if Musk had been allowed to respond directly to Drew’s question).
Elon, thank you for joining, I am hoping that you can give a little more context about what has happened in the last few hours with a handful of journalists being banned?
Elon then says a lot of nonsense, basically just that “doxing is bad and anyone who has been threatened should agree with this policy.”
Well, as I’m sure everyone who’s been doxed would agree, showing real-time information about somebody’s location is inappropriate. And I think everyone would not like that to be done to them. And there’s not going to be any distinction in the future between so-called journalists and regular people. Everyone is going to be treated the same—no special treatment. You dox, you get suspended. End of story.
And ban evasion or trying to be clever about it, like “Oh, I posted a link — to the real-time information,” that’s obviously something trying to evade the meaning, that’s no different from actually showing real-time information.
I mean, a lot of this is kind of infuriating. Because many of the bans that happened in the last regime, and which Musk got so mad about, were also about putting people in danger. And Musk seems singularly concerned only when he’s the target. Over the weekend, he posted some incredibly misleading bullshit about his former head of trust & safety, Yoel Roth, taking an old tweet and a clip from his dissertation and acting as if both said the literal opposite of what Roth was saying in them (in both cases, Yoel was actually highlighting issues regarding keeping children safe from predators, and Elon and legions of his fans pretended he was doing the opposite, which is just trash). Following that, a large news organization that I will not name posted a very clear description of Yoel’s home, and tweeted out a link with those details. That tweet still is on Twitter today, and Yoel and his family had to flee their home after receiving very credible threats.
Again, I repeat, the tweet that identified his home is still on Twitter today. And Elon has done nothing about it.
So spare me the claim that this is about “inappropriate” sharing of information. None of the information the journalists shared was inappropriate, and Musk himself has contributed to threats on people’s lives.
As for the whole ban evasion thing, well, that’s also nonsense, but there’s more. Notopoulos asked another question:
When you’re saying, ‘posting a link to it,’ I mean, some of the people like Drew and Ryan Mac from The New York Times, who were banned, they were reporting on it in the course of pretty normal journalistic endeavors. You consider that like a tricky attempted ban evasion?
To which Musk responded:
You show the link to the real-time information – ban evasion, obviously.
So, again, that’s not at all what “ban evasion” means. The ban was on the information. Not a link to an account. Or a reporter talking about an article that links to an account. Or a reporter talking about a police report that very loosely kinda connects to the account.
And, again, banning links to the media was the thing that I thought Musk and his fans were completely up in arms about regarding the ban on the link to the NY Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop. Remember? It was like a week ago that it was a “huge reveal” by Elon Musk and his handpicked reporters, who apparently revealed what was the crime of the century and possibly treason when Twitter banned a link over worries of harm. Drew Harwell, finally getting a chance to ask a question, got into this slightly awkward exchange where the two seem to be talking about different things, but Drew is making the point comparing it to the NY Post thing:
Drew: You’re suggesting that we’re sharing your address, which is not true. I never posted your address.
Elon: You posted a link to the address.
Drew:In the course of reporting about ElonJet, we posted links to ElonJet, which are now banned on Twitter.Twitter also marks even the Instagram and Mastodon accounts of ElonJet as harmful. We have to acknowledge, using the exact same link-blocking technique that you have criticized as part of the Hunter Biden-New York Post story in 2020. So what is different here?
Elon: It’s not more acceptable for you than it is for me. It’s the same thing.
Drew: So it’s unacceptable what you’re doing?
Elon: No. You doxx, you get suspended. End of story. That’s it.
And with that “end of story” he left the chat abruptly, even as others started asking more questions.
So that whole exchange makes no sense. They’re clearly talking past each other, and Elon is so focused on the “journalists doxing!” that he can’t even seem to comprehend what Drew is actually asking him there, which is comparing it to the NY Post thing.
And, of course, it also seems relevant to the January 6th/Donald Trump decision, which Musk has also roundly criticized. One of Musk’s buddies, Jason Calacanis, was also in the space defending Musk, and I only heard bits and pieces of it because (1) Twitter Spaces kept kicking me out and (2) before the Space ended, Twitter took all of Spaces offline, meaning that the recording isn’t available (Musk is claiming on Twitter that it’s a newly discovered bug, though tons of people are assuming, as people will do, that Musk pulled the plug to get the journalists to stop talking about him).
However, on Twitter, Calacanis tweeted what he insisted was a simple message:
It’s just so obvious to everyone: don’t dox or stalk anyone.
Someone will get hurt or worse.
💕Be good to each other💕
If you are splitting hairs on the definition of these words, or claiming it’s public information, you’re missing the basic human concept here: people’s safety.
But, again, this brings us right back around to the top of the story. “It’s just so obvious” is a traditional part of this content moderation learning curve. It always seems so obvious that, “sure, this speech is legal, but man, it seems so bad, we gotta take it down.” In this case, it’s “don’t stalk the billionaire CEO” (which, yeah, don’t do that shit).
But this is how content moderation works. There’s a reason the role is called “Trust & Safety” because you’re trying to weigh different tradeoffs to make things trustworthy and safe. But Musk hasn’t been doing that. He seems only focused on his own safety.
And Calacanis’s claim that people are “missing the basic human concept here: people’s safety” well… that brings me to January 6th and Twitter’s decision to ban Trump. Because, you know, as Twitter explained publicly at the time and was re-revealed recently in Musk’s “Twitter Files,” this was exactly the debate that went on inside Twitter among its executives and trust & safety bosses.
They looked at the riot at the Capitol where people literally died, and which the then President seemed reluctant to call off, realized that there was no guarantee he wouldn’t organize a follow up, decided that “people’s safety” mattered here, and made the hard call to ban Trump. To protect people’s safety.
Now, you can criticize that decision. You can offer alternative arguments for it. But there was a rationale for it, and it’s the exact same one Musk and his team are now using to justify these bans. But we’re not seeing the screaming and gnashing about how this is “against free speech” or whatever from Musk and his supporters. We’re not likely to see Musk have Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss do a breathless expose on his internal DMs while all this went down.
That’s what’s hypocritical here.
(And we won’t even get into Musk going back on his other promise that they wouldn’t do suspensions any more, just decreased “reach” for the “bad or negative” tweets).
Every website that has third party content has to do moderation. Every one. It’s how it works. And every website has the right to moderate how they want. That’s part of their editorial discretion.
Musk absolutely can make bad decisions. Just like the previous Twitter could (and did). But it would be nice if they fucking realized that they’re doing the same damn thing, but on a much flimsier basis, and backed by utter and complete nonsense.
I asked Calacanis about the “public safety” issue and the Trump decision on Twitter, and got… a strange response.
In response he says:
I am a fan of using the blocking and mute tools for almost everything you don’t like at this joint.
Which, when you think about it, is a weird fucking response. After all, he was just going on and on about how it was righteous to ban a bunch of journalists because of “people’s safety.” But also that these problems can be solved by muting and blocking? So either he thinks Musk should have just muted and blocked all these reporters… or… what? It also does not actually respond to the question.
And, once again, we’re back to the same damn thing with content moderation at scale. Every decision has tons of tradeoffs. People are always going to be upset. But there are principled ways of doing it, and non-principled ways of doing it. And Elon/Jason are showing their lack of principles. They’re only trying to protect themselves, and seem to feel everyone else should just use “mute” and “block.”
Oh, and finally….
This post went on way longer than I initially intended it to, but there is an important postscript here. Last night, when we wrote about the banning of the @JoinMastodon account on Twitter, I actually downplayed the idea that it was about Team Musk being scared of a rapidly growing competitor. I was pretty sure it was because of the link to the @ElonJet account that was now working on Mastodon. And, that’s certainly the excuse that Musk and friends are still giving.
Buuuuut… there are reasons to believe it’s a bit more than that. Because as the evening wore on, Twitter basically started banning all links to any Mastodon server they could find. A bunch of people started posting examples. Some screenshots:
Those were just a few of many, many examples that can be found on both Twitter and Mastodon of Twitter effectively blocking any links to more high profile Mastodon servers (it appears that smaller or individual instances are still making it through).
Even more ridiculous, they’re banning people from updating their profiles with Mastodon addresses.
See that screenshot? It says “Account update failed: Description is considered malware.”
So, yeah, they’re now saying that if you put your Mastodon bio in your profile, it’s malware. Given that, it’s a little difficult to believe that this is all just about “public safety” regarding Elon stalkers, and not, perhaps, a little anti-competitive behavior on the part of an increasingly desperate Elon Musk.
The early months of 2021, following Trump’s loss at the polls and the subsequent raid of the Capitol building by his supporters, were periodically punctuated by disturbing revelations about the DOJ under the former reality show star.
A regime change ended that. The DOJ, under Merrick Garland, began informing journalists whose phone and other communication records had been sought by the previous iteration of the DOJ. Following these reports, the DOJ declared it would stop targeting journalists during leak investigations, aligning itself with similar statements made earlier by newly elected president Joe Biden.
All well and good, but a public statement is not a policy change. It is also not codification of the DOJ’s newly embraced principles. And whatever was put into place by this Attorney General could easily be removed by the next.
Fortunately, AG Garland has continued to take steps to ensure the DOJ and its components steer clear of journalists during leak investigations. First, he stated the DOJ would support any legislation that codified a ban on targeting journalists. Then he made his previous statements more official by issuing a memorandum making it clear journalists were off limits, instituting a ban on this investigatory tactic.
The Justice Department on Wednesday formally banned the use of subpoenas, warrants or court orders to seize reporters’ communications records or demand their notes or testimony in an effort to uncover confidential sources in leak investigations, in what amounts to a major policy shift.
The rules institutionalize — and in places expand — a temporary policy that Attorney General Merrick B. Garland put in place in July 2021, after the revelation that the Justice Department, under Attorney General William P. Barr, had secretly pursued email records of reporters at The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN.
This formalized ban seals off most of the loopholes, severely limiting exceptions to this new rule. Exigency remains in play, but only when “necessary to prevent an imminent or concrete risk of death or serious bodily harm.” Journalists can also be targeted if they’re deemed an agent of a foreign power or terrorist group. And journalists can still be investigated for criminal acts, just like everyone else. What they can’t be investigated for is obtaining and publishing leaks. And they can’t be used as a backdoor search to identify government employees who have leaked documents.
There are also some surprising additions to the ban on targeting journalists, although we’ll have to wait and see if the DOJ will publicly confirm these alterations and whether it will actually respect the new “whoa if true” policies when they present themselves.
According to participants, the Justice Department originally intended to define it in a way that was limited to the passive receipt of government secrets. But the final version now covers the act of pursuing information.
This is big because some First Amendment court cases have resulted in judges finding the publication of leaks to be protected speech but the actions taken to obtain the documents illegal.
This is the huge one:
The Justice Department is also said to have removed espionage from a list of criminal activities that are excluded from protected news gathering.
Espionage prosecutions are pretty much the US judicial system agreeing the public’s interests are best served by a kangaroo court. Defendants are not allowed to raise any sort of public interest defense and the government pretty much gets to decide what evidence the accused has access to when preparing their defense. If this has been excluded, it means the DOJ will no longer be able to pursue bullshit espionage charges just because a journalist managed to obtain and publish sensitive national security related information.
The other good news is that the DOJ will not try to define who is or isn’t a journalist. Since nearly anyone can be, given the reach of the internet, the DOJ has wisely chosen to make this determination on a case-by-case basis, rather than limiting these new protections to members of legacy media outlets.
While the regulation is limited to members of the news media, the department did not define that term — a notoriously murky task in the internet era, when anyone can disseminate information.
The regulation instead says that when that person’s status is in question, the head of the department’s criminal division will decide. It also says if that official finds “genuine uncertainty” on whether an act falls within the scope of news gathering, the attorney general then intervenes.
These are the codified policies going forward. The steps taken by the Attorney General make it much more difficult for successive DOJ heads to roll them back. However, it would still take an act of Congress to make this ban the law of the land, and that sort of effort seems unlikely when many elected officials are openly hostile to members of the press.
These changes reflect an end of an era for the DOJ and its components. For years, journalists have been granted a little bit of deference, but that tended to evaporate quickly when agencies and presidents decided the best way to plug leaks was to target the people publishing leaked documents. The standard M.O. is no longer acceptable. Hopefully, this will be a permanent change for the DOJ — one that can withstand the whims of future Attorneys General less likely to view journalists as contributors to the security of democracy, even when their publications expose the dirty laundry of those securing the nation.
On any given day you can find a stellar array of phenomenal reporting in the pages of the New York Times. On any other day you can also find a rotating crop of terrible gibberish, from COVID coverage that large swaths of the medical community say borders on journalistic malpractice, to numerous examples of “view from nowhere” reporting that often normalizes and amplifies authoritarian rhetoric and its harms.
You can also routinely find smug, tone-deaf editors and columnists who have no idea how the Internet works and utterly despise public interaction — something made abundantly evident by the paper’s long-criticized 2017 decision to get rid of its public editor.
Last week, NYT Executive Editor Dean Baquet sent an internal memo to staffers that issues new guidance on how reporters should or shouldn’t use Twitter. The missive is crafted to appear largely harmless, making it clear that using Twitter is now “purely optional for Times journalists,” while urging reporters to “meaningfully reduce how much time you’re spending on the platform.”
But then Baquet makes it clear that the Times will also be dramatically boosting the amount of time company editors spend policing Times reporters’ opinions on the platform, especially when it comes to criticizing the work of the thousands of other Times reporters, many of whom (especially on the opinion side) traffic in absolute gibberish in dire need of informed criticism:
I want to emphasize that your work on social media needs to reflect the values of The Times and be consistent with our editorial standards, social media guidelines and behavioral norms. In particular, tweets or subtweets that attack, criticize or undermine the work of your colleagues are not allowed. Doing so undercuts the reputation of The Times as well as our efforts to foster a culture of inclusion and trust.
Masthead editors, department heads and our Standards department will pay close attention to how all Times journalists use social media to ensure it is in line with our social media guidelines.
This is fairly in line with the way that both the Times and the Washington Post editorial leadership generally treat Twitter. As in, mostly an enemy and a problem. Both papers have made it repeatedly clear that they see reporters sharing honest opinions on Twitter as a threat to the integrity of their reporting. As if reporters are utterly incapable of separating hyperbole and opinion from fact.
Yet a lot of the same reporters who share this viewpoint made careers building up brands by blogging in the early days of the Internet, and now literally believe journalists on Twitter should be muzzled. This level of disdain goes a lot deeper than just being mad because reporters speak their minds on Twitter.
As journalist and professor Jeff Jarvis notes, major league newspaper editors often misunderstand (or simply despise) Twitter’s function as a democratic feedback mechanism for the actual public. And in demonizing it and encouraging reporters to engage with it less, NYT editors are showcasing how they don’t understand how Twitter, journalism, or the Internet actually works in 2022:
As in, Twitter isn’t some monolith that threatens the Times authority. It’s a public forum in an era when news isn’t just Walter Cronkite talking at you via an asymmetrical bullhorn. Journalists now build brands and engage with a wide diaspora of human beings online, many of which lack much of a voice in the everyday realities that Manhattanites like Baquet and other NYT editors operate.
So, unsurprisingly, when social media restrictions are imposed by papers like the New York Times or Washington Post, there’s ample evidence that they aren’t really applied consistently (pdf, embedded below).
This fear and dismissal of Twitter is fairly in line with the Times’ historic problems in other arenas of Internet-related policy, like the paper’s failure to have its reporters’ backs when Gamergate-style, bad faith attacks percolate online. Taylor Lorenz, a former NYT reporter, had this to say in a since deleted Tweet (possibly because her new editors at the Washington Post also don’t much like honest opinions either):
“The issue w/ NYT is that they consistently buy into bad faith attacks online and punish their journalists when they’re subject to gamergate style smear campaigns. The masthead editors are more obsessed w/ twitter than the majority of the newsroom, stalking down employees every reply. Saying they’re going to police that even *more* is counterproductive, damaging to journalists, especially those who need to use the internet for reporting.”
This is a massive, storied institution purportedly dedicated to the truth whose editors frequently make it clear they don’t understand how things like brigading, trolling, or other tricks of the surging authoritarian right actually function online. That’s a big problem for the challenges of the coming decade.
Old school, generally affluent, white, and male editors with any measure of power simply adore the asymmetrical old timey times, where public input and opinion was carefully culled via a curated process of letters to the editor (it’s why the same sect is extremely keen on killing off the long, unfairly demonized news comment section).
But if you’re a journalist trying to survive an absolutely brutal market dominated by incompetence and greed, Twitter is absolutely essential in building a personal brand (again a concept also not coincidentally routinely and ignorantly mocked by wealthy, establishment journalists).
Countless journalists aren’t paid a functional living wage or benefits by the flailing U.S. media sector. Enter the Twitter engagement to newsletter subscription model, which is simply how things work now. That’s both a good thing (greater exposure and opportunities for reporters free of large company control), and a sometimes a bad thing (lots of trolling contrarians hunting engagement bucks at any price).
A lot of the anger a certain subset of older successful journalists have toward Twitter isn’t actually about Twitter. It’s about losing status in a more democratized information environment. It’s about losing control over employees who now have more opportunities and greater ownership of their own work.
But a lot of this anger is also simply driven by the fact a lot of these folks don’t like interacting with the actual public. If you’re an insular and insufferable opinion columnist with hugely unpopular opinions, of course you’re not going to appreciate a new information ecosystem where the public has more power.
As major outlets killed off comment sections, most outsourced any remaining engagement with the outlet to social media. Many now want to dismiss the importance of social media. Perhaps, combined with the New York Times‘ decision to kill off its public editor — its most meaningful interface with the actual public — you might be noticing a bit of a trend that has nothing to do with Twitter.