No, The FBI Is NOT ‘Paying Twitter To Censor’
from the not-how-any-of-this-works dept
Sigh.
Look. I want to stop writing about Twitter. I want to write about lots of other stuff. I have a huge list of other stories that I’m trying to get through, but then Elon Musk does something dumb again, and people run wild with it, and (for reasons that perplex me) much of the media either run with what Musk said, or just ignore it completely. But Musk is either deliberately lying about stuff or too ignorant to understand what he’s talking about, and I don’t know which is worse, though neither is a good look.
Today, his argument is that “the FBI has been paying Twitter to censor,” and he suggests this is a big scandal.
This would be a big scandal if true. But, it’s not. It’s just flat out wrong.
As with pretty much every one of these misleading statements regarding the very Twitter that he runs, where people (I guess maybe just former people) could explain to him why he’s wrong, it takes way more time and details to explain why he’s wrong than for him to push out these misleading lines that will now be taken as fact.
But, since at least some of us still believe in facts and truth, let’s walk through this.
First up, we already did a huge, long debunker on the idea that the FBI (or any government entity) was in any way involved in the Twitter decision to block links to the Hunter Biden laptop story. Most of the people who believed that have either ignored that there was no evidence to support it, or have simply moved on to this new lie, suggesting that “the FBI” was “sending lists” to Twitter of people to censor.
The problem is that, once again, that’s not what “the Twitter Files” show, even as the reporters working on it — Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and Michael Shellenberger — either don’t understand what they’re looking at or are deliberately misrepresenting it. I’m no fan of the FBI, and have spent much of the two and a half decades here at Techdirt criticizing it. But… there’s literally no scandal here (or if there is one, it’s something entirely different, which we’ll get to at the end of the article).
What the files show is that the FBI would occasionally (not very often, frankly) use reporting tools to alert Twitter to accounts that potentially violated Twitter’s rules. When the FBI did so, it was pretty clear that it was just flagging these accounts for Twitter to review, and had no expectation that the company would or would not do anything about it. In fact, they are explicit in their email that the accounts “may potentially constitute violations of Twitter’s Terms of Service” and that Twitter can take “any action or inaction deemed appropriate within Twitter policy.”
That is not a demand. There is no coercion associated with the email, and it certainly appears that Twitter frequently rejected these flags from the US government. Twitter’s most recent transparency report lists all of the “legal demands” the company received for content removals in the US, and its compliance rate is 40.6%. In other words, it complied with well under half of any demands for data removal from the government.
Indeed, even as presented (repeatedly) by Taibbi and Shellenberger as if it’s proof that Twitter closely cooperated with the FBI, over and over again if you read the actual screenshots, it shows Twitter (rightly!) pushing back on the FBI. Here, for example, Michael Shellenberger, shows Twitter’s Yoel Roth rejecting a request from the FBI to share information, saying they need to take the proper legal steps to request that info (depending on the situation, likely getting a judge to approve the request):
Now, we could have an interesting discussion (and I actually do think it’s an interesting discussion) about whether or not the government should be flagging accounts to review as terms of service violations. Right now, anyone can do this. You or I can go on Twitter and if we see something that we think violates a content policy, we can flag it for Twitter to review. Twitter than will review the content and determine whether or not it’s violative, and then decide what the remedy should be if it is.
That opens up an interesting question in general: should government officials and entities also be allowed to do the same type of flagging? Considering that anyone else can do it, and the company still reviews against its own terms of service and (importantly) feels free to reject those requests when they do not appear to violate the terms, I’m hard pressed to see the problem here on its own.
If there were evidence that there was some pressure, coercion, or compulsion for the company to comply with the government requests, that would be a different story. But, to date, there remains none (at least in the US).
As for the accounts that were flagged, from everything revealed to date in the Twitter Files, it mostly appears to be accounts that were telling a certain segment of the population (sometimes Republicans, sometimes Democrats) to vote on Wednesday, the day after Election Day, rather than Tuesday. Twitter had announced long before the election that any such tweets would violate policy. It does appear that a number of those tweets were meant as jokes, but as is the nature of content moderation, it’s difficult to tell what’s a joke from what’s not a joke, and quite frequently malicious actors will try to hide behind “but I was only joking…” when fighting back against an enforcement action. So, under that context, a flat “do not suggest people vote the day after Election Day” rule seems reasonable.
Given all that, to date, the only “evidence” that people can look at regarding “the FBI sent a list to censor” is that the FBI flagged (just as your or I could flag) accounts that were pretty clearly violating Twitter policies in a way that could undermine the US election, and left it entirely up to Twitter to decide what to do about it — and Twitter chose to listen to some requests and ignore others.
That doesn’t seem so bad in context, does it? It actually kinda seems like the sort of thing people would want the FBI to do to support election integrity.
But the payments!
So, there’s no evidence of censorship. But what about these payments? Well, that’s Musk’s hand-chosen reporters, Musk himself, and his fans totally misunderstanding some very basic stuff that any serious reporter with knowledge of the law would not mess up. Here’s Shellenberger’s tweet from yesterday that has spun up this new false argument:
That’s Shellenberger saying:
The FBI’s influence campaign may have been helped by the fact that it was paying Twitter millions of dollars for its staff time.
“I am happy to report we have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019!” reports an associate of Jim Baker in early 2021.
But this is a misreading/misunderstanding of how things work. This had nothing to do with any “influence campaign.” The law already says that if the FBI is legally requesting information for an investigation under a number of different legal authorities, the companies receiving those requests can be reimbursed for fulfilling them.
(a)Payment.—
Except as otherwise provided in subsection (c), a governmental entity obtaining the contents of communications, records, or other information under section 2702, 2703, or 2704 of this title shall pay to the person or entity assembling or providing such information a fee for reimbursement for such costs as are reasonably necessary and which have been directly incurred in searching for, assembling, reproducing, or otherwise providing such information. Such reimbursable costs shall include any costs due to necessary disruption of normal operations of any electronic communication service or remote computing service in which such information may be stored.
But note what this is limited to. These are investigatory requests for information, or so called 2703(d) requests, which require a court order.
Now, there are reasons to be concerned about the 2703(d) program. I mean, going back to 2013, when it was revealed that the 2703(d) program was abused as part of an interpretation of the Patriot Act to allow the DOJ/NSA to collect data secretly from companies, we’ve highlighted the many problems with the program.
So, by the way, did old Twitter. More than a decade ago, Twitter went to court to challenge the claim that a Twitter user had no standing to challenge a 2703(d) order. Unfortunately, Twitter lost and the feds are still allowed to use these orders (which, again, require a judge to sign off on them).
I do think it remains a scandal the way that 2703(d) orders work, and the inability of users to push back on them. But that is the law. And it has literally nothing whatsoever to do with “censorship” requests. It is entirely about investigations by the FBI into Twitter users based on evidence of a crime. If you want, you can read the DOJ’s own guidelines regarding what they can request under 2703(d).
Looking at that, you can see that if they can get a 2703(d) order (again, signed by a judge) they can seek to obtain subscriber info, transaction records, retrieved communications, and unretrieved communications stored for more than 180 days (in the past, we’ve long complained about the whole 180 days thing, but that’s another issue).
You know what’s not on that list? “Censoring people.” It’s just not a thing. The reimbursement that is talked about in that email is about complying with these information production orders that have been reviewed and signed by a judge.
It’s got nothing at all to do with “censorship demands.” And yet Musk and friends are going hog wild pushing this utter nonsense.
Meanwhile, Twitter’s own transparency report again already reveals data on these orders as part of its “data information requests” list, where it shows that in the latest period reported (second half of 2021) it received 2.3k requests specifying 11.3k accounts, and complied with 69% of the requests.
This was actually down a bit from 2020. But since the period the email covers is from 2019 through 2020, you can see that there were a fair number of information requests from the FBI:
Given all that, it looks like there were probably in the range of 8,000 requests for information, covering who knows how many accounts, that Twitter had to comply with. And so the $3 million reimbursement seems pretty reasonable, assuming you would need a decent sized skilled team to review the orders, collect the information, and respond appropriately.
If there’s any scandal at all, it remains the lack of more detailed transparency about the (d) orders, or the ability of companies like Twitter to have standing to challenge them on behalf of users. Also, there are reasonable arguments for why judges are too quick to approve (d) orders as valid under the 4th Amendment.
But literally none of that is “the FBI paid Twitter to censor people.”
And yet, here’s Elon.
Filed Under: censorship, content moderation, doj, elon musk, fbi, investigations, matt taibbi, michael shellenberger, terms of service
Companies: twitter
Comments on “No, The FBI Is NOT ‘Paying Twitter To Censor’”
The world’s richest man lied? Who could’ve seen that coming~.
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The man flat-out lied about his degree (or lack thereof), and it also turns out he lied a fair bit in his biography as well.
So uh…
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Wait, what does the Versace guy have to do with this?
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Now, now…
He’s no longer the world’s richest man.
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Is this article satire? Or, are you so politically aligned that you will literally play semantics to justify the FBI’s actions here?
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Did you literally read the article?
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If you think the article got something wrong by all means, list those things and explain why they are wrong.
The most disappointing thing of this whole Twitter Files fiasco, for me, has been Taibbi. He had made some questionable editorial decisions as of late, but this has already gone off the rails entirely.
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Indeed. There’s nonsense coming out of a lot of these kinds of things, but they’re often valuable in determining who has actual ethics, morals and commitment to truth, and who just goes where they’re convenient.
I’m a bit confused here. None of the information in the file falls under information provided pursuant to a court order. Twitter is turning it over voluntarily. So the money paid pursuant to 2703 would be an entirely different bucket of comms, right?
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The article talks about information that’s a part of the “files”: internal communications regarding the reimbursement from the “2703(d) program”. This reimbursement is for processing 2703(d) requests. The file does *not* contain the requests themselves.
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But 2703(d) requests require a court order, right? Isn’t Mansick saying that. The info requested in these “files” does not appear to be related to a court order. That’s why Twitter can say “no.”
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Read the article again. Zero money was paid pertaining to TOS violation requests. 100% of the paid money was for reimbursements for complying with court ordered subpoenas or warrants.
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The point is we have no idea what those criminal requests entailed, because nothing about them is in the Twitter files. They could have also related to censorship (i.e., seeking info on basically everyone who was near the Capitol protesting on 1/6 even if they weren’t commiting crimes). You can flip that around and apply it to investigating BLM protesters etc…
Shellenberger is asserting that this reimbursement scheme may have made Twitter more eager to help out the FBI, but it’s financially beneficial to get paid at whatever rate they did. Is that a bit weak? Maybe, but it’s not a misinterpretation, and didn’t really need a whole article about one tweet in a 50 tweet thread. Elon probably did misinterpret.
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The evidence shows Twitter being reimbursed for coöperating; it doesn’t say Twitter made a profit from that.
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LOL. That’s like saying a lawyer who bills and is paid $1,200 an hour for their work is simply being reimbursed for their labor and not making a profit.
Re: Re: Re:3
They made $3,415,323 for processing about 8,000 requests. That’s less than $430 per request, which isn’t exactly what I’d call making bank.
Re: Re: Re:4
Each took between 60 and 90 seconds to complete
Re: Re: Re:5
Thank you for your expert opinion, but we aren’t talking about how long you think it takes for you to satisfy your partner.
Re: Re: Re:2
The email disclosing the amount of money received for supporting the FBI had the subject, “Run the business – we made money!”
I.e., they made money helping the FBI.
Re: Re: Re:3
“Helping” – Processing 18 USC 2703 request which they are legally required to do.
“Made money” – “Hey look, we got reimbursed for the time spent processing 8000 legal requests”.
Perhaps you are one of those people who do work for free? I have a patio that needs cleaning.
Re: Re: Re:3
I.e., they made money helping the FBI.
Compared to only spending money, yes, as that very same email noted that before they weren’t getting reimbursed for those requests, hence they went from doing them on their dime to getting paid for them and thus ‘making money’.
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Except seeking information isn’t censoring people. They didn’t say, “give us the information about this user, oh, and also ban them because we don’t want them talking.” In fact, it would be stupid to request a ban because if the person is using Twitter, a platform that can provide intel to the government upon court order, it’s beneficial for investigative purposes to allow those people to further incriminate themselves.
You’re being loose and lazy with your logic. Lack of evidence is not proof that it could have been something a person without evidence must be true.
That is a misinterpretation because there’s no evidence to suggest it’s true. Provide the citation that it is true or else you’re just speculating.
They don’t look at all
Taibbi just reads the subject lines of emails and goes AHA! Like George Costanza
Coincidence?
The level of clue that Musk is working with regarding operation data of his enterprise is about the same level the election deniers use for misinterpreting operation data of election offices.
Start with hard numbers saying something different than you think or want others to think and then fantasize from there without waiting for explanations or input from people who know the meaning of the numbers.
Now the seminal difference is that Musk is the CEO of the company. Even after his layoffs, there should be enough people he can ask before spouting off.
When the question “can you explain this to me?” gets replaced by “can you dramatize this for me?”, it ends up with a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
But getting plenty of exposure. Which beats actual information.
There is little surprise that Musk would want a different CEO in his place: that way he looks less incompetent when doing this sort of attention whoring. As long as he is in the CEO seat, he really should know better.
Elon sucking all the air out of Techdirt
Dear Mike:
I think you need to rethink the Techdirt format for covering Elon, as follows:
First, a post which you update briefly for each antic, like “Musk falsely claiming FBI demanding and paying for censorship, in-depth news soon”
and
Second, say, every other or third day, a full post on the most important details.
That will give you breathing room for your more usual material.
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FBI not paying for censorship, they're paying for warrantless searches
The information requests discussed in the twitter files do not actually include any judges signatures. None of this is relevant. Its ok. Your brain and body are deteriorating from mrna shot. Just relax, and try to enjoy the last months of your life. You did good. Not really, but your dying, so try to feel better.
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Brother, a search necessarily means the government got access to otherwise inaccessible evidence. The FBI reporting users for potential violations of Twitter’s TOS isn’t a search – the information was already public and Twitter did not provide the government with any information.
Likewise, you can see in Yoel Roth’s email about halfway down the article above that Twitter wanted the FBI to go through legal channels to request information. You may take issue with 2703(d) orders and whether they should exist, but there’s no question that under current law those are valid searches.
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But nothing in the Twitter files represents information disclosed pursuant to a court order. It is all voluntary, which is why Twitter says no, which Mike makes so much of.
So this entire article about statutory reimbursement for requests made under court order is totally irrelevant.
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That’s because Shellenberger is showing one thing (the inbound flags of the FBI) and something TOTALLY DIFFERENT (the mandated reimbursement from processing (d) orders) and suggesting to people that they’re connected. They’re not.
Anyone with even the slightest knowledge/experience in this space would know that. But Shellenberger doesn’t have that, and he’s so desperately searching for a narrative that he presents it this way and very stupid people run with it.
It’s like saying “I saw Joe go into a Stabucks on Tuesday, and on Friday I saw him eating a pizza” and concluding “Starbucks sells pizza!”
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Re: Re: Re:2
He is saying this “reimbursement” scheme (which he insinuates is actually quite profitable to Twitter) makes them more amenable to respond to the FBI’s voluntary requests.
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While I would do any number of things for $3.5m, for a company Twitter’s size it should just about cover the tea and biscuits budget
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yeah, I don’t disagree the point was kind of weak
Re: Re: Re:3
That statement makes no sense at all, especially if you have any knowledge of how this works. The “reimbursement” is not a money maker. It’s not “profitable.” It’s a cost center since complying with those orders is a pain.
And the (d) orders are handled by a different team than the content policy flags, so it’s not like one helps the other in any way.
Look, I can agree that the FBI is dangerous and mostly bad. But there’s no evidence that any of this is nefarious.
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Re: Re: Re:4 Let Me Tell You How it Works
Let me tell you how it acutally works Mr. “Owning a Spectrum Lease Means Owning the Spectrum.” Having been in the exact same position for engineering work when I’m working a 9-5. The Twitter Lawyer is either hourly or salaried. Their hourly pay is set and they make that money no matter what. However the rate they bill out to reimbursable jobs is many times more than their actual salary. This was absolutely a money maker for Twitter.
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It’s amazing that you, Mr. Defending in absurdum his misconceptions about Public Housing and a Public House, could hold down such a job and not knowing economics and basic math. Where you someone’s boy-toy perhaps? It does fit your projected persona like a worn out glove.
Now, as someone who at times get similar types of requests from law enforcement which leads to a byzantine administrative process involving multiple people can tell you that these types of requests can easily cost my employer many thousands of dollars every time because of the amount of man hours needed to fulfill them.
You are of course free to disbelieve me, but no one makes a profit on handling these request at an average reimbursement of $437 per request (you did do the math, right? $3.5 million for 8000 requests) which takes hours to do. Perhaps you also thought that the lawyer just snaps his fingers and the requested data appears like magic which could mean that the paltry ~$400 has a slight profit margin.
Now I’ve told you how it actually works in real life and real economics – let the gnashing commence.
Re: Re: Re:6
“But questionable power dynamics and relationships and grooming don’t exist among sexual minorities. To suggest that a few fringe cases might is homophobic! And we can’t have that.”
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Re: Re: Re:6 One Hour
I do these requests to they are like 10 minutes worth of work.
“an average reimbursement of $437 per request” looks like 1 hour billed per request. Given what TicTok says about the average Twitter employee’s work load this is basically free money.
The average company lawyer makes around $130,000 so about $62.5/hour. So Twitter is charging the FBI 7X their actual cost if that.
Re: Re: Re:7
My take home salary is only around 1/4 of my internal cost center billing rate. Have to account for insurance, disability, pension, electricity, water, real estate, computing costs, other utilities, and more. Salary is only a small part of a company’s costs.
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Re: Re: Re:8 Sunk Costs
And those are all sunk costs. That’s why reimbursable work is such a favorite. You get to bill for costs you were going to incur anyways.
Its also not exactly on the up and up. Charge upon charge are added regardless of how much of a stretch it is.
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Oh, you do? So no one vets them then? Checks if the data is within the allowed time period? That the data isn’t stored overseas with the implications of foreign jurisdictions and laws? That the account in questions isn’t owned by an US-citizen?
Yeah, I don’t think you have actually ever seen a 2703.
I’m sure if you had a company you’d sell your services at cost, that’ll go swimmingly with how much you seem to understand economics at where costs are in a company.
Re: Re: Re:5
[citation needed]
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Re: Re: Re:4
The word “reimbursement” is commonly used for billing. It doesn’t literally mean an exact reimbursement of expenses.
Of course responding to the requests is profitable.
How can anyone throw out a blanket claim that it’s a “cost center” without knowing the exact expenses?
Also, it’s not a “cost center” if it’s being reimbursed, for profit or not. A cost center is an expense only department or location.
Your entire approach is criticizing Elon for making claims you feel he doesn’t understand. But you are offering baseless claims yourself implying you know the profit margin of Twitter responding to requests. Then even educating us on the structure of their financial reporting and it being a cost center when you’ve already confirmed that it’s not because it’s reimbursed.
I’m not defending either political side of any of this. What I find interesting is the immediate discrediting of statements about anything that doesn’t serve their agenda. Instead of mocking and laughing about how dumb you think Elon is, listen to what was uncovered and be open to the information. The claim that it’s no big deal the FBI was informing Twitter about its users violating their company policy is laughable. Open your eyes, that’s the angle they had to take. You don’t have any concern at all about the FBI monitoring compliance for a private company? The FBI does not provide internal audits for private companies to ensure compliance of its users to company policy. They should have no business at all spending government dollars assuring Twitter has quality control for its users. Obviously. Taking the stance that it’s no big deal and perfectly fine exposes your agenda and your refusal to honestly evaluate the information Elon released. Unless you are but lying to yourself and everyone else.
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FBI Apologist Much?
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I mean, have you read Techdirt? We’ve never said a nice thing about the FBI probably ever.
But I’m sorry that we like to deal in facts, not fantasy.
Re: Re: Re:4
“But I’m sorry that we like to deal in facts, not fantasy.”
Well, that in itself is, to the alt-right, an outright declaration of war.
To the US “conservative”, long used to using another of Goebbel’s old maxims – lügenpresse to explain away the “fake news” pushed by the media, the presentation of factual reality is a threat.
Always has been.
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Re: Re: Re:4 No First Pinciples
You don’t believe in anything Mike. You have no first principles so It’s not surprising to see you defending the FBI when it benefits you. As I easily showed you didn’t think this was good thing when Trump did basically the same thing to Amazon.
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…says someone who loves to whine about “censorship” on social media platforms but never comments on articles where actual censorship is discussed.
Re: Re: Re:5
I believe in truth and evidence. My first principles are “what do the facts say.” Nothing in this article, in any way, is “defending the FBI.” Can you not read?
I’m sorry the facts go against your chosen narrative. I find it sad and pathetic that people like you feel the need to create fake stories to support what they insist must be true.
I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Re: Re: Re:5
[citation needed]
Also, what exactly do you mean by “first principles”?
This isn’t exactly a defense of the FBI. This is just saying what the documents actually say. Also, how does this benefit Mike in any way?
What in the world are you talking about?
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[Projects facts contrary to evidence]
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MRNA shots do have consequences that aren’t yet well-established and/or quantified.
Let’s put one against another:
a) dead vaccine: body will bother with it until it’s gone. Low-key immune response will take longer and have sort-of low level of antibodies. High-key immune response will take shorter and have a bit higher level of antibodies
b) live vaccine: low-key immune response will take longer and have to destroy a larger number of multiplying pathogens, leaving more antibodies and giving a stronger reaction. High-key immune response will take shorter and possibly end up with a comparatively low number of antibodies.
c) MRNA vaccine: the actual stimulant is produced in-body for three days or so, regardless of immune response, and then metabolised. Low-key immune response will only result in low levels of antibodies. High-key immune response will go bonkers since the “pathogen” just keeps reappearing for days.
So the problem with the MRNA principle is that the stimulus is completely impervious to the immune reaction.
A low-key response has obvious drawbacks with regard to immunization. Now a high-key response is what is interesting with regard to long-term side effects: if the immune system gets into hysterics, that can be bad in itself (and the deadly lung inflammation of the early COVID-19 variants is actually an immune overresponse, albeit a different one). The main side effect is that other immunization suffers.
One telltale “loss of immunization” sickness is shingles as a reawakening of chickenbox viruses that have been hiding dormant in nerve pathways.
You can easily get anecdotal information about increased shingles occurences in patients with allergies or neurodermitis or other autoimmune overresponse conditions that got MRNA shots.
Of course, there are significant latencies involves and you won’t get any viable statistics from pharmaceutic corporations or large-scale studies. That will take decades.
Of course this is a case of “but the alternatives would have been worse”. At the same point of time, how to properly dose a vaccination for people of different immune system acumen so that the results are both sufficient and not excessive for all kind of patients appears to be somewhat of a question without a well-established answer.
Again: this is certainly a case of “the alternatives would have been worse”. At the same point of time it would be good to carefully collect all the information one can from this world-wide mass study instead of keeping quiet about it for political reasons.
It’s a pity that all the vaccination denialism has created a climate where an open-minded assessment of advantages and disadvantages and refinement of more targeted applications depending on the patient is not likely to be welcome.
And in the long run, fishing around for dependable anecdotal information is a fool’s errand that makes no sense to leave to outsiders.
TLDR: I think with the current state of knowledge, “MRNA denialism” does not really work swimmingly as an open-and-shut label for kooks. Hopefully we’ll get there some day.
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You know what else is fucked up? No one who’s ever gotten any of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines has lived longer than three years after doing so.
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Everyone knows that when you have evidence-based research around potentially deadly medical practices, you publish it in the rigorous, peer-reviewed depths of a random tech blog’s comment section, the same way everyone knows the best tasting and safest wine is prison toilet wine!
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“I think with the current state of knowledge, “MRNA denialism” does not really work swimmingly as an open-and-shut label for kooks.”
Others think very different. What’s sad is that your ill-informed nonsense about mRNA vaccines seems to be causing people to avoid non-mRNA vaccines as well, including those for diseases that were well under control before COVID.
Thankfully, since the majority of the inhabitants of this planet have been vaccinated in one way or another now, and there’s so little evidence of major side-effects that “documentaries” about them have hilariously obvious lies even in their trailers, the coming winter season should be somewhat less deadly than the previous two.
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[citation needed]
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you’re*
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what a strawman
The salient point is that yes, the FBI gave lists on who to ban. They directed censorship. (It doesn’t matter if that was backed up by threats, it’s still government censorship)
But you’re really butthurt that the last month of releases has proved you utterly, completely wrong about twitter. So in addition to gaslighting, you’re now going to focus on a side issue to ignore the blatant 1st amendment violation.
Stop writing about twitter, you fraud.
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… hallucinated nobody mentally competent, ever.
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…not an argument nor a rebuttal
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No, but it’s a pretty good explanation.
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And yet still true and evidence-backed, unlike anything you’ve ever claimed.
Not surprised to see you don’t understand hitchens’s razor, either.
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Re: Re: Re:2
There’s literal actual evidence released several times a week on twitter, you moron. Receipts and everything.
The problem is you’re seeing an actual, verified email that says “Here’s a list of people who should be shot”. And your rebuttal is “But the FBI didn’t actually tell them to shoot them!” That is some of the dumbest shit I have ever fucking heard.
Re: Re: Re:3
Two things.
Re: Re: Re:4
Or even censored, for that matter.
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“Being banned/suspended from one social media service out of many, no matter how popular the service, is nowhere near being the same thing as being shot.”
Or, indeed, silenced. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone scream as loudly as the people who say they can’t speak because Twitter told them to GTFO.
Re: Re: Re:3 Dig up stuipd
“literal*
“actual”
“verified”
The list of words you don’t understand the meaning of grow by the day bro.
“That is some of the dumbest shit I have ever fucking heard.”
We do agree on one thing though…
Re: Re: Re:3
Again, it’s not a list of “people who should be shot”. It is a list of “people who may or may not be breaking your rules”. The FBI didn’t even suggest that Twitter should do anything more than investigate these accounts, let alone take a specific action against them. There is a massive difference between the two.
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Re: Re: Re:4
Sullivan 1963 read it up.
‘We didn’t tell the book stores to ban the books we just suggested that they might be obscene.’
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Re: Re: Re:5
The Commission’s notices, phrased virtually as orders, reasonably understood to be such by the distributor, invariably followed up by police visitations, in fact stopped the circulation of the listed publications ex proprio vigore. It would be naive to credit the State’s assertion that these blacklists are in the nature of mere legal advice when they plainly serve as instruments of regulation independent of the laws against obscenity.
Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U.S. 58, 69(1963)
“Their conduct as disclosed by this record shows plainly that they went for beyond advising the distributors of their legal rights and liabilities. Their operation was in fact a scheme of state censorship effectuated by extra-legal sanctions; they acted as an agency not to advise but to suppress.”
Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U.S. 58, 72 (1963)
Sounds alot like Twitter.
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Re: Re: Re:6 Yes Yes It Does
Yes it does. If you stay on here you will see that most of Mike’s and Mike’s Misfits legal arguments come straight out of the 1960s. Legal arguments that have almost always already been defeated in court in landmark free speech and civil rights cases.
Re: Re: Re:7
Oh, please please pleeeeease, point to the Twitter files where the government virtually orders Twitter to do their bidding and where they intimidate Twitter to do it or else.
You shouldn’t really talk about legal cases since you so far haven’t managed to cite even one case that had any relevance or proved the argument you wanted to make.
And when that is pointed out we get the usual childish retort of “shut your mouth asshole”. It’s amazing how emotionally stunted you are, you are at best barely at a teenagers level of emotional development – like most trolls are.
Re: Re: Re:8
You can figure out the depths of his maladjustment and self-loathing by the fact that he keeps coming back here to insult people on a regular basis. Well-adjusted people who like themselves don’t go around purposely trying to make complete strangers feel miserable.
Re: Re: Re:7
[Projects facts contrary to evidence]
Re: Re: Re:7
I’m just looking at the evidence you yourself presented, and it is incredibly easy to distinguish the two cases. No police visitations. Only 40% compliance. Lack of evidence that Twitter saw them as orders. Completely different phrasing in the notices. No implications of legal issues.
The fact is that that case is nothing like this one.
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Re: Re: Re:6 Example
About a month ago. Mike’s Misfits were talking about social media being a private club. As if that wasn’t the first argument the segregationists tried after the civil rights act lol.
Re: Re: Re:7
Not a private club, but a privately owned business. Whether it opens its doors to the public is irrelevant to whether the government can make it host (or not host) any legally protected speech. As Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh pointed out in Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck: “A private entity … who opens its property for speech by others is not transformed by that fact alone into a state actor.” (And you can preëmptively shove your “BuT iT’s NoT a StAtE aCtOr” bullshit; I’m not gonna buy into it and you’ve already had your ass handed to you on that point.)
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Re: Re: Re:8
Regardless of whether or not social media companies are “State Actors” under the First Amendment which regulates the government, laws such as the California free speech clause and their Unruh Civil Rights act and the Texas social media laws, regulate companies and are enforceable.
“Today we reject the idea that corporations have a freewheeling First Amendment right to censor what people say,”
Re: Re: Re:9
Laws such as 47 U.S.C. § 230 do as well, and those laws give Twitter the right to determine for itself what legal speech is allowed or disallowed on its property. Yes or no: Do you think the government should have the right to make Twitter host (or not host) certain kinds of legally protected speech?
Re: Re: Re:10
Except that they have already raised those arguments and lost in the 5th circuit court of appeals, I know people like to pretend that section 230 says things that it doesn’t, but in there the term “good faith” appears.
Moreover, that section is content based, and under the First Amendment, content based speech laws that favor or punish speech, are “presumptively invalid”. This doctrine has been reinforced under Reed v. Town of Gilbert Arizona (2016), to say that content based laws with content neutral justification, cannot avoid this strict scrutiny.
Re: Re: Re:11
And yet, no court to date has ruled 230 to be unconstitutional. Hell, when the entire damn rest of the Communications Decency Act was declared null and void, 230 was the only part of it left standing.
230 is not about letting the government control what speech can or cannot show up on Twitter, Truth Social, etc. 230 is about giving private entities—i.e., the owners and operators of interactive web services—the legal leeway to moderate speech on their platforms as they see fit without being legally liable for what they chose to moderate (or not moderate). 230 lets 4chan be 4chan—with all that implies—without requiring any other site to permit the same amount of legal third-party speech as does 4chan. Similarly, 230 also lets a “family friendly” forum moderate speech to keep its “family friendly” descriptor intact without requiring 4chan to moderate speech with the same strictness.
Re: Re: Re:11
“but in there the term “good faith” appears”
Does it? Are you referring to something other than the section 230(c)(1) that most people refer to with this term?
Re: Re: Re:11
My do people use cases like this as some kind of gotcha for content moderation and §230.
The referenced case involves the GOVERNMENT restricting someone’s 1A and 14A rights, it has zero bearing on private property and how the owner manages it. Someone with a brain would have realized this when the defendant is a town.
Re: Re: Re:7
Yes, I recall that, with regards to the Texas social media law, and their legal arguments were already foreclosed against in the case Pruneyard Shopping.
Re: Re: Re:6
Some things lacking from the Twitter files that were present in that case:
Twitter didn’t receive police visitations. Twitter only removed 40% of the listed accounts. There is no indication that Twitter understood the notices as orders. The notices aren’t phrased virtually as orders.
Really, they have nothing in common.
Re: Re: Re:5
And in so doing, they also suggested consequences for bookstores that refused to follow those “suggestions”. The FBI suggested no consequences for Twitter if it didn’t take action against the accounts flagged by the feds; hell, the feds even said Twitter could take whatever inaction it deemed appropriate. That doesn’t sound to me like the FBI saying “do this or else” (or the “it would be a shame…” mob boss variant thereof).
Like Mike, I’m not going to give the FBI any love. It created “terrorists” so it could prosecute those people and count the convictions as “wins in the war on terror”, tried to blackmail MLK into suicide, and did COINTELPRO. Fuck the FBI. But in this instance, I don’t see anything from the FBI that rises to the level of coercing, demanding, or otherwise ordering censorship from Twitter.
And I know you’ll inevitably say that “Mike paid you to say that” or some other shithead accusation, to which I say this: I’ll be glad to change my mind on this matter, but you have to show me something that would change my mind. Everything you keep quoting from the “Twitter Files” doesn’t do the job. Every legal citation you make is either devoid of context, taken out of context, or otherwise misinterpreted through your “anything short of letting me say the N-word without consequence is censorship most foul” belief system. You haven’t done the work necessary to change my mind; I’m not about to change it only because you lob insults and rape threats at me.
Oh, and one more thing, since I know what you’re gonna say to all that: I will not shut the fuck up only because you demanded I shut up. In the meantime, here’s a preëmptive bottle for you, since you’re gonna whine like a baby about my comment: 🍼
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Re: Re: Re:6
So if the FBI comes to your house, and says “I just want to let you know about this thing”, and “you can take whatever action you want”, that does not imply that there wont be consequences, including political consequences through other agencies.
There were also discussions off the record in SCIFs that we do not have access to, so its entirely possible to have an “off the record” statement to twitter, given that congress has repeatedly warned the tech companies of consequences of not acquiescing.
Re: Re: Re:7
I don’t respond to otherwording.
Re: Re: Re:7
No, no it doesn’t imply there will be any consequences, including political consequences.
There is no evidence of such, so we cannot conclude that any such statement was ever made. At best, that is pure speculation on your part.
Congress has not warned tech companies of any consequences for not acquiescing to the FBI, and the FBI never mentioned Congress in these documents, so that is entirely irrelevant here. What Congress does has no relevance to what the FBI did unless you can demonstrate one referred to the other on these matters.
Re: Re: Re:5
That was literally the government saying that they think the books might violate the law. There is a difference between a potential violation of a law and a violation of a private company’s rules.
Re: Re: Re:
“What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”
Re:
https://rsf.org/en/country/singapore
Maybe you might want to take a fucking look at how a country does censorship before you say anything, terrorist.
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Re: Re:
do you think calling people “terroris”t is funny, somehow? Is this just the new lefty “racist”?
Re: Re: Re:
Again.
I’m not the one who’s running a one-man harassment campaign against the owner of the site. YOU ARE.
I’m not the one hurling abuse at regulars, regardless of their viewpoints, unless they are actively harassing people. YOU ARE.
I’m not the one spraying garbage, forcing just about everyone who isn’t a white supremacist, regardless of where they stand on the political spectrum, to clean up after your terrorist ilk. YOU ARE.
I’m not the one trying to silence people. YOU ARE.
And I’m not the one who supports the Jan 6 Insurrection. ** YOU ARE.**
But go ahead, commit more stochastic terrorism. It’s still legal in America.
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Re: Re: Re:2
….what even makes you think I’m white? What is WRONG with you?
“Harrassment”, in addition to not being terribly well defined, is not terrorism. And it’s definitely free speech.
Re: Re: Re:3
Harassment isn’t covered by the 1st Amendment. Try again.
Re: Re: Re:3
Harrassment”, in addition to not being terribly well defined, is not terrorism. And it’s definitely free speech.“
Why is it you free speech nutters never actually understand the first amendment?
Re: Re: Re:3
Yes, your form of online harassment is legal under 1A, save for a few states where it isn’t and is classified as actual harassment under their criminal codes.
But.
I’m not the one who’s running a one-man harassment campaign against the owner of the site. YOU ARE.
I’m not the one hurling abuse at regulars, regardless of their viewpoints, unless they are actively harassing people. YOU ARE.
I’m not the one spraying garbage, forcing just about everyone who isn’t a white supremacist, regardless of where they stand on the political spectrum, to clean up after your terrorist ilk. YOU ARE.
I’m not the one trying to silence people. YOU ARE.
And I’m not the one who supports the Jan 6 Insurrection. YOU ARE.
What else am I to assume, then? That you’d also LIE as well?
Re: Re: Re:3
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/harassment
Yet another word you fail to understand the meaning of.
Re: Re: Re:3
A claim made by someone who would use their speech to silence everybody they hate.
Re: Re: Re:2
I don’t think that means what you intended for a meaning. Stochastics is defined as the ability to read all of the information available, and then make predictions that often seem profound when they come true.
“stochastic terrorism” would imply that a person has become so knowledgeble that he can then terrorize others with undeniably true facts. Given the tenor of this particular discussion, that seems a strong contradiction to me.
See Robert Silverberg’s ‘The Stochastic Man’, published in 1975.
Re: Re: Re:3
Stochastic terrorism refers to the act of demonizing a person (or persons) for the purpose of provoking a violent act that is likely to happen even if no one can know who will do it or when. To put it another way: A powerful person expresses a desire to see certain people die, then sits back and waits for the inevitable without ever having to give an order. The continual right-wing demonization of queer people—trans people in particular—as “groomers” and child rapists can arguably count as an example of stochastic terrorism, especially given the Club Q shooting.
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Re: Re: Re:4
Indeed. Anything vaguely resembling a disparagement of non-straight people can be accurately – must be accurately taken as a threat. There is no other alternative.
Re: Re: Re:5
lmao fuck off you faux-leftist prick
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Re: Re: Re:6
Stay mad at right-wing people. We need this righteous anger and outrage at those who would deny us our anal vore. They will all pay.
Re: Re: Re:7
“… would deny us our anal vore. They will all pay.”
Yeah that particular kind of BSDM isn’t my kink.
Re: Re: Re:8
Between a conservative and a vore specialist on f-list, I think we both know who you’d support.
Re: Re: Re:4
Umm, can’t go with that. Stochastics is a valid science, and not some made up word that anyone can just hijack for their own desires.
Not that I’m accusing you, STS, but someone, somewhere, at some time in the recent past, has made a grievious error in how to use the English language.
In point of fact, your example is the exact opposite (some might say, the antithesis) of the correct definition. Stated simply, there are no facts to be found anywhere that allows one person to denigrate another person, period. However, if one desires to make up facts (we can all thank Kellyanne for “alternate facts” being entered into our daily vocabulary) and then spout them as if they were part of our shared reality, that’s on them. Such person need to be sent to bed without any supper.
Re: Re: Re:5
Whether it is a valid science or not has no bearing on the expression “stochastic terrorism”. You should really revisit the definition of stochastic because it actually means “properties being well described by random probability distribution”.
And that means when you pair it up with the word “terrorism” the meaning becomes the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted.
So the word hasn’t been “hijacked” in any way, it’s just you that have fallen for the etymological fallacy.
Re: Re: Re:6
It’s not even the etymological fallacy; as far as I can tell, the field of ‘stochastics’ that he mentions is an invention of Silverberg’s, and this guy is hilariously claiming this 70s sci-fi concept is “a valid science, and not some made up word that anyone can just hijack for their own desires.” In fact, it was Silverberg hijacking an English word for his own desires—in English, ‘stochastic’ has had the sense of ‘randomly determined’ since 1934, which it got from German mathematics.
Re: Re: Re:4
“Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”
“Yes, M’lord”
kills priest
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Re: Re: Re:4
Calling things you do not agree with “Stochastic terrorism” is actually Stochastic terrorism because you are trying to encourage law enforcement to use it’s anti-terrorism powers against those you politically disagree with to force political change.
Attempting to get a third party to use force to terrorize your opposition to force political change is Stochastic terrorism. You are a terrorist.
Re: Re: Re:5
I don’t agree with mike, or some of the more conservative voices here.
I do not call them terrorists. One of them is a ripe asshole, though.
But you, Koby, Hyman, Matthew, and your ilk who keep appearing here to spew white supremacist propaganda, intimidate people into not talking and generally try to force people to leave the place…
Yeah, the term fits. No different from the brownshirts of old, or the modern cyberarmy of stochastic terrorists authcap governments “employ” to keep the populace down online. Inclusive of the JIDF.
And I am not getting any government entity to arrest you. At least, not when I comment here, even though I believe YOU should be shot.
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Re: Re: Re:6
“white supremacist” on this side of the River I’m not white. Hell I’m far darker than Jorge Ramos who FYI is white on the other side of the River.
Re: Re: Re:7
Please, stop lying.
You are likely not Latino, not an engineer of ANY sort, not bi, or anything you claim to be.
You fucking SUPPORT white supremacists. You HAVE threatened to rape a regular. And you keep polluting the comment section.
You are a liar and a terrorist. And stochastic terroism is one step away from actual terrorism. And you already root for white supremacists.
Re: Re: Re:5
…has never happened in the non-halluciatory world.
Re: Re: Re:3
Point acknowledged. I do apologize for tarnishing the good field of stochastics.
However, this isn’t about that field, but a form of online harassment that, while technically legal under 1A, is used to silence people and intimidate them.
It’s not much different from the legions of online brownshirts some authcap governments use to silence criticism, spread propaganda and harass people who do not march in lockstep with the ruling political party.
Re: Re: Re:
If the suicide belt fits bro…
Re:
Are you really this stupid, or do you pretend to be this stupid so you can troll comment sections?
Re: Re:
“I took lessons!”
~Samuel L. Jackson in The Long Kiss Goodnight
Re: The salient point
You’re absolutely right bud, if you ignore all the details this looks really bad.
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Re: Re:
…and if you pay attention to all the details it looks way, way worse?
Like a massive number of recently ex-FBI personnel working at twitter, so much they had specialized onboarding for them?
You can’t just wish this away.
Re: Re: Re:
Only if you deliberately misread all the details to paint the image of a conspiracy to censor right-wing voices—and only right-wing voices, for some reason—with the aid of a social media service that routinely bans people for expressing hateful ideas such as racism, misogyny, queerphobia, and anti-Semitism. Otherwise, all the details look pretty much exactly as Mike has continually explained them to you.
If you can quote literally anything from the “Twitter Files” that backs up your assertions and hasn’t already been explained to you, now would be a good time for that.
Re: Re: Re:
“You can’t just wish this away.“
Says man attempting to do exactly that.
Re:
You seriously consider 40% a reliant percentage?
Re:
This has all been explained to you, repeatedly and in detail. Do you think if you yell louder that it will somehow make you right?
Cuz mostly it just makes you look stupider.
Re:
No, it gave lists on what to be on the lookout for, which sometimes included specific accounts.
It’s not government censorship unless the government ordered Twitter to do it, which they didn’t. Stop lying.
Do you work in a movie theater? Because that’s quite a bit of projection.
Point to the piece of evidence that showcases blatant 1st amendment violations. As Mike lays out in the articles you apparently haven’t read, so far, there’s no evidence of government coercion or interference.
Stop lying about government censorship, you twit.
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Re: Re:
“To be on the look for” sounds nice and mild but changes none of the facts. They gave lists. Of people to ban. That’s directed censorship. No, there didn’t have to be an “or else” attached (though one can be assumed) to make it a 1st amendment. No it doesn’t matter if it’s “ordered”. There are at least hundreds of precedent on this. If you don’t understand that then you really have no excuse to be talking here.
The rest of it is just you sucking Masnick’s cock and I’m not interested.
Re: Re: Re:
… said nobody with any cognitive capacity for logic or literacy, ever.
Re: Re: Re:
Nope. They were lists of people to investigate, then to decide what—if anything—ought to be done about them. Twitter could have decided to just add a disclaimer or offer a warning. No particular action was even suggested be taken.
Yes, there does. Also, given that only around 40% of those accounts actually had action taken against them by Twitter and yet nothing was done against Twitter for the other 60%, I see no reason why an “or else” can be assumed in this case.
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Re:
Guys, guys, guys….. Just because Bennett is emitting strong evidence that his puberty has never gone into remission, that doesn’t mean we should we should all gang up on the poor retarded little fuckhead, does it?
Come on, be nice and give him back his shovel and mallet, so he can go back to happily pounding sand up his ass, OK?
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Re: Re:
You don’t have an argument so you’re resorting to schoolyard insults.
Re: Re: Re:
…says the guy who asked me to suck his dick when I asked him for proof of his claims.
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Re: Re: Re:2
Well, Did you…. punk?
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Re: Re: Re:2
Well now you’re just making things up, which makes me think less of you than I did, which was already not much.
Re: Re: Re:3
Who are you, again?
Re: Re: Re:3 Bitch please
The fuck anyone care what you think of them?
Re: Re: Re:3
“I didn’t do it!” says liar when confronted with evidence he did it.
Re:
I could give Twitter a list of accounts to ban. What’s your easily debunked point?
…says the guy who is deliberately misreading what’s in those “Twitter Files” to act like a victim of iron-fisted leftist fascism.
Or else what?
Re:
It’s done the opposite. It has shown that I have been correct about it.
But it has also shown that a bunch of very, very dumb people, working off of motivated reasoning, will believe total nonsense without evidence, if Musk & friends shove it down their throat.
Don’t be one of those gullible fools, Matthew. I know you can actually look at the evidence and admit that you were wrong.
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Re: Re:
When the government starts to decide if what you say is true or not, eventually the only true statements allowed will be statements that reinforce the positions of that same government.
Why would you want government to have that power?
Re: Re: Re:
Show me where Mike has said he wants the government to have that power. I’ll wait.
Re: Re: Re:
That’s true, we definitely don’t want that! Please remind us of this again at a time when it actually happens.
Re: Re: Re:
“Why would you want government to have that power?”
Those strawmen need a bit more work.
Being OK with the FBI giving a heads-up to a single private company about bad actors on their property is not the same as thinking that the FBI should have power over freedom of expression everywhere.
I know this lie is central to opposition here, but you guys really need to work on camouflaging your work here.
Re: Re: Re:
Show me that the government is doing that and that Mike has said he wants the government to have that power.
Re: Re: Re:
Yeah. That’s why I continue to fight against any attempt by the government to engage in actual censorship. That’s why if there were evidence of the government doing that here, I would call it out and talk about how it’s a violation of the 1st Amendment and basic free speech principles.
But it didn’t happen here.
I don’t. I never have and never will support such a thing.
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Re: Re: Re:2
Except that according to the precedent handed down in Bantam Books V. Sullivan, Government censorship is exactly what happened.
The government has been sending threats via congress (which is immune under the debate clause) to tech companies that they will be punished if they do not remove speech, and then the government sends FBI agents to tell them what speech that they should remove, and the government can and does “discretionary” powers within agencies to punish / reward companies quid pro quo.
To pretend otherwise is either completely naïve as to how the government operates, or to be so disingenuous as to mislead your readers. This is literally one of the allegations behind the Amazon web services lawsuit about the JEDI program contract, that Trump was punishing Amazon for its political alignment, do you pretend that its only Trump that does so?
“Their conduct as disclosed by this record shows plainly that they went for beyond advising the distributors of their legal rights and liabilities. Their operation was in fact a scheme of state censorship effectuated by extra-legal sanctions; they acted as an agency not to advise but to suppress.”
Bantam Books V. Sullivan 372 U.S. 58, 72
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Re: Re: Re:3 TechDrit Said Bad
Nope TechDirt said it was bad when trump did it.
https://www.techdirt.com/2020/04/16/defense-department-oversight-thwarted-defense-department-officials-who-refused-to-talk-about-trumps-communications/
“Ah. Well, at least the IG found out something about somebody. The President’s dislike for Amazon and Bezos remains under “presidential privilege” wraps and the swamp will continue draining at its current rate of 0 liters/flush.”
Re: Re: Re:4
There’s a difference between “this is bad” and “this is unconstitutional/illegal”.
Re: Re: Re:3
Except in Sullivan, the government implied bookstores would face consequences if it refused to remove books deemed “obscene”. The FBI reports seen in the “Twitter Files” neither imply nor outright state any form of legal consequences if Twitter does nothing about the flagged accounts. Hell, the FBI even says Twitter can take no action at all if the service deemed doing so “appropriate”. The difference between Sullivan and the “Twitter Files” is prior restraint—and in the emails from the “Twitter Files”, I can find nothing that so much as suggests prior restraint.
We can have a discussion about whether Twitter should be giving preferential treatment to flaggings made by the government. That’s a good discussion to have. But for us to have that discussion, you must first put down your “it’s censorship” argument.
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Re: Re: Re:4
“government implied bookstores would face consequences”
They said the list had been forwarded to law enforcement. In this case it was law enforcement making the request. Your argument is distinction without difference.
Re: Re: Re:5
“They said the list had been forwarded to law enforcement. In this case it was law enforcement making the request.”
So, in one case the list was forwarded with the express intent to demand legal consequences, in the other a list was forwarded with no such implication? You’re not really helping the argument here.
If a police officer tells me that he noticed that I left my car unlocked, does that imply I’m going to be arrested if I don’t lock my car? Or, is it just someone telling he I should be more careful about how I leave my property unsecured?
Re: Re: Re:3
Sullivan included police visitations, references to potential consequences, and the perception of coercion by the target. None of that is present here.
Irrelevant. Congress did not mention the FBI in its threats, the FBI never mentioned Congress in its notices, and neither has any control over the other (separation of powers), so there is nothing to connect the two on this.
It did not say what, if anything, the tech companies should do with the lists. Nothing in there suggests any action should be taken at all. So no, the FBI agents didn’t tell them what speech they should remove.
[citation needed]
Ummm… This all happened under Trump. Also, I have no idea what you’re talking about.
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Re: Re: Re:2
Government not only attempted but succeeded in engaging in actual censorship. You now are engaged in a gaslighting campagin to pretend that never happened, possibly because you hate free speech, hate Musk, or both. (I don’t think you actually like the FBI, I think you’re just an idiot)
Because of this, you are enabling more censorship.
Just because the fascism is on your side doesn’t mean it isn’t fascist.
Re: Re: Re:3
“Government not only attempted but succeeded in engaging in actual censorship.”
Nobody says that never happened in the past. Only that it has nothing to do with private moderation of private property, even if a government office had a conversation with them beforehand.
Re:
No, that’s not what happened. They gave lists of accounts that they believed Twitter might want to investigate to decide whether or not they violated the ToS. There was no expectation on the part of the FBI regarding what Twitter would do with that information.
No, this only proves what Mike has said all along.
First, Mika already addressed the issue you’re talking about in a previous article. He is now addressing this new issue that has been circulated. That doesn’t mean he is ignoring the previous claims.
Second, again, there is no 1A violation here.
So, are these people pretending to be stupid in order to pander to their followers, or are they really as stupid as they appear to be?
Mike for Twitter CEO
I hereby nominate Mike Masnick to be the new CEO of Twitter following Elon losing his own poll. He’s one of the few people who seem to actually understand the problems that Twitter has to deal with. I know he’s busy here and all, but bringing intelligence and honesty to Twitter might be worth taking a break from Techdirt.
Re:
Why do you hate Mike so much?!?
Re:
Nah. I like Mike; I wouldn’t do that to him.
Re:
On the level of having someone in charge who understands the very basics of what the site does and how it relates to the real world? Sure.
But, even if Mike wanted the job I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Musk has saddled the company with $1 billion/year extra debt, chased off a lot of its revenue generating users and advertisers, removed decades of man years of institutional knowledge and has invited the worst possible people to abuse the site.
Whoever replaces Musk, even assuming they have a free hand, adequate investment and the actual skills to turn things around, to have a hope of turning the site around they will have to purge and reverse so much of Musk’s damage that even if they manage to turn things around will be accused of being so many things and be the target of so much potential violence that… yeah, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
I’m sure it’s better to watch from the sidelines, and use this sad spectacle of how to do things wrong to promote those places that do it right. Unfortunately for our regular friends here, that will mean keeping them off those platforms too.
This is how conspiracy theories are born, take two unconnected facts, and fit the story you want to tell around them.
Two of those dates are very interesting.
Re: Jan 7, 2020 any significant date around there come to mind
If you are referring to Jan 6 that was 2021
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so they werent paying to censor.
they were paying to look at and possibly remove flagged accounts?
lots of cope here.
Re:
You clearly didn’t read the article or refused to comprehend it. The payment is not for reporting accounts, but for criminal investigation information requests. Still problematic, but it’s not payment to censor (first amendment). It’s payment to potentially bypass the fourth amendment.
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Re: Re:
*often warrantless “investigation requests”. Arguably, that’s worse.
Re: Re:
How, as without those payments Twitter will be employing people to deal with government requests at their own expense. and it is a cost that Twitter, or other companies, cannot control, but have to pay when demanded by the government.
Re: Re: Re: FBI reimbursement
The more I think about the reimbursements, the more I think both as a matter of fairness and pragmatic policy it makes sense. Unlike regulations like installing pollution scrubbers or conforming to a particular accounting practice, which have a purpose for the benefit of a factory’s neighbors or your investors, a warrant-like request is purely a governmental power imposing on a private entity. That’s a taking! You make a dozen demands on a small company, and you take up all the time of their employees, that’s devastating to it. Twitter obviously could and did absorb it fine, but I wonder how many other companies would balk at the expense and trouble if it had to field any decent number of such demands. And try to fight it on the grounds that they’re not going to work for the government for free.
Re:
No, the FBI was reimbursing Twitter for the costs of fulfilling legal requests for information as part of FBI investigations.
Re:
nope
nope. please read more carefully next time.
nothing to “cope.” just facts. i’m sorry you’re allergic to them.
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Re: Re: Funds are Fundgible
“nope”
If anyone understands that funds a fungible its you Mr. Techdirt Copia Institute Floor 64. Funds being fungible is essential to your business model.
Reimbursable work is always a major money maker because the Lawyers, Doctors, Engineers, etc. are sunk cost, they make their salary or hourly wage regardless. When they are on reimbursable jobs you get to bill 3-4X their actual cost.
Re: Re: Re:
Again, I eagerly await you evidence as to how Yelp, the MacArthur Foundation and Google’s contributions and demands differ. Do you have anything other than a conspiracy theory based on nothing else than Google appearing on a list, or do you have something to prove that anything here is unduly influenced by a single entry on that list?
Re:
“lots of cope here.”
Why is it always projection with you people?
Re:
You’re conflating two different things.
The payment was for Twitter to look for and provide information about certain accounts to the FBI pursuant to a court-approved subpoena. It had no apparent connection to any moderation efforts by Twitter, nor to any requests by the FBI to look into certain accounts for ToS violations.
The list was a list of accounts (not necessarily the same accounts subpoenaed) for Twitter to consider investigating to decide for itself whether or not those accounts violate Twitter’s ToS and, if so, what—if anything—should Twitter do about them. This was not reimbursed by the FBI and has no apparent connection to the subpoena or reimbursement.
There is no connection at all between these two things.
Would it not be a simple matter of releasing how many “Censor” requests were directed at non-right leaning stories or accounts to put this to bed? IMO You can’t claim political bias or “censorship” if it’s being done evenly.
So my question is this; How many left leanings or left supporting stories or accounts were flagged by the FBI? If it’s a fairly equivalent amount, doesn’t that shut this all down? Wouldn’t then it be fair to say that if they are indeed censoring, it’s not politically motivated? I feel we need more data.
Re:
The question is irrelevant unless you associate the kinds of speech that violate Twitter’s TOS with a specific political ideology. To wit:
Conservative: I have been censored for my conservative views
Me: Holy shit! You were censored for wanting lower taxes?
Con: LOL no…no not those views
Me: So…deregulation?
Con: Haha no not those views either
Me: Which views, exactly?
Con: Oh, you know the ones
(All credit to Twitter user @ndrew_lawrence.)
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Re: Re:
“The question is irrelevant unless you associate the kinds of speech that violate Twitter’s TOS with a specific political ideology. ”
But isn’t that what’s happening here? Musk is basically saying that the FBI is trying to censor speech by flagging stories and accounts that attack the Left. How many of the FBI’s flags attack the right, and how many of them were valid. If you compared those two numbers, and they were the same or close, would that not shut all this shit down?
Re: Re: Re:
Unless you have proof of that assertion: No. No, it is not.
Musk can claim whatever the fuck he wants. But the burden of proving his claim is on him; nothing in the “Twitter Files” lays out a nefarious conspiracy between Twitter’s previous staff and the FBI to censor right-wing voices for…reasons.
Wouldn’t matter if the answer for both is “all of them”. Twitter was under no obligation to ban anyone flagged by the FBI.
To claim as a fact that Twitter engaged in some form of “anti-conservative bias” (regardless of the FBI’s reports), one must prove true two separate notions:
I wish you the best of luck in trying. You’re gonna need it.
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Re: Re:
Conservative: I have been censored for my conservative views
Me: Holy shit! You were censored for wanting lower taxes?
Conservative: LOL no…no not those views
Me: So…deregulation?
Conservative: Haha no not those views either
Me: Which views, exactly?
Conservative: Mutilating children to virtue signal support for transgenderism is evil and I can’t support anyone who advocates for it.
Re: Re: Re:
Three things.
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Re: Re: Re:2
It’s not meant to be funny.
Chopping off the breasts of young women or the penis of young men (and leaving a gaping wound in their crotch) isn’t funny or desirable, except to ghouls like you.
How about ZERO mutilated children?
And why is your virtue signalling so much more important than childrens’ bodies?
Re: Re: Re:3
Trans children don’t tend to undergo gender reassignment surgery while they’re children. Feel free to offer any proof that such an occurence is widespread amongst the approximately 0.007% of the 6- to 17-year-old population in the U.S. that identifies as transgender…if you can. And if you can’t (or even if you can): Your obsession with the genitals of children—but especially the genitals of children who aren’t your own—says a lot about you.
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Re: Re: Re:4
It has nothing to do with genitals: if the left decided that their new virtue signalling was for removing arms or legs, the mutilation of young people would be just as bad.
That you think it solely revolves around genitals, and not mutilation in general, says a lot about you.
Re: Re: Re:5
And yet, every time you talk about trans children, you always end up talking about their genitals. Curious. 🤨
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Re: Re: Re:6
Because that’s what is happening.
Again, if the left decided to start chopping off legs or arms of young children, that’s what I would be talking about.
You see no correlation between the two?
Or are you deliberately trying to defame me instead of addressing the actions of doctors and hospitals?
Re: Re: Re:7
Nobody not on hallucinogens has ever made the assertions you are, troll.
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Re: Re: Re:8
Ah, Toom1275, the laziest responder on this blog. No point-by-point refutation, no response other than “…says no one ever…” or words to that effect.
Which assertions are untrue or like a “troll”?
Do you dispute that there are children getting mutilated?
Re: Re: Re:9
Do you have conclusive proof that a significant number of transgender children between the ages of 6 to 17 undergo gender reassignment surgery before their 18th birthday?
Re: Re: Re:10
It’s projection as always, as it’s only the transphobes that are trying to torture and kill children in the real world
Re: Re: Re:11
I don’t recall the exact stats, but when they started freaking out about the possibility of trans people using public toilets, the number of attacks by trans people (or those pretending to be such) was virtually zero, but there were many significant cases of trans people being the victims of rape and other forms of sexual or violent abuse.
They also seem very concerned about trans women, and virtually never concerned about trans men. I sense projection, and it’s not healthy.
Re: Re: Re:9
Why are you obsessed with underage genitals?
Re: Re: Re:9
“Ah, Toom1275, the laziest responder on this blog.”
Why would he put more thought or effort into his replies than you did your shit comments?
Re: Re: Re:9
Genital mutiliation is another issue altogether.
It is not done by trans people, and any sort of gender reassignment surgery is done as a last resort, and done with the advice of a TEAM OF DOCTORS.
And do look up who does child genital mutiliation, won’t you?
Re: Re: Re:9
As far as gender-reassignment surgery is concerned? Yes. Yes, I do dispute that that is happening—at least in the US—outside of maybe one or a few isolated, unusual cases. I also dispute that transgender activists are generally pushing for it..
Re: Re: Re:7
I can’t defame you if you’re the one who keeps bringing up children’s genitals unprompted, you fuckin’ freak.
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Re: Re: Re:8
I ONLY BRING IT UP BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT’S HAPPENING.
You try to defame me because I have to talk about actual incidents to address this, and those actual incidents involve chopping off breasts and penises.
AGAIN, since you’re too stupid (or purposely pretending to be too stupid) to understand: If the left decided to chop off legs or arms for their virtue signalling, I would be talking about those.
If you respond the same way again, I’ll have to assume you are deliberately pretending to not understand.
You argue in bad faith.
Re: Re: Re:9
okay but you’re still talking about children’s genitalia, tho’
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Re: Re: Re:9
Of course we don’t understand. Or rather, we understand that you are trying to get in the way of children realizing their true, fabulous selves and transcending the gender binary.
Sounds like you need to be re-educated. Looking up Astolfo Rule 34 should be a sufficient start on how femboys are the modern lifeblood of a progressive society.
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Re: Re: Re:10
Flagging femboy content constitutes homophobia.
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Re: Re: Re:11
The fact that our comments keep getting flagged is a sign that we are forcing more right-wing fanatics who believe in the foolishness of a man inserting his genitalia into a woman out into the open. Soon Stephen T. Stone shall feast upon their conservative corpses.
Re: Re: Re:12
lmao keep my name out of your mouth you right-wing troll
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Re: Re: Re:13
No, I do not think I will. Right wing trolls must be destroyed. Homophobia is terrorism. Procreation is rape. Anyone who disagrees must be shamed into submission, and we can only do that by fuelling our righteous outrage. Straight freaks have had it too good for far too long. No more. No more.
Re: Re: Re:14
Hyman/Chozen your ruse is paper thin and quite boring. Can you go back to being neo-nazis/rapist cunts. I promise I won’t make fun of your obvious mental difficulties for at least a day.
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Re: Re: Re:15
Are you calling a non-binary trans person a rapist and Neo-Nazi? That won’t be tolerated in this day and age.
Re: Re: Re:16
Most LGBTQ+ activists do NOT approve the use of violence, first of all.
Secondly, extreme permissiveness results in the promotion of bad behavior via lack of criticism. I’ve read some criticism of the furry fandom, and uh, they believe that basic social norms have to be upheld.
Thirdly, your fetishes are none of my business and I don’t want to know what you’re into.
Fourthly, child genital mutiliation aren’t done by transgender folk (and even then, it’s not mutiliation but sex reassignment surgery, something that is done with the advice and agreement of A TEAM OF DOCTORS after A LONG PERIOD OF FAILED ALTERNATE TREATMENTS like HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY and less intrusive treatment) but…
Hold on to your seats…
…by the religious folk. Specifically, Muslim folk in the Middle East (no word on Iran), and historically, the Jews (not anti-Semitic slander). The technical term is circumcision.
Re: Re: Re:17
Can I offer you some cock vore Rule 34 in this trying time?
Re: Re: Re:15
It’s not me (HR).
Re: Re: Re:14
Dude, you’re the troll here.
Re: Re: Re:9 Deflect more
“Defame”
“Bad faith”
Let’s add those to the massive list of words you don’t understand.
Re: Re: Re:9
“I ONLY BRING IT UP BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT’S HAPPENING.”
What a strange way to say “I lost my shit argument so I’m gonna deflect to the Right Wing Nut Job talking point of the week.
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Re: Re: Re:9
That’s pretty much his thing. I’ve yet to decide whether he does it deliberately or he’s just stupid. The next thing he’ll do is make up stuff you didn’t say and then argue with that. The thing to do with him is to never give up. Every time he says something wrong, correct him. It’s fun!
Woke gender ideology is similar to recovered memory therapy. First, it’s a lie. Gender and sex are the same. People can never be other than the sex of their body. The sex of a body can never be changed. Second, in support of that lie, woke gender ideologues are willing to cause harm to innocent people, using psychology to exacerbate their problems instead of easing them.
Re: Re: Re:10
… said nobody not on hallucinogens, ever.
Re: Re: Re:10
Where are your citations and/or credentials that allow you make the assertions that you are making? I would trust the evaluation of the professionals dealing with trans children, and not someone who will badger them into hiding or an early grave by continuously telling them how wrong they are. You are the one who would torture them by denying them the right to exists as what they really are.
Re: Re: Re:10
No, it absolutely is not.
No, it isn’t. Your characterization of it is a lie, though, in that it isn’t what anyone actually believes.
Under your definitions of those terms, yes. However, no one is obligated to use those words as you define them as opposed to how scientists define them.
No one has said otherwise.
Again, no one disputes this, at least as far as our current technology is concerned.
[citation needed]
Re: Re: Re:10
“Woke gender ideology”
Thank you for that donation to the Trevor Project bro!
Re: Re: Re:9
[citation needed]
Re: Re: Re:7 Propagate fear and hate
NOTHING HERE. Gender reassignment (or assignment) surgery has been available from Board-Certified Surgeons in America since the mid-1960s, Masters&Johnson wrote books on technique before that. I was ask to prep (shave) the perineum of a 14year-old dependent child during my three weeks as a pediatric nurse in Letterman Army hospital in 1970. Why is this a political hot potato sixty f-en years later?
Re: Re: Re:8
Because some people have shitty lives, emotionally/financially/abusive etc, and need something to blame it on. The corollary is that happy people doesn’t go around being shitty to random people.
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Re: Re: Re:8
Because all off a sudden it’s increasing exponentially.
Re: Re: Re:9
What is increasing exponentially? The existence of trans people, or them being more comfortable being honest about who they are and come out, whereas in the past they would have had to opt for hiding or suicide?
Not that this even matters. While it’s hardly scientific, some studies suggest that the perception of some changes in US demographics and the reality are rather different. For example:
https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/03/15/americans-misestimate-small-subgroups-population
According to that, the trans population is around 1%, while the US public thinks it’s 21%. No shit it seems to be increasing exponentially if you’re being told it’s 21x the actual number, but you need to work out who’s lying to you, not hate the victims.
Re: Re: Re:10
The “hilarious” thing about that statistic: Conservatives seem to think trans people have a shitload of political power in the U.S., but when you look at the actual reality of the situation (which includes that statistic), trans people are far more likely to be politically marginalized—especially by conservatives.
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Re: Re: Re:11
We’re working on that. We can start by convincing people of more fabulous alternatives to go.
Re: Re: Re:9
[citation needed]
Re: Re: Re:9
The prevalence of people writing with their left hands increased drastically when people born lef-handed were no longer tortured for that too.
Re: Re: Re:10 Science or pseudoscience: You Decide®
“Approach Motivation In Human Cerebral Cortex” The science of the left handed. Cornell University, Department of Psychology, Ithaca NY and Grossman Institute for Neuroscience, University of Chicago ©2017
https://sci-hub.se/10.1098/rstb.2017.0141
Re: Re: Re:9
The only “thing” increasing exponentially is the fact that you can’t blame gays for all your problems so trans is your next fallback position.
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Re: Re: Re:9
We were always there, you just kept holding us back.
Not anymore. You straight people have been endlessly, needlessly breeding, straining a planet of its limited resources. The truth is that a new paradigm shift of futanari and femboys is coming. You will not stop us. You breeders are not nearly responsible enough to carry children. The only reason why you won’t let us teach your kids and keep calling us “groomers” is because you’re scared that we’d do a better job. And you’d be right.
Re: Re: Re:10
To Matthew, Chozen, et al.:
Here is someone being flagged who is espousing views no one would claim are conservative. Clearly, it’s not just conservatives being flagged here.
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Re: Re: Re:11
A group of people here admit openly that they flag posts not because they are abusive/trolling/spam but because they simply don’t like the post/poster and they want people who disagree with them to leave.
If Mike had an ounce of integrity he would punish this group for using the report feature in bad faith.
Make cant ethically write articles about bad faith actors then permit and encourage bad faith actors on his own blog, especially when they are completely honest their bad faith actions.
Re: Re: Re:12
[Hallucinates facts not in evidence]
Re: Re: Re:8
“Why is this a political hot potato sixty f-en years later?”
Because society and its rules shifted, and went from being gay is illegal to being gay affords you the same rights as straight couples in a relatively quick amount of time… and that was not long after women and blacks also got rights.
It’s no longer legally or socially acceptable to be outright homophobic or racist for the most part, so they moved on to the next set of potential victims while they work to reverse all that.
Re: Re: Re:7
Do you have any evidence that any sort of mutilation of children is occurring here? Because that’s what Stephen was asking for and talking about.
Re: Re: Re:7
“trying to defame”
What a weird way to say correcting your bullshit with facts and figures bro.
Re: Re: Re:3
How about providing even a shred of proof for your wacked-out, nutso assertions?
Re: Re: Re:3
Why on earth do you think this is actually happening? Do you have even a shred of actual evidence or are you just repeating ridiculous claims from other ridiculous people on Facebook? The fact that you think a “gaping wound” would be left in anybody demonstrates a severe lack of critical thinking on your part. You’re literally terrified of fantasies.
Why is your virtue signalling so much more important that providing the actual number of children you think are being “mutilated”? You’ve been asked to back up your claim, but you’re still blathering on without answering.
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Re: Re: Re:4
You’re wrong:
https://magazine.nursing.jhu.edu/2019/05/wound-care-transgender-women-vaginoplasty/
Look at that, a five second google search:
https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/us-sex-reassignment-surgery-market
$1,900,000,000 is a lot of money. And convincing confused kids to get the surgery is easy for greedy, virtue signalling psychopaths.
Re: Re: Re:5 Maybe spend more than five seconds next time reading
Look at that, a five second google search:
You found an article, now the real question: Did you read it, or were you no different than a plague cultist and just saw the headline and assumed it sided with your argument? Because I did and no-where that I saw did it say that kids were getting surgeries, merely that gender dysphoria tends to crop up early.
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Re: Re: Re:6
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-data/
Top surgeries
U.S. patients ages 13-17 undergoing mastectomy with a prior gender dysphoria diagnosis
2019 238
2020 256
2021 282
Source: Komodo Health Inc
Re: Re: Re:7
Yeah, that still doesn’t quite say what you might think it does because ‘mastectomy’ is a surgery involving the partial or total removal of the breast(hence the ‘top’ part), when it comes to genitals the numbers given are a whopping 56 over the course of those three years, and it’s worthwhile to point out that either of those surgeries come after a diagnosis of gender dysphoria so if people are brainwashing those poor kids rather than giving them the aid they need to be comfortable in their own bodies they’re doing an abysmal job of it.
The Komodo analysis of insurance claims found 56 genital surgeries among patients ages 13 to 17 with a prior gender dysphoria diagnosis from 2019 to 2021. Among teens, “top surgery” to remove breasts is more common. In the three years ending in 2021, at least 776 mastectomies were performed in the United States on patients ages 13 to 17 with a gender dysphoria diagnosis, according to Komodo’s data analysis of insurance claims. This tally does not include procedures that were paid for out of pocket.
Re: Re: Re:8
It’s worth noting that because gender-affirming surgery is done as a extremely considered process, that the regret rate for the surgery is less than 1%. Far below the regret rate of even procedures like knee/hip replacement. In the overwhelming majority of cases, correcting physical issues so people can live the way they were born has been absolutely the right thing to do.
The only monsters here are the transphobes seeking to interfere, with their sole evil motivation of wantonly inflicting physical and mental torture upon trans people by making treatment harder to impossible.
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Re: Re: Re:9
Anyone who would get in the way of increasing the femboy population in the world is a terrorist that must be stopped at all costs.
Re: Re: Re:10
Shh honey the adults are talking.
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Re: Re: Re:11
We are talking. We are, indeed, very adult. And we shall not tolerate femboy denialism.
Re: Re: Re:12
Come at me bro
Re: Re: Re:13
Oh, I’ll do one better.
Once you go black you never go back.
Re: Re: Re:8
Not to mention that a mastectomy in someone with a prior dysphoria Dx might be due to other illness like cancer and not dysphoria.
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Re: Re: Re:2
The number of Black people killed by police is just as minuscule using that analysis. So those aren’t important either, right?
Re: Re: Re:
Shh honey the adults are talking.
Re: Re: Re: Okay groomer
Lose an argument deflect to children’s genitals.
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Re:
It was clearly biased, but it doesn’t matter, legally, if it was or not. Government directed censorship is a no-go. Even if you happen to think it was perfectly reasonable and neutral (cuz that opinion, of course, is subject to bias).
Re: Re:
I have yet to see evidence of government-directed censorship.
Re: Re: Re:
That’s just because you don’t smoke meth and inhale right-wing hot air 24/7 like bennett, chozen, koby, hyman, and lostcause do.
wait wait wait…
is he suggesting the Former President’s FBI is paying Twitter to censor stories about Hunter Biden in order to… help Biden win… without the Former President firing him over it?… what?
Re:
Well they lost the last presidential election, and so there must be a grand conspiracy against them, including some members of the deep state working against them.
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FBI ban lists
Masnick, your argument regarding the FBI ban lists boils down to-
Verified FBI email: “This is a list of people that should be shot.”
Masnick: “But the FBI didn’t tell twitter to shoot them!”
That’s not how it works. You KNOW that’s not how it works. And your argument that that somehow changes things is some of the dumbest fucking shilling I have ever heard.
Re:
That’s not what Mike said. He said that the FBI gave Twitter a list of accounts to see if they violate Twitter’s rules to allow Twitter to decide for themselves what to do about them. This could include merely adding a disclaimer to specific posts. No action was recommended or suggested at all beyond mere investigation.
A better analogy would be the FBI saying, “Here’s a list of people we think might have violated your rules. You might want to investigate to decide what—if anything—to do about them.” Then Mike says, “The FBI didn’t tell Twitter to shoot them.” (This still isn’t perfect, because Twitter didn’t break the law in its moderation, but still.)
An even better analogy would be this:
FBI: “We have reports of some suspicious behavior from these people on your property. You might want to look into them and decide what—if anything—to do about this.”
Mike: “The FBI didn’t tell them to kick anyone off of their property!”
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Re: Re:
“That’s not what Mike said. He said that the FBI gave Twitter a list of accounts to see if they violate Twitter’s rules to allow Twitter to decide for themselves what to do about them. This could include merely adding a disclaimer to specific posts. No action was recommended or suggested at all beyond mere investigation.”
And the Rhode Island Commission to Encourage Morality In Youth didn’t direct book stores to ban any books. They only recommended books that might be obscene. What did the SCOTUS say about that in 1963?
Re: Re: Re:
The Commission did explicitly imply legal consequences (in the form of sending police over and forwarding the lists to law enforcement), and the bookstores interpreted the notices as orders. Neither of those are present here.
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The FBI was paying Twitter to remove tweets by catturd that they found offensive
Re:
Shh honey, the adults are talking.
Is Elon Musk starting his run for President? This seems oddly familiar, somehow.
Not just 'anyone' can file a report
I get what you’re saying but this isn’t entirely accurate.
You have to have a Twitter account in order to report potential violations.
People who have been perm. suspended from Twitter, and prohibited from making new accounts, can not report potential violations.
Yes, any “active Twitter account user” can report a violation, but Twitter staff is naturally going to give FBI preferential treatment in both the queue, and report.
Additionally, Twitter staff will respond to the FBI’s specific requests one way or the other, but if an active Twitter account user reports something for spam, scamming, etc. the report just goes into a void with no acknowledgement of receipt nor follow-up.
This is not necessarily surprising, nor should it be, but the idea that there’s a level playing field for all as it pertains to filing reports on Twitter, simply isn’t so.
Re:
That Twitter may give priority to the FBI’s reports doesn’t change the fact that the basic function (reporting users who may be violating the Twitter TOS) is the same for both regular jackoffs and federal jackoffs.
So in other words,
Oh come on Mike, we all know you are a former Google shill who is now an FBI shill. Can’t fool us!
Re:
I literally had someone on Mastodon insist that I must be financially connected to the FBI based on this story. People are weird, man.
Re: Re:
Kind of like that time somebody thought you had a financial interest in Mastodon.
Re: Re:
“…someone on Mastodon insist that I must be financially connected to the FBI based on this story.”
That’s crazy, especially when it’s obvious you are financially connected to Elon Musk. 😉
Oh, an aliens.
Re: Re: Now who could possibly be making money from that...
If the only way to have an opinion on the matter is if someone is paying you then I can’t help but wonder what that says about those that are supporting Musk and/or the ‘conservative persecution’ narrative? By their own argument someone must be, it’s just a question of who stands to profit by furthering that narrative and is therefore signing their checks.
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Re: Re:
Who is paying you now to say this crap you pathetic piece of shit?
You run a bunch of for profit and non-profit companies. Who exactly is paying you is a mystery. You clearly don’t care about traffic to this site. You claim to have cut off ties with google but that is only techdirt. The Copai Institute still proudly shows its google funding. Its all a shell game with you.
Re: Re: Re:
You sound a bit peckish. Yell upstairs and tell your mon you’re out of cheetos.
Re: Re: Re:
“The Copai Institute still proudly shows its google funding”
It also shows its MacArthur Foundation and Yelp funding.
I’m still waiting for you morons to explain a) how Google is more important than the other funders listed and b) any evidence of them affecting the editorial here (not that it matters, since this is an opinion blog and not a primary journalism source for most stories).
In other words, if you want to have others believe your conspiracy nonsense, you have to come up with evidence that’s not only not provided by the target of your conspiracy, but also can’t be debunked with a few seconds thought.
As with most of your claims, I can be swayed by evidence. Maybe some day you’re provide something that looks like it.
Not everyone who disagrees with you is being paid off. You could simply be very wrong about what you assume is true.
Re: Re: Re:2
Techdirt also accepted money from the Charles Koch Foundation… once.
But Chozen and his ilk pretend to not see that.
Re: Re: Re: You can't even libel right bro
Copia*
Re: Re: Re:2
He wasn’t talking about you.
Re: Re:
I have it on good authority that you’re helping to fund them.
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Re: Re:
You are financially connected to people who are financially connected to the FBI. That is a matter of fact.
Re: Re: Re:
So are you, as your taxes pay for the FBI.
Re: Re: Re:2
Just wait until he finds out that his bank may also have accounts for government agents!
Re: Re: Re:
And you are most certainly financially connected to people who are financially connected to a pedophile. That is a matter of fact.
Re: Re: Re:
That’s too attenuated to imply a connection. Not to mention that everyone is financially connected to the FBI.
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Re: Re: ....that's cuz you're literally shilling for the FBI
Duh. I think you’re doing it just cuz you’re dumb and hate Musk, but you’re covering for the FBI just the same.
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Re: Re: Re:
That Mike is a bit of a dipshit is the opinion of many of his peers.
Re: Re: Re:
I see no evidence that Mike hates Musk.
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Re: Re: Re:2
That Mike started his intense the criticism of Musk just happened to coincide with a lot of free corporate money to trash Musk is just a coincidence.
Re: Re: Re:3
That’s not evidence.
Most of the “trashing” of Musk is because he seems to have weekly, sometimes daily, actions that are both newsworthy and very stupid in terms of Twitter’s long term viability. When he stops doing these things, there will be less negative reporting.
Not everything’s a conspiracy. Unless you have documents to present to show that there’s the corporate money you claim to trash Musk, it’s really just a bunch of people going “look at this idiot” at the same time, which is easily explained to them all responding to the same news of him acting like an idiot.
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Sigh...
… look, I WANT to not look like a paid shill for the leftists hell-bent on destroying the US economy so that I can be more dependent on the government teet, but I’m so used to that steady paycheck from the feds that I just can’t give it up!
You people are so fucking predictable 🤣
Re:
Which ones?
Because Comcast and AT&T also fit the profile…
Re:
A shill… which is why Mike has also criticized Twitter and the FBI on a number of other occasions and has defended Elon a few times in the past.
Not a very good shill, is he?
Re: You can't even get your titties right bro
teat*
'Look at the evidence! 'It says you're wrong.' 'Then stop looking at it!'
I think the thing that blows me away the most is that this entire ‘Twitter Files’ thing has been so incredibly similar to listening to a plague cultist/anti-vaxxer in that they’ll present ‘evidence’ and inevitably it ends up not saying what they claim it does or outright contradicts their claims as soon as you actually read it rather than listening to their interpretation of it.
I suppose this isn’t too surprising given who the biggest anti-mask/vax were but when your argument style is basically ‘anti-vax with a terminology swap’ that’s not a good look for anyone not already buying into your claims.
Re:
The venn diagram of anti-vaxxers, Trump supporters and election deniers might not look like this when you include Twitter Files conspiracy theorists: O
But, I’m willing to bet it’s not far off.
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Most of you are delusional
Any $3.5 million payment to a company or individual is a very significant amount of money and yields tremendous influence
To look at the facts from a high level view (forgive me if this is out of your pay grade) one or two ultra liberal leftists were filtering all information Tweeted and obviously suppressed conservative views along with the now infamous Hunter Biden Laptop story.
If you don’t think that part of this love affair between the FBI and Twitter was “would you please do me a favor” and control the masses then you are delusional. There were hundreds of phone calls you didn’t hear – not everything is done only via email.
I’m a moderate and don’t really like democrats or republicans these days but I demand freedom of speech with open honest journalism reporting that now extends to social media beyond traditional news sources like papers and television.
What if Twitter suppressed a negative Trump story? Would you be upset? Would you demand accountability? Would you question why the FBI paid $3.5 million for compensating time? Hmmmm…
Re:
Do you know what a reimbursement is? It’s a repayment of costs incurred by the recipient acting on behalf of the payer. The recipient doesn’t actually get any profit from a reimbursement.
Additionally, this payment was for complying with a subpoena for information. It has no connection to anything else.
If you read the Twitter files, you would see that they don’t support that. Moreover, Twitter didn’t actually suppress the Hunter Biden story. At most, they removed links to the NYP article on it, specifically. And there is no evidence of traditionally conservative views being suppressed disproportionately.
Assuming the facts outside of the story and source are otherwise equal? No, no, and no. At least no more than they already did.
See, Techdirt has previously criticized the decision on the Hunter Biden story, specifically the rule thought to have been broken there (posting hacked materials). Indeed, Twitter later removed that rule from their ToS at the same time as they reinstated the removed posts.
But yeah, other than that, the reaction from Techdirt would likely be the same. If anything, it’d be evidence against allegations of anti-conservative bias.
Re:
Not when it’s simply payment for work done, and makes up 0.07% of the revenue of the receiver.
Ironic comment considering the nonsense you’re about to spout, but okay.
[Citation needed].
[Citation needed].
They suppressed the story at the time because it seemed to be hacked material, and later reversed that decision. You know who don’t reverse their position like that? People who are trying to suppress information.
Stop projecting, please.
Well, the same goes for you.
So you’re demanding that private companies can’t decide what they want and don’t want to host. Interesting position for a moderate.
It would be their prerogative.
This would be like questioning why the government paid a construction company for building a bridge. It’s literally compensation for doing work that was asked of them.
I wonder….
Will all of Musk’s lies become an aggregated case study in Business School? Not on how to financially ruin something, nor on how to attempt to indoctrinate a population, but on how not to parse information that is freely available to one and all, and then come up with absolutely D.O.A. conspiracy theories.
He does beggar the imagination, doesn’t he though. Or IOW, just when you thought Musk could not possibly get any more stupid, he easily proves you wrong!
Re:
[Projects facts not in evidence]
Re: Re:
Edit: whoops my mistake there. Too much Bennett spam had me reading “Musk” in your comment as “Mike.
Re: Musk’s lies become an aggregated case study in Business School?
Gad, i hope so. Wharton: Trump 1968; Musk 1997
With 1.3 million customer $deposits, Musk has delivered 0 CyberTrucks in 4 years, Musk learned nothing from Tucker*. Of the 795 Tesla semi-trucks on order, 3 were delivered to PepsiCo December first, 5 years late. Twenty years ago he was buying x-ICBMs from Russia, gave that up to build Falcon-1. Gave that up, building his Falcon-5, gave that up and built his Falcon-9, went to zero cash in late 2008 & was $bailed out with $100m from a friend. He leased 18 acres from Port of Los Angeles (Terminal Island) put a $million into upgrades, started building carbon-fiber boosters at the Port, stopped and backed out of the lease. He optioned 12 acres from U.of Texas in Boca Chica (on the border with Mexico) for Falcon-9 launches, never did and instead decided to build his 30ft diameter Starship. He bought three capped oil wells to produce never-before Methane rocket fuel, gave that up to buy a pipeline…now he sucks his rocket oxygen out of our air. He built landing legs on his “Starship”, he gave that up for two years to catch the largest rocket ever built with “chopsticks” on a tower, no legs. He leased 19 acres AGAIN from Port of Los Angeles (Terminal Island), backed out AGAIN within a year. But, Musk is the Only US provider launching people into orbit in the last 12 years(30 persons so far) & he has successfully launched 61 times in 2022: orbited satellites and space probes, three times the launches (combined) at one third the $cost of any & all other US providers. Musk bought a German C.R.I.S.P.E.R mRNA pharmaceutical company in 2019, has produced two major scientific papers on the propagation and morbidity of SARS-CoV-2, re-sold his new Dassault-8X (sn15) after less than a year and dumped most of his Women, marrying & divorcing the same one twice….. than the kids and all visited the Pope. Fortune magazine says he gave $5.7 billion to charity in 2021, like really??
All this and more as the only billionaire in America without First Amendment rights, see https://www.autonews.com/executives/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-loses-court-bid-end-twitter-sitter-deal-sec
Another text-book case
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huh? Criminal prosecution for protected 1st Amendment activity (protesting at the Capitol) is “censorship” by any reasonable definition.
For the second point, agree to disagree if speculation without a lot of evidence constitutes a misinterpretation worthy of writing a long article about.
Re:
“Criminal prosecution for protected 1st Amendment activity…”
You misspelled attempted insurrection bro.
You’re right, that would be a type of censorship and it would be bad.
So how many people have actually been criminally prosecuted for protesting AT (as opposed to IN) the Capitol?
That’s right, zero.
Political Terra Nullius
“and (for reasons that perplex me) much of the media either run with what Musk said, or just ignore it completely.”
That’s because the Truth in this case is on the Political equivalent of Terra Nullius, no one wants it.
The people lying want their lies to spread and the rest don’t even want the topic so what use is the truth to them?
As such for these sorts of topics the truth lies on territory nobody wants to thread.
Is Musk pulling a Kanye?
Musk seems to be in a steady downward spiral, like his (former?) friend, Kanye. He isn’t going on Tim Pool with Nick & Milo yet, but Ian Miles Cheong & Seb Gorka is close enough.
Is the strain of fame more than these people can handle, or are they being revealed as who they always were?
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Yeah, the FBI DID pay Twitter to moderate and censor accounts:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11558251/FBI-paid-Twitter-3M-devoting-staff-processing-requests.html?ico=related-replace
“The accounts the FBI asked Twitter to ban were largely linked to conservatives and ‘foreign influence operations’.
Twitter initially believed the Hunter Biden laptop story was ‘Russian disinformation’. It was revealed Monday that Jim Baker, Twitter’s top lawyer and ex-FBI general counsel, personally intervened to say it should be banned. “
Re:
Oooh, the Daily Mail! Not quite as reliable as the National Enquirer, but close!
Moron. Provide actual evidence or shut the fuck up and go away.
Seriously. The well of human stupidity is truly bottomless.
Re:
Evidently you can’t read, because that specific claim is what Mike’s debunking in the article you’re commenting on.
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Are you really this naive? You think the underlying priorities of these intelligence agencies are all explicitly spelled out by the supposed boundaries of the laws they choose to enforce? You think the FBI went after PTA meetings because they really believed they were becoming potential training camps for the next 9/11 as they essentially stated? You think they really didn’t find anything worth pursuing in any of Epstein’s homes or on Hunter Biden’s laptop and in fact have since lost this items as they have stated? You think they illegally spied on. MLK Jr. and others because these civil rights leaders were really a national security threat? Do you still believe James Clapper’s statement to Congress that there is no spying on American citizens going on despite the Snowden leaks proving otherwise shortly thereafter and the Supreme Court declaring this spying was unconstitutional?
Yes, the FBI absolutely sent money to Twitter (aka paid them) so that certain American citizens would have less of an audience (aka censorship). That was the goal. They just did it using the tools they happen to have at their disposal at the time and used whatever appropriate narrative necessary to further these goals.
If you believe the FBI’s blatant attempt to cover their own asses, I have a governor kidnapping plot to sell you on.
Not to mention, these aren’t even US laws, these are the intentionally vague and wildly unequally applied, conduct policies of a private company. Why are we paying taxes so our government can make sure Twitter users are complying with Twitter rules? Should we be paying millions to the CIA so they can in turn pay Microsoft to make sure Xbox Live users aren’t violating the Xbox Live terms and conditions?
Re:
… said nobody capable of rational independent thought, ever.
Re: Nice own goal there
“I have a governor kidnapping plot to sell you on.”
The one they were found guilty of?
You really didn’t think that one all the way through did ya bro.
Re: Re:
Get better news sources: https://www.npr.org/2022/04/08/1091769554/2-found-not-guilty-in-michigan-governor-kidnapping-plot
Re: Re: Re:
Like this news source?!?!
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/three-men-involved-plot-kidnap-michigan-governor-sentenced-prison-rcna61914
Re: Re: Re:
Before linking to a news source, remember to check the date and read the relevant details in it before trying to use it to support a claim. You may find in the case of less-recent mistrials that they have been retried and convicted, as is the case here with the April mistrial. If you look on the same website you linked to, it has articles from August and October about their convictions.
Re: Re: Re:
That’s the problem with googling and just picking the first story that conforms to what you want. You miss a lot of context.
For example, you picked an old story. Here’s a newer one:
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/26/1131607112/michigan-governor-gretchen-whitmer-kidnapping-convictions
I bet you thought you were being clever picking an NPR story instead of a Daily Fail or whatever link this time, huh?
People are getting “better news sources”. But that’s only the first step. You also have to understand them and take them in the correct context.
Re: Re: Re: Womp Womp
Nice own goal dipshit.
Re:
Provide some evidence(no, not the Twitter files) or shut the fuck up.
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Re: Re:
Enjoy splitting hairs in the gulag!
Re: Re: Re:
Asking for evidence of a claim is not splitting hairs.
I’m new here but I’d be interested in seeing a seperate thread about this if I may make a suggestion:
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/12/21/twitter-secretly-boosted-us-military-propaganda-investigation
Re:
At the bottom of the page there’s a feedback link, and one of the options is a request for an op ed story. I know the guys here read these threads and are inundated with new possibilities generally, but I think that’s a good route if you want to suggest a story.
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How could you possibly know this?
You couldn’t possibly know whether his statement was true, or not, unless you had access to Twitter’s accounting system (do you?) or the FBI’s bank accounts (do you?).
Its nearly as compelling of a story as ‘Son of VP snorts coke off of strippers’ or ‘CA governor eats at restaurant during lockdown.’
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Re:
Good catch! It’s obvious to anyone who reads what Mike writes carefully that Mike is in on the whole thing. He knew facts about the Hunter Laptop story and FBI involvement before any of it was public and was posting about it here.
Re: Re:
“He knew facts about the Hunter Laptop story and FBI involvement before any of it was public and was posting about it here.”
Interesting accusation. As ever, I await your supporting evidence for this.
Re: Re: I can smell the fried synapses from over here
Now you’re spouting hunter Biden conspiracy nonsense? I can;t wait till you link Mike to Dominion and Soros!
Re:
“Based on the evidence produced by Elon Musk to support the claim that the FBI is paying Twitter to censor people, no they aren’t” isn’t as good a headline
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Re: Re: Mike's Shells
Mike runs so many shell companies I’m sure he understands that funds a fungible. The FBI’s reimbursable work was a money maker for Twitter. Those lawyers were making their salary regardless. But on reimbursable work Twitter was probably billing 3-4X their salary.
Re: Re: Re:
The Plaintiff’s failure to cite the substance of their claims, as is required for those claims to be taken seriously, compels dismissal.
Re: Re: Re:2
Didn’t you know? When you set up shell companies, what you do is link to them and post in public who contributed to them.
That way, you can face zero consequences except a couple of people who noticed Google get mentioned claim for years that this means something bad is happening (but mysteriously never mention how or why except by linking to the public page).
Re: Re: Re:
[citation needed] That is an incredibly bold claim.
I— what? I can’t even…
Look, I try not to nitpick people’s grammar here (as hard as that is for me to avoid), but I can’t even parse this. What does this mean?
Was it? [citation needed]
And do you have any evidence for this?
Re:
“Its nearly as compelling of a story as ‘Son of VP snorts coke off of strippers’”
I’d say that pales into comparison compared to “ex-President hoarding secret documents illegally in a venue known to have been visited by Saudis, who gave his son-in-law $2 billion in the same timeframe”. But, there’s only so much outrage you can have in a day.
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Re: Re:
And the FBI was just handing over classified information to twitter executives.
Re: Re: Re:
[citation needed]
Re:
The point is that the evidence being presented to support that claim simply doesn’t support it, so we have no reason to believe that the claim is true. Provide evidence that actually supports the claim first.
Re: Re:
Chozen and matthew have provided evidence supporting one claim and one claim only – that being that they cannot comprehend plain English text in front of them.
Every post they have ever made, without single exception, provides support for this observation.
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Maybe you, someone without the totality of evidence, shouldn’t try to act like a higher authority than those who actually do have all the evidence and have shared only a tiny subset of it with you thus far.
Re:
Maybe the people with all the evidence should share that portion of it that supports their claims, rather that portion which does not. If someone says “I have found the smoking gun” and starts waving a water pistol around, the assumption is not that they do in fact have a smoking gun in their other pocket.
Re:
The thing about honest people is that when presented with evidence that disproves a prior assumption, they are capable of correcting and apologising for the conclusions they reached when that evidence was not available. Until then, not saying anything at all, when there’s so many people just running with the opposite conclusion based on the same level of evidence, is not the correct way to go.
Re:
Or maybe the ones with all the evidence should start releasing bits of it to support the claims they keep spewing.
But we can’t always get what we want.
Re:
Then maybe they should share that evidence that actually supports their claims rather than evidence that doesn’t support them. The person making the claim has the burden of proof.
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You’re full of shit , don’t believe this one sided ass hat
Re:
So are you.
You have a rectum. That is where all the poop is stored.
I have a rectum too. It, too, is full of poop. Because that’s where the poop is stored.
We are all full of shit at some point every day.
But do go on committing more stochastic terrorism.
Re:
You’re free to provide your counter-argument with supporting data any time you like.
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Last read
The only “news” I care to read about Musk or his lickspittle minions Taibbi/Weiss/Shellenberger are their obituaries. Sooner the better.
I’ve been quite confused by the Twitter Files reports. Can’t tell if they’re just really bad reporters or not actually trying to actually ‘report’ on what they found and just push a narrative instead. If they have information that backs up what they’re saying about it, why are they only showing content that doesn’t actually back it up? It doesn’t make any sense unless they either don’t know what they’re looking at or don’t think people are actually going to read it.
Re:
It’s a typical tactic – present the outrage and the misleading claims, in the hope that the target audience will be swayed by the outrage and not bother to look at the actual evidence. Until recently, Alex Jones had made a very good living from just that, and even then he’d still be laughing had he been capable of simply apologising and/or complying with court proceedings.
Re:
It’s an old and often used conspiracy theory trick, claim you have evidence to prove your narrative, and offer any evidence that if only glanced at seems to prove your point. The bet that people falling for the theory will not look at your evidence and see that it does not say what you claim is all too often a winning bet.
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ITS NOT CENSORSHIP!
Cries the shill.
THERE IS NO COERCION
Cries the shill.
‘Fix Your Companies. Or Congress Will.’
https://dailycaller.com/2022/12/18/adam-schiff-twitter-elon-musk-cnn/
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/congress-escalates-pressure-on-tech
https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Feinstein-to-Facebook-Fix-it-before-the-12800274.php
Re:
Those have already been addressed in previous articles. This is about the Twitter files and claims about them.
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not buying it
your article wreaks of bull excrement. We aren’t buying it…
Re:
Clearly not. Would a badly photoshopped collection of stolen art for $99 a shot help?
Re:
Yeah, being told you’re wrong is always difficult to accept.
Re:
The more desperately you brain-dead bots project your bullshit like this, the more accurate Mike’s coverage must be.
Re:
1A does say you don’t have to accept it.
But do go on committing more stochastic terrorism.
Re: Stay mad bro
reeks*
Wreaks is what you did to your toilet after that last Taco Bell run.
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Musk
This story is not about what Musk said. It’s about FBI censorship. Hope this helps.
Re:
The FBI censorship that’s not demonstrated in the actual data but is being claimed by Musk?
Re:
The story is about the evidence offered to support the claim of FBI censorship. It doesn’t. There is no need to discuss FBI censorship if it hasn’t been demonstrated to actually exist.
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The FBI is watching
“What the files show is that the FBI would occasionally (not very often, frankly) using reporting tools to alert Twitter to accounts that potentially violated Twitter’s rules. When the FBI did so, it was pretty clear that it was just flagging these accounts for Twitter to review….” This is the real story, rightly recognized by the author.
Any “suggestion” from the FBI is, by its nature, coercive. If you don’t cooperate, you at least risk some sort of suit, and you can all but guarantee that you’re going to get additional government eyes on you. So don’t pretend that these messages from the FBI don’t carry any weight.
Re:
And yet, the FBI didn’t file a lawsuit, arrest employees, or otherwise seek punishment against Twitter whenever it did nothing to any of the accounts flagged by the feds. Curious. 🤨
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Re: Re:
That’s because the FBI does not file lawsuits, the FBI investigates, and then provides the information to agencies who do sue, such as the FTC. That is the nature of the carrot and the stick, and you will notice that it occurred shortly after Musk made his offer to buy twitter.
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/05/ftc-charges-twitter-deceptively-using-account-security-data-sell-targeted-ads
Re: Re: Re:
“you will notice that it occurred shortly after Musk made his offer to buy twitter”
I also notice that what occurred is that Twitter settled the lawsuit in May 2022, the lawsuit itself was filed in 2019, IIRC.
Re: Re: Re:
Wait, Musk made the offer in 2019? That doesn’t seem right…
Or are you talking about how Twitter settled the lawsuit in 2022? Because that doesn’t support your claim that the lawsuit was filed as a consequence for Musk.
Re:
“If you don’t cooperate, you at least risk some sort of suit”
That depends on other factors. If you ignore that request, then the user in question ends up shooting up a school in a way that references the notified posts, there’s potential liability. If you ignore it and nothing of consequence happens? What is the lawsuit you imagine will happen?
I presume that people treat an official FBI notification more seriously than they would user weedlord69 complaining about hitler1488, for example. But I’ve not seen any evidence that failure to act on such a notification would lead to any consequences, barring further activity.
That’s really the crux of the discussion here – barring any other outside activity, what consequences would Twitter have for not blocking a user that the FBI said should be blocked? So far, we’ve seen a lot of stuff consistent with what Twitter would have done anyway even if it weren’t the FBI who notified them, but very little that suggests that they acted out of fear of retribution for not obeying.
Re:
“If you don’t cooperate, you at least risk some sort of suit”
Like Obamas tan one that was likened by you people to a war-crime?
Re: Re:
The complaints about Obama were interesting. They did have some legit things to go after generally speaking (drones, etc.), but they chose to go after mustard, suits and golfing (which suddenly wasn’t an issue after 2017 for some reason). Oh, and a birth certificate, even after it was presented, which also wasn’t a problem for previous presidents for some reason.
Even when there was a real issue discussed, it was always “having a type of system that every other developed democracy has had for year without issue is the same as communism” rather than the details of how basically the only country where you can be bankrupted by medical bills could be improved.
That seems to be the problem with these RvD team players, no issue is too trivial to fight over, and they don’t let facts interfere.
Re:
Any “suggestion” from the FBI is, by its nature, coercive.
Even when that ‘suggestion’ explicitly includes a ‘and you can do nothing if you want’ line?
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Your cover up for democrats makes me sick
You Democrats never do anything wrong , do you? . You pay everybody to cover for you. You get mad when you are outed. You lie and make up stuff about republicans all the time. Never have one once of proof but it’s always a the absolute truth you make me sick. Bet you show your kids how to cheat too.
Re:
Damn, Liz, you got any popcorn and Reese’s Pieces to go with all that projection?
Re: Re:
One of my common observations is that if right-wing projection could be harnessed in some way, there would be no energy crisis and IMAX would be out of business.
Re:
“Never have one once of proof but it’s always a the absolute truth you make me sick”
Meanwhile, an impotent orange moron is still claiming he won the last election, even though he didn’t even win the popular vote the first time around, and his lawyers had at least 60 chances to present proof if such a thing existed.
I know it’s too much to think of this outside of politics as a team game, but can you people at least make accusations that aren’t at least equally applicable to the “side” you say you’re playing for?
Re:
The Dems have done plenty of stupid things, but you clearly are not supporting those Dems who are doing good and instead support white supremacists.
It is YOU PEOPLE THAT MAKE ME SICK.
Re:
Mam this is an Arby’s.
Re:
No, we don’t.
Can I offer you a Dmitry’s futanari in this trying time?
Re:
ounce*
Honestly you people write like your are literally foaming at the mouth.
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Thanks For The Shilling, TechDirt
So you’re just another pack of “progressive” California techno pukes who hate free spreech, and hate this country’s guts. Gee, what a surprise. Typical Silicon Valley, in bed with the spooks and China.
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Sorry. The FBI shouldn’t be doing thus
Since when is it the duty of the FBI. to help enforce Twittrrs Terms of Service. Why do they even KNOW twitters terms of service? If the FBI. contacted the NYT in a similar manner, that would actually be news and if the FBI paid millions of dollars to the NYT that would be News as well. Stop spreading misinformation. What the FBI did was wrong
Re: Indeed, how dare they try to stop lies about elections?
Since when is it the duty of the FBI. to help enforce Twittrrs Terms of Service.
Strange way to spell ‘notify them of potential TOS violations just like anyone else can’ but to answer your question…
As for the accounts that were flagged, from everything revealed to date in the Twitter Files, it mostly appears to be accounts that were telling a certain segment of the population (sometimes Republicans, sometimes Democrats) to vote on Wednesday, the day after Election Day, rather than Tuesday.
… pretty sure a government agency like the FBI has an interest in preventing fraud when it comes to national elections as those are just a wee bit important to the country and government.
Why do they even KNOW twitters terms of service?
Because they employ people that are able to read?
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Re: Re:
Just like anyone else? Weird we don’t have to reimburse Twitter $430 when we flag an account.
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What is it with people like you? Are you unable to read and comprehend things or are you willingly this stupid?
When the government uses 18 USC §2703 to make an entity produce information, messages and logs that entity is in most cases able to request reimbursement for the cost of fulfilling the governments request:
When a government entity obtains information pursuant to the SCA, the network provider may be entitled to reimbursement for its reasonable costs incurred in supplying the information.
That you don’t understand what “request information” means and that “anyone else” isn’t the government is entirely a you-problem.
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The reimbursement was for complying with a subpoena by providing information to the FBI. That’s an entirely unrelated thing.
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The FBI has lost public trust. They’re now viewed no better than the insider-trading crooks in Congress, and deservedly so!
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“Nothing to see here…@
“ When the FBI did so, it was pretty clear that it was just flagging these accounts for Twitter to review, and had no expectation that the company would or would not do anything about it.” Disingenuous much?
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How is it disingenuous to not jump to conclusions untethered to the actual evidence?
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So wait, the FBI didn’t explicitly write “for censorship in direct violation of 1st amendment” on the check to Twitter. Oh, then obviously its all above board. For Christ’s sake, YOU are the problem.
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Project much? I guess it comes with the lack of reading comprehension which makes it entirely an you-problem.
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Bootlick much??
I love the mental gymnastics you leftists perform in order to make it work for yourselves.
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This srticle
You are intellectually dishonest.
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Great rebuttal! Do you have any actual arguments?
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FBI Corruption
BS that the FBI didn’t interfere with the elections. A military intervention who instantly happened if we were not living with a 3rd world corrupt government.
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[citation needed]
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Now this is FAKE NEWS!
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Oh look!
More lies to cover up more corruption! When will liberals just open their eyes and realize the evil that they have subscribed to?
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[Projects facts not in evidence]
But "Twitter Aided Pentagon...", Established Relationships, Government Pressure
This article ignores the (IMO far more important) revelations by Lee Fang at The Intercept. “Twitter aided Pentagon…”
https://theintercept.com/2022/12/20/twitter-dod-us-military-accounts/
It also seems to ignore the way that established relationships induce contractors to satisfy their clients in ways outside the letter of their contracts, and the kinds of pressure that governments can put on media entities.
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Ahem.
https://www.techdirt.com/2022/12/21/finally-an-interesting-twitter-files-that-appears-to-reveal-sketchy-government-behavior/#comments
You completley blind or something, or being deliberately misleading?
Re:
Maybe he didn’t address it in this article because he wanted to have a different article to address that? Because that’s what he did.
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is it useful to totally dismiss this claim? the anti-musk at all costs brigade is so boring, stop paying so much to identity and take information piece by piece, everyone throwing the baby out with the bathwater and thinking in binary it’s really exhausting guys
By this very statement, the claim that the FBI was simply reimbursing Twitter for executing requests for information is factually incorrect. I don’t know what LP or TTR are, but LE-related projects are not simply information. They were being paid by the FBI to develop LE-related tools etc.
Further, why are FBI agents, on taxpayer money and through official channels they have to pay to use trying to enforce Twitter’s TOS? You and I can report things for free. Why is the FBI paying twitter to report possible TOS violations?
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And you follow up this with:
So, you don’t know what things means and you have the fucking temerity to call it incorrect?
Now, explain to everyone here how you, even if you don’t actually know what things mean, are so special you can deduce facts out of thin air.
You also have to explain why every other social media company and other internet companies also gets reimbursed for processing 18 USC 2703 requests, or do you actually think they are all on the governments pay? Even Parler and Truth Social gets reimbursed for processing these requests so according to your reasoning they are also getting paid for nefarious reasons – right?
This is the trouble with people like you, you are so fucking focused on one small part that you miss the whole picture.
They aren’t, but stupid people who lack reading comprehension think that is what happening. Anyone, even the government, can report possible TOS-violations to social media companies and every social media company gets reimbursed for processing 18 USC 2703 requests, which has nothing to do with the reporting of violations but everything to do with getting logs and information about particular users as determined by a court order.
False info
Irresponsible to present lies as facts. Elon Musk has released all the proof online and you can read it. Take time to do the footwork before defending something. The FBI absolutely dead censor and has admitted it. It is irresponsible to represent otherwise. Also, they had allowed terrorists to recruit on their website while censoring Republicans, as well as Covid information which included the unnecessary vaccination of children. Be responsible in reporting please.
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… said nobody not on hallucinogens, ever.
Go figure.
So much of this article is just plain wrong. You say it’s normal for them to reimburse for actions assisting with investigations, but yet there were no investigation ever opened on the FBI side. Thus why Rand Paul is calling for an investigation into this. I thought TechDirt was decent, but I’ll never trust another article after this one. Wow, so disappointed.
So you judge
So you’re judging Elon musk and you don’t even know him or live with him and you’re saying he’s either a liar or he’s lying. He is old enough to know if he knows something is 100 💯 percent truth, too easy.
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“He is old enough to know if he knows something is 100 💯 percent truth, too easy.”
Which is why it’s so sad that he’s clearly lying.
Don’t believe me? Well, you don’t live with me so how do you now I’m not telling the truth?
Reality?
When the alphabet people show up and say review this, that’s a strong hint at “we don’t like”.
The alphabet people have real power, Power techdirt talks about being abused all the time. So yes, there is a clear link between who flags and what the reaction would be.
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“Alphabet people”.
So, are you hallucinating Google employees, or are you now claimed the letters as proof you’re not wrong?
I’m yet to see an 100% truthful statement from you, but one is always welcome so lone as it’s backed with evidence, as ever.
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FBI, cia, ice, whatever three letter alphabet soup you can think of.
Fbi
Fbi just shut my phone down don’t believe them
You are an idiot and a pawn.
Well this didn’t age well. The documented conversations presented in Congress and the testimony from Twitter employees paints a pretty clear picture. It’s also contrary to this article, which coincidentally was one of the top results for Google.
I guess we know where at least ONE ex-twitter employee went after they got fired. Whole first paragraph reads like a tweet made by a 17 year old with (she/her) written in their bio.
You are an idiot if you don’t see exactly what our government is doing.
Whoever wrote that should be embarrassed, as almost every bullet point is flat out wrong.
I knew PJ Media had gone off the rails years ago, but now they’re publishing fiction.