Twitter Suspends Reporter For Reporting On Twitter Hack, Using Same Policy Old Twitter Used To Block NY Post Hunter Biden Story
from the ah,-it's-only-good-when-we-use-it dept
The nonsense never ends. As you’ll recall, there was a big kerfuffle (that still hasn’t fully ended) over a decision by Twitter in October of 2020 to block the sharing of a NY Post article about the contents of what was then alleged to be (and since mostly confirmed) Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop hard drive. What has since come out is that there was thorough debate within Twitter about whether or not this was a good idea, but the decision was made in an abundance of caution, as the provenance of the information was still unclear, and there were some questionable aspects to the information being released.
The policy used was Twitter’s “Hacked Materials” policy, which had been in place in March of 2019 and which we had highlighted as problematic a month before the NY Post kerfuffle, noting how it had already been used against journalistic activity by DDoSecrets after it published leaked police chat information and had its account banned.
In the wake of the NY Post story, Twitter admitted that the policy was a problem and changed the policy to no longer target journalists.
Except that was Twitter 1.0.
Now that we have Twitter 2.0, led by Elon Musk and trust & safety boss Ella Irwin, who have told us that they believe the NY Post banning was a mortal sin that should never be repeated… except that Musk/Irwin did also ban the NY Post’s account for a period of time just recently. And while they corrected that mistake, it’s still difficult to see how that was any different than Twitter 1.0.
But now we have the “Hacked Materials” policy showing up again, this time under Musk/Irwin’s control… and this time used in a manner I would argue is way, way, way more sketchy and problematic than earlier uses.
Specifically, Wired reporter Dell Cameron has had his account permanently suspended from Twitter as he revealed on Mastodon.
At issue? He just published a story at Wired about a hacker who got into culture war nonsense peddler Matt Walsh’s Twitter account and also his email account.
So why did Cameron’s account get suspended? Twitter claims he violated its “hacked materials” policy. You know, the same one that was used to block links to the NY Post story… and which Twitter had adjusted so as (in theory) not to target actual journalism.
I mean, it’s almost like content moderation is highly subjective and can be used in all sorts of ways.
But really, I can’t wait for all the people who had shit fits and ordered Congressional hearings over the whole NY Post / laptop story to twist themselves in pretzels to defend this banning of Cameron, who was reporting on a hack, but whose reporting did not reveal anything particularly sensitive or embarrassing. Oh yeah, who could forget this:
Of course, this should also remind journalists in particular that it is not safe to rely on Twitter for spreading your reporting. Musk and Irwin have made it clear that their only principle in handling trust & safety is to silence speech they find makes them look bad.
Filed Under: content moderation, dell cameron, ella irwin, elon musk, hacked materials, journalism, matt walsh, reporting
Companies: twitter, wired