Big Tech/Social Media Censorship. Musk: Blackmailing Advertisers Can ***** Off.

[leh-nerd skin-erd]

10 hours ago, ChiGoose said:

Honestly, I think Twitter ultimately ends up somewhere near where it was before Musk bought it. It relies on ads for revenue and ad buyers want boring, non-controversial platforms for their ads. 

With the increased transparency, it’s better already. 

[Doc]

And...the journos are back on Twitter.  Like I knew they'd be.  They had their time out. 

[BillStime]

Why weren't the Dolphins kicked off Twitter?

 

 

[BillsFanNC]

10 hours ago, ChiGoose said:

I love that this admits that Musk doesn’t care about free speech. 
 

I mean, it was obvious form the start,  but some Muskateers actually believed it. 

 

Only in your warped worldview does it admit that.

 

BTW, Greenwald has maintained his principles throughout and said he's against the recent Musk timeouts.

 

Just like I and many others here have stated, and unlike your previous cheerleading of FBI led censorship at Twitter.

 

Edited December 17, 2022 by BillsFanNC

[ChiGoose]

8 minutes ago, BillsFanNC said:

 

Only in your warped worldview does it admit that.

 

BTW, Greenwald has maintained his principles throughout and said he's against the recent Musk timeouts.

 

Just like I and many others here have stated, and unlike your previous cheerleading of FBI led censorship at Twitter.

 

I must have missed where you showed that the FBI coerced Twitter to censor things instead of just flagging items for review. 

[BillsFanNC]

13 minutes ago, ChiGoose said:

I must have missed where you showed that the FBI coerced Twitter to censor things instead of just flagging items for review. 

 

The undefeated hand waving champ!

 

 

As if EITHER of those things is even remotely close to being ok.

[JaCrispy]

54 minutes ago, BillStime said:

Why weren't the Dolphins kicked off Twitter?

 

 

Look how much you’ve grown…so exciting how one man can make you change from being pro censorship to anti-censorship…Therefore, everything Elon has done (while I don’t agree with all of it) is worth it, just to see an authoritarian, like yourself, begging for free speech…😉

 

So, well done, on your growth BillSy…and keep going…I’m so proud of you…👍

 

[BillsFanNC]

Everyone else it seems needs to heed Chuckie's words......but apparently not Twitter if they didn't act on FBI flagged posts for censorship.

 

I wonder why?

 

 

[ChiGoose]

1 hour ago, BillsFanNC said:

 

The undefeated hand waving champ!

 

 

As if EITHER of those things is even remotely close to being ok.

So let’s say the FBI identifies a network of nearly 200,000 bots controlled by China to push their propaganda about Taiwan. 
 

You are saying it is bad for them to flag that to private companies. 
 

I am saying it’s good for them to notify private companies so long as the private companies are free to do with it as they will. 

[Tommy Callahan]

4 minutes ago, ChiGoose said:

So let’s say the FBI identifies a network of nearly 200,000 bots controlled by China to push their propaganda about Taiwan. 
 

You are saying it is bad for them to flag that to private companies. 
 

I am saying it’s good for them to notify private companies so long as the private companies are free to do with it as they will. 

Is that what happened.  seems like a strawman.

 

 

A straw man (sometimes written as strawman) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, whereas the real subject of the argument was not addressed or refuted, but instead replaced with a false one.[1] One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man".

The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition through the covert replacement of it with a different proposition (i.e., "stand up a straw man") and the subsequent refutation of that false argument ("knock down a straw man") instead of the opponent's proposition.[2][3] Straw man arguments have been used throughout history in polemical debate, particularly regarding highly charged emotional subjects.[4]

Edited December 17, 2022 by Chris farley

[ChiGoose]

Just now, Chris farley said:

Is that what happened.  seems like a re used strawman.

There has been zero evidence presented that the FBI coerced Twitter into censoring posts. 
 

People are looking at very standard interactions between the FBI during the Trump administration asking Twitter to review things and jumping to conclusions that it’s a nefarious censorship plot. 
 

It’s the same thing every day here. Someone dies: must have been either the vaccine or Hillary. FBI does literally anything: must be a giant conspiracy by the deep state against my side. Someone loses an election: must have been stolen by the other side. 
 

I guess it’s just more fun to believe in baseless evil master plans than to admit that things rarely are that exciting. 

[Tommy Callahan]

2 minutes ago, ChiGoose said:

There has been zero evidence presented that the FBI coerced Twitter into censoring posts. 
 

People are looking at very standard interactions between the FBI during the Trump administration asking Twitter to review things and jumping to conclusions that it’s a nefarious censorship plot. 
 

It’s the same thing every day here. Someone dies: must have been either the vaccine or Hillary. FBI does literally anything: must be a giant conspiracy by the deep state against my side. Someone loses an election: must have been stolen by the other side. 
 

I guess it’s just more fun to believe in baseless evil master plans than to admit that things rarely are that exciting. 

So more strawmen mixed with logical fallacies, ad hominem and false dichotomies. 

 

are you being intentional with all this?

 

 

 

 

[ChiGoose]

5 minutes ago, Chris farley said:

So more strawmen mixed with logical fallacies, ad hominem and false dichotomies. 

 

are you being intentional with all this?

 

 

 

 

The China bot thing was real. Not a straw man. 
 

It’s not my fault if people can’t read or fail basic comprehension. I’m just going to continue to point out that nobody has yet to show that the FBI coerced Twitter into doing anything. Not that it’ll matter because the narrative is already set and so they go marching forth with more nonsense. 

 

 

[BillsFanNC]

The FBI HAS NO BUSINESS flagging mundane posts that reflect American citizens personal opinions. The Twitter Files clearly show that the FBI was flagging these types of posts.

 

Chi is going beyond his regular obtuse nature here.

[ChiGoose]

21 minutes ago, BillsFanNC said:

The FBI HAS NO BUSINESS flagging mundane posts that reflect American citizens personal opinions. The Twitter Files clearly show that the FBI was flagging these types of posts.

 

Chi is going beyond his regular obtuse nature here.

All I’ve been trying to do is point out that the FBI flagging something is not the same as coercion. 
 

If the FBI is flagging things in a way that is inappropriate, Twitter is free to look at that and then take no action. If Twitter removes mundane content that doesn’t violate its TOS then that’s a failure of Twitter’s moderation. 
 

If Twitter feels that they have to take something down if the FBI flags it, then Twitter has terrible lawyers. 
 

There are good debates to have about how content moderation should work (there’s no one-size-fits-all solution), but saying that Twitter is a subsidiary of the FBI just isn’t backed by any of the facts that have been made public. 

[Orlando Tim]

12 hours ago, ChiGoose said:

I love that this admits that Musk doesn’t care about free speech. 
 

I mean, it was obvious form the start,  but some Muskateers actually believed it. 

I love that you admit that posting items that will likely allow crazy people to attack those who disagree with you is something you will defend. 

1 hour ago, ChiGoose said:

There has been zero evidence presented that the FBI coerced Twitter into censoring posts. 
 

People are looking at very standard interactions between the FBI during the Trump administration asking Twitter to review things and jumping to conclusions that it’s a nefarious censorship plot. 
 

It’s the same thing every day here. Someone dies: must have been either the vaccine or Hillary. FBI does literally anything: must be a giant conspiracy by the deep state against my side. Someone loses an election: must have been stolen by the other side. 
 

I guess it’s just more fun to believe in baseless evil master plans than to admit that things rarely are that exciting. 

The FBI told Twitter that the Hunter Biden story was likely Russian Disinformation when they knew at the time that it was true and accurate, or do you still deny that? Or is that not coercion?

[Buffarukus]

1 hour ago, ChiGoose said:

There has been zero evidence presented that the FBI coerced Twitter into censoring posts. 
 

People are looking at very standard interactions between the FBI during the Trump administration asking Twitter to review things and jumping to conclusions that it’s a nefarious censorship plot. 
 

It’s the same thing every day here. Someone dies: must have been either the vaccine or Hillary. FBI does literally anything: must be a giant conspiracy by the deep state against my side. Someone loses an election: must have been stolen by the other side. 
 

I guess it’s just more fun to believe in baseless evil master plans than to admit that things rarely are that exciting. 

 

i havent even gone through the twitter drops and i can tell you even by chance the fbi was merely making "sugestions" on what to flag like you say. that is highly influential. the company ceos were brought in to congress and asked questions and lied about all of this. no shadow banning sir. no we do not censor on basis of political ideology sir. on and on. why? why lie if its so innocent? because they knew. secondly a police brigade shows up to your door and "suggests" you stop parking in a parking spot. and then park outside? nothing illegal. you parking there? so even if your right, which i highly doubt, the threat of gov and pleasing them to stay on their good side and going outside their own terms of service in biased ways secretly is alot more then you want to make it out to be.

 

same thing everyday leftist brushing off gov overreach as no big deal...when its for their ideology and reversing coarse  the second its not.

 

 

Edited December 17, 2022 by Buffarukus

[ChiGoose]

17 minutes ago, Orlando Tim said:

I love that you admit that posting items that will likely allow crazy people to attack those who disagree with you is something you will defend. 

The FBI told Twitter that the Hunter Biden story was likely Russian Disinformation when they knew at the time that it was true and accurate, or do you still deny that? Or is that not coercion?

I draw the line at PII. Plane tail numbers are not PII. 
 

The FBI flagging the Hunter Biden laptop was obviously not coercion. Facebook never took the link down. Twitter did. Each company was free to take it as they felt appropriate (did the NY Post ever hide the story?).

 

Coercion is forcing the company to do something by creating a penalty if they don’t. Like shutting the site down or filing charges if it doesn’t remove illegal content. Merely flagging something or requesting it to be taken down is not coercion if the company is free to ignore it. This was reaffirmed in New York Times v. The United States

9 minutes ago, Buffarukus said:

 

i havent even gone through the twitter drops and i can tell you even by chance the fbi was merely making "sugestions" on what to flag like you say. that is highly influential. the company ceos were brought in to congress and asked questions and lied about all of this. no shadow banning sir. no we do not censor on basis of political ideology sir. on and on. why? why lie if its so innocent? because they knew. secondly a police brigade shows up to your door and "suggests" you stop parking in a parking spot. and then park outside? nothing illegal. you parking there? so even if your right, which i highly doubt, the threat of gov and pleasing them to stay on their good side is and going outside their own terms of service is alot more then you want to make it out to be.

 

same thing everyday leftist brushing off gov overreach as no big deal...when its for their ideology and reversing coarse  the second its not.

 

 

The thing is, I haven’t really weighed in on whether or not the FBI flagging specific items was wrong because we’re still at step one: explaining what coercion actually is. 
 

If Twitter thought they had to censor stuff because the FBI asked them to review it, then they had terrible lawyers who weren’t aware of a landmark case on this exact topic. 

[B-Man]

15 minutes ago, Buffarukus said:

 

i havent even gone through the twitter drops and i can tell you even by chance the fbi was merely making "sugestions" on what to flag like you say. that is highly influential. the company ceos were brought in to congress and asked questions and lied about all of this. no shadow banning sir. no we do not censor on basis of political ideology sir. on and on. why? why lie if its so innocent? because they knew. secondly a police brigade shows up to your door and "suggests" you stop parking in a parking spot. and then park outside? nothing illegal. you parking there? so even if your right, which i highly doubt, the threat of gov and pleasing them to stay on their good side and going outside their own terms of service in biased ways secretly is alot more then you want to make it out to be.

 

same thing everyday leftist brushing off gov overreach as no big deal...when its for their ideology and reversing coarse  the second its not.

 

 

 

 

Why, it’s as if: Head Of Twitter’s Censorship Operation Was A Former FBI, CIA Operative.

BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD

 

https://thefederalist.com/2022/12/09/head-of-twitters-censorship-operation-was-a-former-fbi-cia-operative/ *

 

 

 

* Federalist alert (for the squeamish) 

 

 

[Buffarukus]

7 minutes ago, B-Man said:

 

 

Why, it’s as if: Head Of Twitter’s Censorship Operation Was A Former FBI, CIA Operative.

BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD

 

https://thefederalist.com/2022/12/09/head-of-twitters-censorship-operation-was-a-former-fbi-cia-operative/ *

 

 

 

* Federalist alert (for the squeamish) 

 

 

 

 

yeah you dont get that by chance. i also hear these highly positioned tech people also get appointed positions in gov. its a back scratch back and forth. their head of saftey put out a good amount of sick pedo views. ooops. strange they let that all over twitter.

 

 

nothing to see here. DOWN WITH ELON!! 😅

Edited December 17, 2022 by Buffarukus

[ChiGoose]

Just to state the obvious here: the fact that Twitter employed former FBI people at senior levels means that it almost assuredly knew that the FBI could not force it to remove posts that did not include illegal content. 

[B-Man]

 

 

Yep.

 

The more ex-FBI employees hired as Twitter employees only proves that they would have to follow the letter of the law.

 

Said nobody with 3 digits in their IQ.

 

 

[B-Man]

 

 

 

 

[Orlando Tim]

41 minutes ago, ChiGoose said:

Just to state the obvious here: the fact that Twitter employed former FBI people at senior levels means that it almost assuredly knew that the FBI could not force it to remove posts that did not include illegal content. 

I find it odd that you would argue about the definition of word rather than rather or not it is an appropriate action, but since you can't defend the action you have to be pedantic. 

[nedboy7]

So Jan 6th was a non issue but the Twitter files are.  Can’t make this crap up. 

[ChiGoose]

10 minutes ago, Orlando Tim said:

I find it odd that you would argue about the definition of word rather than rather or not it is an appropriate action, but since you can't defend the action you have to be pedantic. 

Several people have been posting that the FBI coerced Twitter to act. 
 

That is factually not true and I have simply been trying to point that out. 

[B-Man]

 

For our local 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JaCrispy]

40 minutes ago, nedboy7 said:

So Jan 6th was a non issue but the Twitter files are.  Can’t make this crap up. 

No, they are both issues- just like the 2020 riots were as well…👍

 

 

Edited December 17, 2022 by JaCrispy

[ChiGoose]

45 minutes ago, B-Man said:

 

For our local 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just so it’s clear: these takes are factually incorrect. 
 

It is perfectly legal for the FBI to flag potential issues to private companies and it’s done routinely. The companies themselves can decide what to do about it.

[nedboy7]

40 minutes ago, JaCrispy said:

No, they are both issues- just like the 2020 riots were as well…👍

 

 

 

Have you read Matt Taibbi's 2017 book "Insane Clown President"?  Pretty good read. 

Twitter, like all media, being biased is not really shocking news.  To me at least.  Matt talks about media across the board being in contact with the feds.  He doesn't suggest twitter is corrupt while foxnews is real. 

[unbillievable]

A single social media platform moves towards the middle from the far left and the internet goes crazy.

 

 

[Orlando Tim]

4 hours ago, ChiGoose said:

Several people have been posting that the FBI coerced Twitter to act. 
 

That is factually not true and I have simply been trying to point that out. 

And once again your pedantic argument about whether it is coercion vs whether it ethical and moral is telling. 

[ChiGoose]

5 hours ago, Orlando Tim said:

And once again your pedantic argument about whether it is coercion vs whether it ethical and moral is telling. 

It’s not pedantic, it’s the entire point.

 

If the FBI suddenly went rogue and requested Twitter review every pro-Trump or pro-Biden post, that would be bad. But from a 1A / user experience, there wouldn’t be much change because Twitter can just decline to do anything about the posts and tell the FBI that it can go pound sand. 
 

Let’s look at the Hunter Biden story everyone here loves. If the FBI wanted to keep it from the public, they’d tell the NY Post to take down the actual article. And the NY Post would tell them to eff right off. If the FBI was stupid enough to file charges against them for it, the Post’s lawyers would be laughing their way to the bank as they embarrassed the FBI in every court filing and proceeding. 
 

Instead, the FBI warned companies to be on the lookout for election misinformation. Then the NY Post story drops. Twitter and Facebook think it looks suspicious and so they enact their different moderation policies: Facebook allows the link to get posted but they don’t boost it through their algorithm while it’s under review. Twitter straight up blocks it while it’s being reviewed.
 

If the FBI was really in control and acting like everyone here seems to think they act, they would have nuked the NY Post story itself so nobody could see it. That didn’t happen. It literally couldn’t happen even if they tried. The story stayed up and different companies treated it differently. Because, for the 1,000,000th time, the FBI isn’t forcing anyone to do anything here.

 

Ultimately, the actions by Twitter and Facebook had the opposite effect than they intended. The traffic to the story took off not when it dropped, but when these sites enacted their moderation policies on it. Classic Streisand Effect.

 

It would be bad for the FBI to flag things for purely political reasons, but as I’ve pointed out, it ultimately wouldn’t do much. Some of the things it flagged seem dumb, like the person who was obviously joking saying they were an election official who would add more Dem ballots to the count. I saw that the FBI flagged it and that seems kinda dumb. 
 

Then again, maybe the FBI was worried that people who were dumb enough to believe the 2020 election was stolen would be dumb enough to believe that the post wasn’t a joke. Of course, it was ultimately up to Twitter, not the FBI, to decide what to do with it. 

Edited December 18, 2022 by ChiGoose

[Orlando Tim]

7 hours ago, ChiGoose said:

It’s not pedantic, it’s the entire point.

 

If the FBI suddenly went rogue and requested Twitter review every pro-Trump or pro-Biden post, that would be bad. But from a 1A / user experience, there wouldn’t be much change because Twitter can just decline to do anything about the posts and tell the FBI that it can go pound sand. 
 

Let’s look at the Hunter Biden story everyone here loves. If the FBI wanted to keep it from the public, they’d tell the NY Post to take down the actual article. And the NY Post would tell them to eff right off. If the FBI was stupid enough to file charges against them for it, the Post’s lawyers would be laughing their way to the bank as they embarrassed the FBI in every court filing and proceeding. 
 

Instead, the FBI warned companies to be on the lookout for election misinformation. Then the NY Post story drops. Twitter and Facebook think it looks suspicious and so they enact their different moderation policies: Facebook allows the link to get posted but they don’t boost it through their algorithm while it’s under review. Twitter straight up blocks it while it’s being reviewed.
 

If the FBI was really in control and acting like everyone here seems to think they act, they would have nuked the NY Post story itself so nobody could see it. That didn’t happen. It literally couldn’t happen even if they tried. The story stayed up and different companies treated it differently. Because, for the 1,000,000th time, the FBI isn’t forcing anyone to do anything here.

 

Ultimately, the actions by Twitter and Facebook had the opposite effect than they intended. The traffic to the story took off not when it dropped, but when these sites enacted their moderation policies on it. Classic Streisand Effect.

 

It would be bad for the FBI to flag things for purely political reasons, but as I’ve pointed out, it ultimately wouldn’t do much. Some of the things it flagged seem dumb, like the person who was obviously joking saying they were an election official who would add more Dem ballots to the count. I saw that the FBI flagged it and that seems kinda dumb. 
 

Then again, maybe the FBI was worried that people who were dumb enough to believe the 2020 election was stolen would be dumb enough to believe that the post wasn’t a joke. Of course, it was ultimately up to Twitter, not the FBI, to decide what to do with it. 

A few simple questions that I am hoping you will answer directly and not like a lawyer who wants to avoid the issue at hand- was the FBI correct to state that Hunters laptop was Russian Disinformation? And should it be "flagging" social media posts that they disagree with? 

[leh-nerd skin-erd]

19 hours ago, B-Man said:

 

 

Yep.

 

The more ex-FBI employees hired as Twitter employees only proves that they would have to follow the letter of the law.

 

Said nobody with 3 digits in their IQ.

 

 

B, I’d be much more comfortable if the FBI involvement in guiding social media platforms was widely reported upon prior to all this hand-wringing on journos earning suspensions.  It seems at least as big a story, if not more, that would be a matter of public interest. 

[All_Pro_Bills]

17 hours ago, ChiGoose said:

Just so it’s clear: these takes are factually incorrect. 
 

It is perfectly legal for the FBI to flag potential issues to private companies and it’s done routinely. The companies themselves can decide what to do about it.

I don't disagree.  But IMO that's not what's happening here.  And what business of the FBI or any other government agency to determine for me and everyone else what is information and what is disinformation?  And how do they really know?  You suggest the process of letting the companies decide.  I'll take it a step further.  Why not let the users decide?  

 

Let's be real.  The goal of these operations isn't to protect the public from consuming or being influenced by "bad" information.  The goal of all these functionaries embedded in companies like Twitter is to protect the ability of official sources to communicate whatever they want and protect them from scrutiny.  That's the task all these former FBI guys were assigned.   

[Doc]

The FBI lied about the laptop being Russian disinformation when they knew it wasn't.  That's corruption and needs to be investigated fully by the House. 

[ChiGoose]

53 minutes ago, Orlando Tim said:

A few simple questions that I am hoping you will answer directly and not like a lawyer who wants to avoid the issue at hand- was the FBI correct to state that Hunters laptop was Russian Disinformation? And should it be "flagging" social media posts that they disagree with? 

Did they? All of the reporting I’ve seen says that the FBI warned of the potential for hacked materials in the lead up to the election but nothing specifically about Hunter Biden. Mark Zuckerberg even went in the Joe Rogan show and said as much. Additionally, one of the FBI agents involved was deposed about this and stated that they didn’t specifically mention Hunter. 
 

And that seems not only fine, but the proper thing to do. We had just witnessed a large cyber operation to influence the previous presidential election, it would make sense that it might happen again. 
 

As to the laptop story itself, it was sketchy as hell and really looked like a misinfo op. Some blind computer repair guy says Hunter Biden dropped off a computer and never returned to pick it up and it has sketchy stuff on it all right before the election? We wouldn’t believe the same story about Trump’s kids because it seems ludicrous on its face. Turns out, Hunter really is a sleazeball but it was reasonable to be skeptical of the story when it dropped. 
 

I think this is a pretty good summary;

 

“The morning the NY Post story came out there was a lot of concern about the validity of the story. Other news organizations, including Fox News, had refused to touch it. NY Post reporters refused to put their name on it. There were other oddities, including the provenance of the hard drive data, which apparently had been in Rudy Giuliani’s hands for months. There were concerns about how the data was presented (specifically how the emails were converted into images and PDFs, losing their header info and metadata).

 

The fact that, much later on, many elements of the laptops history and provenance were confirmed as legitimate (with some open questions) is important, but does not change the simple fact that the morning the NY Post story came out, it was extremely unclear (in either direction) except to extreme partisans in both camps.”

[Orlando Tim]

10 minutes ago, ChiGoose said:

Did they? All of the reporting I’ve seen says that the FBI warned of the potential for hacked materials in the lead up to the election but nothing specifically about Hunter Biden. Mark Zuckerberg even went in the Joe Rogan show and said as much. Additionally, one of the FBI agents involved was deposed about this and stated that they didn’t specifically mention Hunter. 
 

And that seems not only fine, but the proper thing to do. We had just witnessed a large cyber operation to influence the previous presidential election, it would make sense that it might happen again. 
 

As to the laptop story itself, it was sketchy as hell and really looked like a misinfo op. Some blind computer repair guy says Hunter Biden dropped off a computer and never returned to pick it up and it has sketchy stuff on it all right before the election? We wouldn’t believe the same story about Trump’s kids because it seems ludicrous on its face. Turns out, Hunter really is a sleazeball but it was reasonable to be skeptical of the story when it dropped. 
 

I think this is a pretty good summary;

 

“The morning the NY Post story came out there was a lot of concern about the validity of the story. Other news organizations, including Fox News, had refused to touch it. NY Post reporters refused to put their name on it. There were other oddities, including the provenance of the hard drive data, which apparently had been in Rudy Giuliani’s hands for months. There were concerns about how the data was presented (specifically how the emails were converted into images and PDFs, losing their header info and metadata).

 

The fact that, much later on, many elements of the laptops history and provenance were confirmed as legitimate (with some open questions) is important, but does not change the simple fact that the morning the NY Post story came out, it was extremely unclear (in either direction) except to extreme partisans in both camps.”

are you actually arguing the FBI did not know in 2020 that the Hunter Biden laptop was legit?  That the FBI is so incompetent that they went through it and literally thought it was russian disinformation? You seem to fixate on the author putting his name on the article, if I am breaking the news that a man who has a great chance to be president is extraordinarily corrupt I am not rushing to put my name to it. 

[aristocrat]