Twitter Bans Account Linked to Iran's Supreme Leader | Hacker News Reader

Twitter Bans Account Linked to Iran's Supreme Leader

npr.org

This is false, Twitter banned a fake account. [1][2].

Reuters and others issued retractions already, but NPR has not.

[1] https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1352641048514854913 [2] https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/no-twitter-did-not-suspend...

Well that is unfortunate.

January 2021: Twitter grew some balls.

This and the PRC Embassy, it’s like sunshine, lollipops and rainbows around here.

a joke posted today to a popular Russian humor site "Fake leaders are banned by Twitter, true leaders ban Twitter themselves" (https://www.anekdot.ru/id/1179396/)

Gotta at least make an attempt to make it look fair...

Obviously it's not acceptable to make threats to heads of state or ex-heads of state, but still I think that's a State Department, Secret Service and other governmental entities that should handle this decision, not Twitter.

Twitter should not be making these calls that have international relations implications.

Oh, well, they got themselves in this mess.

Dig deeper Twitter.

Once you're down to goodie two shoes, it'll all be over.

Private servers, private property, mate. Don’t ruin the moment.

Yeah sure, but this is also international relations, diplomacy (or lack of it), etc.

And diplomatic channels including back channels are the gold standard for diplomatic and undiplomatic communications. Let’s not ruin a good thing by replacing them with Twitter.

I get it. But also Twitter have positioned themselves as this kind of communication medium.

So they position themselves as a broadcast medium for politicians, elites, journalists, etc. and then these people use it like that, but then Twitter wants to maintain a particular narrative.

So, basically, you can have at it, but only what we allow you to say.

If it comes to that, they will wither as users evaporate.

They mislead people for years about exactly what they are.

I’m not complaining that they finally came to an epiphany that what they aspired to be was something that they could never truly be.

> And diplomatic channels including back channels are the gold standard for diplomatic and undiplomatic communications. Let’s not ruin a good thing by replacing them with Twitter.

To even confuse Twitter with a diplomatic channel is a bit mind-boggling. It's a PR/propaganda channel and sometimes a way to distribute informational notices to the public. That's it.

Edit: Yep, we agree. I was just amplifying the point a bit :)

We are in agreement then. :)

Twitter is a business, not the State Department.

Perhaps they ought to give the US State Department moderation control (to suspend) of the handles for heads of state?

Does that sound like a good idea? No? Oh, but if Twitter does it, then it's good, even if they know nothing of what the State Department knows?

You seem to be very confused about the differences between what governments have the power to do and what companies and individuals have the power to do.

The default position in the US and many other nations is that governments have no power except that which is conferred to them by a constitution (i.e. default deny). Meanwhile, the people have freedom subject to laws restricting their behavior (i.e. default allow). This means Twitter, Facebook, etc. can restrict speech on their platforms in ways governments often cannot, in the absence of laws that compel them not to. And in any event, such laws may well be unconstitutional.

I think it's relatively easy to imagine quite a few scenarios where this falls short of the rigor we'd prefer to have for such an argument.

I have said a lot on this topic, just not in this thread, possibly not in this thread yet.

I doubt Twitter makes such decisions. It's more like WH outsources blame to Twitter.

This ain’t the PRC mate. Try again.

> Obviously it's not acceptable to make threats to heads of state or ex-heads of state, but still I think that's a State Department, Secret Service and other governmental entities that should handle this decision, not Twitter.

> Twitter should not be making these calls that have international relations implications.

Wouldn't it be blatant First Amendment violation (from multiple angles) to have the government making such decisions? You're proposing literal government censorship.

I think I made this point before: person or group should feel pressured to disseminate some foreign state's propaganda unless some government bureaucrat gives them the OK not to.

Sate Affairs/Secrets override the 1A because the fate of the country may be in the balance, so I do understand that need. I mean this is state-state business and communication, not Jack and Joe Nobody.

> I mean this is state-state business and communication, not Jack and Joe Nobody.

It is not state-state business and communication. That kind of thing is not done on Twitter. At all.

The closest is propagandistic back and forth needling, but that's not diplomacy, it's PR/propaganda: the real audience for that is the public, not the other state's government.

Even when two states lack official diplomatic relations, they don't resort to Twitter. There are other mechanisms for that (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protecting_power and agreements brokered through other 3rd party diplomats like http://www.parstimes.com/history/algiers_accords.pdf).

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