White House privately demanded Twitter ban me months before the company did so | Hacker News Reader

White House privately demanded Twitter ban me months before the company did so

alexberenson.substack.com

57 pointsyasp60 comments

This gets said out of context too often but I suspect this is actually unconstitutional. Demanding a private company silence someone is right up against that line and very likely over it.

> demanded

> really wanted to know

Asking questions is demanding now?

> Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?

Oh good, let’s encourage an incurious government because it might be misinterpreted.

Simple curiosity would be to request information about general practices in moderating unspecific users.

"Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" is not such a form of simple curiosity; it's a tacit request for action against a specific person.

A tacit request for action is not a demand. The government is allowed; nay encouraged! to make recommendations based on perceived threats, which it doesn’t even sound like it went as far as being a recommendation, just a “tough question”. Analogizing this to a monarch putting a hit out on someone is an appeal to the extreme.

This is a centuries-old, well-trod concept that's noted by the phrase. Arguing over it is as tiresome as reading the twisted logic of sovereign citizens.

It sounds like you’re telling me you are biased by this centuries old concept, and you risk applying it in am overly broad way. This post could have been much less click beauty if he’d used a phrase other than “demand”. Encouraged. Influenced. There are lots of great words but he didn’t and now we’re arguing about it.

This guy is wholly incentivized to lie. An untrustworthy government doesn’t magically make this person more credible.

The veracity of his claims hinges on the provenance of this image[0]. This statement doesn't leave much to the imagination:

> they had one very tough question about why Alex Berenson hasn't been kicked off from the platform

0: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr...

Tough questions are the basis for accountability not demands. The media asks tough questions of the government all the time, no one things they are being demanded something of. If you can’t ask tough questions you can’t make progress. Twitter is a multi billion dollar compay with an army of lawyers, if there were no threats or no use of the word “must” or “demand” then there is a lot to interpret. I’m just being literal here. If you want to read between the lines ok, but it’s not what’s written in the image. The idea that this extremist blogger is infallible is equally "as tiresome as reading the twisted logic of sovereign citizens". I'm not saying assume best intent when it comes to the government but assuming worst intent is just as likely to take you away from the truth.

The media is not empowered to make demands of the government and expect them to be fulfilled. The government enjoys the imbalance of power.

No one has claimed the blogger is infallible; but even the rights of despicable people are worth defending.

> the company faced “one really tough question about why Alex Berenson hasn’t been kicked off from the platform,” a Twitter employee wrote.

Don’t kid yourself. This is not about curiosity.

What do you mean? Questions are like the definition of curiosity. We can’t just fold because someone asks us a question we don’t like. If it’s a tough question, then maybe it leads to deeper thinking. It requires a giant leap to make any assumption of a demand based on any evidence provided by the author.

When I was asked “why isn’t your room clean?”, I don’t think my mom was trying to have a philosophical discussion with me.

Well, maybe the first time.

Many within the executive branch could not deal with the fact that there were alternate opinions to theirs. See the Fauci emails for example:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fauci-collins-emails-great-barr...

This can be true and this person could also be misusing the term “demand” for clicks.

Why is a government asking in the first place? What business is it of the White House?

Government actions like this make the legal theory advanced in Missouri et al v. Biden et al at least somewhat plausible. The attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri sued President Joe Biden alleging that his administration colluded with private social media companies to censor speech in violation of the First Amendment. Normally private companies aren't limited by the First Amendment, but the suit claims that they are now effectively acting as an arm of the federal government. I'm skeptical that the court will accept this argument, but it will be interesting to see how the case plays out.

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/tech-and-telecom-law/republica...

Seems he is going to sue Biden admin.

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/if-youre-wondering-if-i-...

Will be interesting to follow.

"Vaccinated English adults under 60 are dying at twice the rate of unvaccinated people the same age"

"I don't know how to explain this other than..."

Here's an idea maybe since people's activity levels increased they started having more bad outcomes.

Or maybe it's just total bullshit.

https://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-vaccinated-people-dying-14...

"Journalist struggles with normalising data"

aka: Alex Berenson misrepresents data on death rates

[1] https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/nov/30/alex-beren...

[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-coronavirus-britai...

I'm now having flashbacks to that time spent explaining UK M&M data on social media.

Nope. Excess death is above the long term average all across Europe, and it's not COVID deaths. Also, don't look at fertility stats which have crashed in many countries.

Don’t take the headline as truth. Consider the source when interpreting the information.

It seems entirely reasonable to me for government officials in the context of meeting with Twitter to talk about what could be done to slow the spread of disinformation, to say “Hey Twitter, you say your policy is to ban spreaders of vaccine disinformation. This person is clearly the source of a lot of it. You’ve banned many others, but why not him?”

Encouraging Twitter to enforce its rules consistently is a totally reasonable thing for the government to do, particularly regarding public safety issues.

As mentioned in the article, he was banned, filed a lawsuit, and has since been re-instated after admission that the ban was not justified. So I don't think the argument that Twitter wasn't enforcing its rules has merit.

I don't agree with the message this person is accused of spreading, but this is the new reality:

“Andy Slavitt suggested they had seen data viz [visualization] that had showed he was the epicenter of disinfo that radiated outwards to the persuadable public.”

The government can (mostly because of the internet, facebook etc), and are, mapping social influence networks, and then targeting 'nodes' they don't like. In this particular case you might well say 'good riddance' or whatever, but I think this practice is extremely dangerous.

Don't worry, the people who scream "fascism" won't bat an eye at this obvious collusion between corporations & government.It wouldn't be 'okay' even if the Biden admin. was right in their assumption that his tweets 'murdered people'.

The author should lower his expectations at fair discussions, speech, and what constitutes the search for truth. But seeing he worked at NYT in the past it might be harder to adjust since he's no longer in a position of power as an authoritative voice.

We know the response from HN if it was the Trump administration doing such actions. Front page on the Washington Post, every blue checkmark on Twitter would be crying fascism, etc.

If that's true, it was pretty stupid of the administration. I don't know who this person is, but if he was banned it's one less anti-vaxxer out of thousands, but having the request come from the White House just validates and amplifies the unjust persecution narrative (which is one of the most compelling ones these people have).

Qanon dressed as independent journalism? I've read his trash site, and he offers little if any citations on his claims.

Just another troll.

I for one am completely untroubled by Twitter banning a counterfactual, reflexively contrarian troll like Berenson.

I don't care if Twitter bans him or others, but it coming via pressure from an administration is very problematic.

But did it? It came months after the the White House demand. Was the demand the cause of the ban? Or did Twitter blow off the White House, and some months later, for their own reasons, decide to ban him?

Is there any cause and effect here? Several months is a lot of lag time. Maybe if they had to run it through the lawyers, it might fit.

Agreed. This is what fascism actually looks like.

Despite your feelings, that's not the issue. The issue is that the government apparently coerced Twitter to do it, which would be a First Amendment violation.

s/apparently coerced Twitter/may have been a factor in Twitter's decision/

Now I'm with you. Though we haven't gone that far.

Is it? His free speech was not violated. It just wasn’t published by Twitter.

> Is it? His free speech was not violated. It just wasn’t published by Twitter.

The line between free speech (of publishers) and government censorship is somewhere around "did the government tell the publisher to do it?". This case probably doesn't cross the line, but it's definitely in the grey area, and being in the grey area is bad optics.

He worked at the New York Times for years, but he's a "reflexively contrarian troll". Sure, sure.

Berenson is far more accurate and truthful than the vast majority of people in official positions who were happy to knowingly lie about vaccines and COVID to generate compliance. Some of those people since admitted they were lying, in writing or on camera! It's no wonder Biden admin wanted him gone - anyone who points out that official claims about health are lies is a threat to the whole public health regime.

This guy spreads vaccine and mask disinformation and as a result should be deplatformed. No sympathy for liars.

You dont want the government silencing people. You dont want to go down that road. Eventually it leads to you.

The way you combat these people (and I didnt look deep into this persons views) is to call them out and provide truthful information. And then people have to decide for themselves. You will always have a fraction of people who are fools (on any topic) but most people will side with rationality.

I support the government silencing people causing egregious harm (which the government has the burden of proof to prove). “Fire!” in a crowded theater. Calling them out and providing the truth doesn’t work. Ask the 42 year old who tried to break into the Cincinnati OH FBI office and is dead after a shootout with police. There is a significant amount of the population where there is simply no inoculation against conspiracies and other incoherent reality models.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/cops-get-into-shootout-with-ar... (Armed Man Who Stormed FBI Office Said He Wanted ‘War’ After Mar-a-Lago Raid)

I think this is a really naive view. Attempting to expand the "fire" in a crowd limitation to many other speech areas is reckless. The government are just humans, and humans are conniving and motivated by politics. That road leads to an obvious end.

You list small examples of when free speech goes bad but I can assure you not having it goes bad in a bigger way for many more people.

What you call naive, I call rational and pragmatic. Your mistake is giving too much credit to the average human. I encourage you to consider the position when you’re at the business end of a barrel held by someone who isn’t functional enough to think critically/rationally (of course I don’t wish you actual harm if that’s in question). Its easy to pontificate from safety. I was previously a free speech absolutist, but realize the operating environment has changed over the last decade and my beliefs have changed accordingly.

I believe that the government must be held accountable and to a high burden when rights are in question, but I also can demonstrate with receipts that there are a lot of batshit crazy people out there.

"Your mistake is giving too much credit to the average human" again the government are just humans. You seem to think its a single point of godly knowledge and wisdom void of mortals. Its just a small group of people who control a larger group of people and they have private motivations often times not in the public interest.

The government (small group of people with outside interests) is constantly wrong and biased on many topics, I would never want them to have a monopoly on free speech or decide what is truth.

Government is run by a collection of humans. Why do you give them the benefit of the doubt when you do not give such benefit to the commoner? I can understand giving bother or neither the benefit of the doubt but to pick one seems capricious. Perhaps it is you that is pontificating from safety.

It's a good thing your opinion doesn't override the US Constitution.

A piece of paper written hundreds of years ago is always up for interpretation. The rule of law is interpreted by the living, not the dead (with my apologies to Thomas Jefferson).

I too am curious how this specific court case will shake out.

> You dont want the government silencing people.

You mean, like banning his substack account, in which he tells us about how the government attempted to silence him?

Someone who got banned from the town square can also move out to the boonies and write his own tract, does that make the first banning legal?

Well it is legal in many places, but is it in America?

Sorry, I don't buy this "Twitter == town square" stuff. I've debated it a lot on HN and elsewhere, and I'm not convinced by any of the arguments I've seen. I know you want it to be true and likely do sincerely believe that it is. I just don't.

If that were the standard then the entire public health apparatus in most countries would have been banned many months ago. Clearly it's not. You can spread as many lies as you want as long as it's in favor of vaccines and masks.

Anyway Berenson has been reliably ahead of the curve on this. He is FAR more accurate and trustworthy than governments have been. The tweet that got him banned said something like "It doesn't stop infection" and pointing out that because the vaccine only reduces symptoms without reducing infection, that makes it a therapeutic. Which is correct.

Never seen a vaccine before that train your immune system but doesn’t reduce infection. This just doesn’t make sense!

do you have any peer reviews research paper that have data showing it doesn’t reduce infection?

if he mean “does not completely prevent you from getting infected” then this is true.

All vaccines do not completely prevent infection. But that’s not a reason to stop calling them what they are and start calling them therapeutic :-)

The disinformation came from the government:

1. Masks work. Nope. Only N95’s are proven. Every study prior to covid deployment showed that masks did not work. All studies comparing the issue show no impact.

2. Vaccines prevent spread. Nope. Government kind of knew this.

3. Vaccines will prevent you from getting covid-19. Nope, natural immunity is probably the only way through it for most of the populace. Sweden’s and Florida’s science based approach turned out to be correct, targeted preventions for at-risk groups.

4. Virus came from a wet market. Anyone going against this insane theory was attacked so viciously that the social media groups cowered in fear of the government. Look what is now being accepted as an option.

The government based their approach on a hope that everyone would concurrently get the therapeutic vaccine and freeze the virus to prevent transmission. The problem was the inability to think about the logistics.

This has been a problem since the White House announced they were working with Facebook and other social media companies to ban people for “misinformation” and later when the White House created a Disinformation Board that was only in place for a few months before the bad publicity got it shut down. It should be no surprise any platform has misinformation, even Wikipedia or your encyclopedia is not the end all be all of truth and there shouldn’t be expectation random people on these sites aren’t pushing their own beliefs. I don’t know a single person who believes Facebook is the best place for research despite claims that it’s the primary cause of misinformation. Politicians themselves are famous for lying, in just one example, the “if you get the vaccine you can’t spread the virus” was very widely spread at the start and espousing the opposite of this statement would get people banned from social media sites for saying so, despite later being found to be false regarding these specific vaccines. It is arrogant to think that 1. people are too stupid to debate amongst themselves to let the good information rise to the top and 2. that the person in charge has all available information. It’s like imagining because your CEO is in charge of your company that they always make the best decision. It’s delusional that being in power should make you any more correct, even if there are more resources available to them, increasing their odds of being correct. It should be obvious my opinion, but social media should stay out of the business of determining what is and isn’t misinformation and especially at the governments direction. It was done in the name of “saving lives” but in a world of 8 billion people, how many lives did being incorrect and forcing bad information to be the only allowed information also cost? I doubt more lives were saved than cost by the misinformation management done by social media.

> I don’t know a single person who believes Facebook is the best place for research despite claims that it’s the primary cause of misinformation.

Statistically speaking, you don’t know that many people.

Sure but how many schools teach, get your best information from Facebook? Any? I look at Facebook more like the phone company facilitating communications, and I wouldn’t blame the phone company for what people say or want the phone company to cut people off.

> It is arrogant to think that 1. people are too stupid to debate amongst themselves to let the good information rise to the top and 2. that the person in charge has all available information

I can get behind number 2 but I can’t really get behind number 1. There are too many human motivations other than rhetorical efficiency for this to be true. It’s a nice libertarian idea, but I think the reality is if you look at the spread of ideas, “best” attempting some kind of objective determination rarely rises to the top. This is like basing economic theory on the rational actor. You can come up with some good theories, but they’ll break down when you apply them to reality. I think the reality is unfortunately much more murky. People don’t have to be taught that Facebook is a good place for information for them to be influenced by it. I think most conservative thought I’d based more on personal stories and an appeal to your community then science or rational thought which makes Facebook a more fertile ground.

I think assuming people are too dumb to make a decent choice would also be a problem you could blame democracy for and be an argument for a dictatorship. That’s kind of what misinformation management by the company who is controlling your method of communication feels like, a dictatorship of ideas. It gives Black Mirror vibes controlling truth, and sort of comes down to the basic argument of what is better you, safety or freedom as well. Slippery slopes are an actual thing and just having any of that power available opens up the door for abuse especially like in the case of this article where there is perceived pressure from the government, the only entity allowed to use violence, on stopping the spread of anything but their idea of the truth. Just imagine if these particular vaccines actually weee dangerous, even to a specific people with specific conditions - trials aren’t the same as mass adoption. The levels of information blocking in place could have hindered research as you literally would get banned for mentioning you had a bad reaction. In my opinions ideas should stand on their own, and if good enough eventually people will come around.

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