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Comment by maxbond | Hacker News Reader

That's certainly true, I've seen this testimony before and were that the only thing that was off about the document I wouldn't have made my comment. Any one of these elements isn't sufficient to justify suspicion of anything, it is the preponderance of them.

The use of the Mudge is certainly the weakest of the indicators I've presented; what do you think of the strongest of them, the unusual use of emphasis? What do you think of the three of them taken together? If you were the author of this document and you just found out that the public would never see it, only officials at the SEC et al - would you feel like this document was likely to be effective for that audience? Is there truly nothing about it you'd change in that circumstance?

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Why should the style matter more than the content. If our gov agencies are as sensitive to style of communication as you suggest then I would say they are wasting our tax dollars with their extreme focus on aesthetics and spurious semantics.

As I've said, what I believe is that this document _was not intended for regulators_ and is employing _deceptive tactics to win in the court of public opinion rather than the court of law_, and you're welcome not to find that important but I do. I'd also argue that style and aesthetics do, in fact, matter and are worth discussing, as they are part of the context in which the content resides and our understanding would be incomplete without them.

I do think there is a good reason for bodies which are meant to dispassionately find facts and enforce regulations to prefer plain language and straightforward argumentation. But even if that weren't the case, it really wouldn't reflect on my argument. Additionally, everything the document alleges could be true, and the allegations worthy of discussion - I haven't argued that they aren't true or that we shouldn't be discussing them, I have no way of knowing if they are true and am ambivalent about whether we should give them oxygen - and that would not reflect on my argument.

Maybe some gov agencies have the kind of culture that is biased toward a dry and austere communication style such as that typically found in papers coming out of regulatory agencies (and ones presented to them), but I assure you it is not a issue of logic; it's an issue of cultural preference. Trying to argue that a certain communication style is more productive in a certain context is again a cultural bias (not of your opinion but of theirs)

I think we're just having different conversations here.

you're saying it was sent to the regulators but it was written as a blog post for popular consumption. I'm countering by saying that whether the regulators are communicated with using a dry, austere style or a theatrical one fit for a blog post should not change the outcome, unless the regulators are culturally biased (toward the dry style) and therefore the sender chose to hit two birds with one stone )both the regulators and blog readers as audience).... that is unless the regulators are culturally biased

Yes — why not achieve the most pressure from as many angles as possible, while telling the truth, just in a civilian-approachable way (as is customary in hacktivist circles).

Tactics which will win over the court of public opinion differ than tactics that would win over regulators, but the piece was always going to try and convince the reader of it's thesis, whomever the reader ends up being. I'm curious why you think the difference in audience make those tactics rise to the level of deception and propaganda though. Stripped of all bold emphasis, would the document read the same? IMO, yes. But I'm not an SEC regulator.

I believe the document lied about the intended audience - both directly stating and, through form and aesthetics, implying, that it was for one audience while truly being for another - to mislead the reader into thinking it was more authoritative than it actually was. Were this to be a blog post or press release, I wouldn't call it deceptive.

I go into slightly more detail on this point here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32603317

No, I don't believe it would read the same without emphasis. Especially since the emphasis is often on superlatives rather than the substance of certain statements. I'm not sure what to say other than, "emphasis is a tool of graphic design that does, in fact, function." It guides the eye and enables the reader to skim, and if you took away the emphasis, this document would be less effective, at least if the goals of the document are what I have argued.

"Lied" makes it seem like the guy has any agenda besides protecting the Internet and the community around it.

Your questions seem reasonable except the fact they're about him!

Do you understand his (very populist) history?!

It does not seem likely to me that Mudge wrote this document personally. The document either doesn't have a byline or the byline is censored, but I'm guessing it was authored by some lawyers and distributed by Whistleblower Aid, or perhaps authored by Whistleblower Aid. I don't think it particularly reflects on Mudge's personal views on the situation, and it probably doesn't reflect on his intentions either.

It's pretty apparent that one of the intentions of this document is to get Musk out of hot water - totally separate from "protecting the internet" and not a particularly populist goal.

I'd speculate this represents a collaboration between Musk and Mudge's legal teams, probably in exchange for Musk funding litigation from Mudge regarding wrongful termination. That's all speculation, it's just what makes the most sense to me.

From having worked with Mudge tangentially in the past, the bit about Twitter not having a cold-boot scenario and that being a problem sounds like him. Given Mudge's storied history, I don't know that he needs Musk to help him fund litigation regarding wrongful termination, though the timing is interesting. Musk has more funds than Mudge does, and spending someone else's money is always more fun than spending your own, so maybe there's something to that, but as you say, that's just speculation.

Personally, I think Mudge wrote, hoping that this document was going to go before Congress and wrote for them, and that possibly that he would have to go before them. Thus the (over) use of bold emphasis is for a broad audience of which certain members won't (or can't) read as critically as others.

I'd write like there's no way this doesn't leak to the public eventually. It's Twitter we're talking about. Juicy gossip is the point of the platform so of course it's going to get spread. I don't know that it undercuts its message though.

This doesn't really address any of the questions I posed.

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