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Comment by tsimionescu | Hacker News Reader

Project Veritas has a long history of deceptive editing and outright manufactured reporting, so I wouldn't trust any report you see out of them.

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Commentary aside, the video does not lie. Also the entire unedited interview is available.

> Commentary aside, the video does not lie.

Ok, but what video? You didn't give any links.

> Also the entire unedited interview is available.

Where? People keep claiming unedited video is available but no one can produce a link to such video.

This is a tired and often parroted talking point used to dismiss literal hours of continuous footage of execs rambling on and on about enacting their political agendas in the workplace.

> literal hours of continuous footage

Where? Can you provide a source?

The source is Project Veritas. Why not go to their website and take a look? There have been a whole bunch of cases where they got Twitter staff on record to say damning things. And no, it's not out of context. The statements are in context and speak for themselves. You can watch the videos or listen to the recordings to hear it for yourself. If you want to argue this source isn't valid, you need to prove it, because the evidence is there.

https://www.projectveritas.com/news/twitter-senior-engineer-...

Twitter engineer: “Our jobs are at stake, he's a capitalist and we weren't really operating as capitalists, more like very socialist. Like we're all like commie as f*k.” ... “Twitter does not believe in free speech… Elon believes in free speech.”

https://www.projectveritas.com/news/twitter-executive-mocks-...

Twitter Lead Client Partner: “The rest of us who have been here believe in something that's good for the planet and not to give people free speech.” ... “People don’t know how to make a rational decision if you don’t put out -- correct things that are supposed to be out in the public, right?” ... “If we’re implementing all these rules…and Elon wants to dismantle them, then technically our ideology has led us to not making money because we’re not making money, and Elon wants to turn it the other way so that we can make money,”

https://www.projectveritas.com/news/undercover-video-twitter...

“if it was a pro-Trump thing and I’m anti-Trump… I banned his whole account… it’s at your discretion” ... Olinda Hassan, Policy Manager for Twitter Trust and Safety explains, “we’re trying to ‘down rank’… shitty people to not show up,” “we’re working [that] on right now”

Parnay Singh, Twitter Direct Messaging Engineer: “Yeah you look for Trump, or America, and you have like five thousand keywords to describe a redneck. Then you look and parse all the messages, all the pictures, and then you look for stuff that matches that stuff.” ... “the majority of it are for Republicans”

> Why not go to their website and take a look?

Sure. Given links I'll do that. I just did right now since you are the first person to actually provide links.

The claim was:

> literal hours of continuous footage

None of the links you provided come even close to that claim. They are FULL of cuts. Many of them don't even include the question that was asked!

And even you took quotes out of context. The quote "Twitter does not believe in free speech" was qualified by a followup that free speech allows bullying and that Twitter does not believe in bullying because it's bad for business! Which is totally reasonable if you are an advertising platform.

Can you provide what I asked for? The source to "literal hours of continuous footage"?

Also, please stop giving quotes to your links. You've done exactly what people already claimed: taken things out of context to try to make them look worse than they really are. Folks can watch uncut videos themselves and make up their own minds. If these "literal hours of continuous footage" actually even exist.

"You've done exactly what people already claimed: taken things out of context to try to make them look worse than they really are"

You want people to transcribe every word for you now? I already did the web searches and wrote out snippets for you, so the topic of each video was clear. You could have done those things yourself which is why I'm the first to dish it up; it seems uncharitable to get mad about it and now accuse me of trying to manipulate you!

No relevant context was lost or hidden here. You've added more parts of what one guy said in one case, but that stuff isn't relevant to any point anyone is making in this thread. The discussion started with someone questioning the claim that Twitter employees had radical political beliefs. The Veritas videos were cited as evidence to the contrary and clearly prove the case - one of the employees literally claims Twitter staff were "commie as fuck".

It seems that you accept this original claim is true and are now arguing about something different - that you support their justifications. But their justifications for their radical politics was not a topic in this thread. Not writing out every word isn't an attempt to hide anything, as you saw, because the video is right there - with links for your convenience - ready for you to watch it, and, if you wish, start a separate discussion about their motives.

"Folks can watch uncut videos themselves and make up their own minds"

Only if they're willing to at least do a web search to get started!

No such video exists. Got it now.

All that you've got is a quotes taken out of context that distort the original meaning. Ignorable.

Nope, the videos are real and the things the employees say on them, equally so. Not distorted or taken out of context - on video, talking about their work in the clearest possible terms. It's a far higher calibre of evidence than a typical newspaper investigation, in which you'd get at best only quotes written down without even video evidence to back it up.

But if you'd rather be in denial about the nature of Twitter as an organization, go ahead and ignore all that. Your questions have been answered.

The claim:

> literal hours of continuous footage

You gave links to highly edited videos. That is a fail.

> If you would rather be in denial about the nature of Twitter

I almost never use Twitter so I don't care. If you're naive enough to believe highly edited video from a source with a strong history of deceptively editing videos, [1], that's certainly your choice. But don't be so shocked that others are not as gullible and have a higher standard of evidence than you.

[1] https://www.snopes.com/news/2016/10/18/project-veritas-elect...

> You gave links to highly edited videos. That is a fail.

Then why did the employees say what they said? In most conversations, you wouldn't have vitriol toward a certain set of political beliefs, yet the Twitter employees in the videos do express vitriol...whether the video is edited for the mass audience (like most news interviews/exposes are) or not.

Either way, our opinions here are moot. Twitter is a private company & it can do whatever it wants. If you don't like that, build your own social network & run it the way that you want to run it. You can even recruit ex-Twitter employees if they agree with your direction...

I for one, prefer the direction of the new Twitter & perhaps even more profound, more attention is given to alternatives that are open source. Building alternatives will enhance the space & create more innovation!

I agree with the sentiment of these Elon Musk quotes & it would be great for human progress if other social media networks also adopt these stances:

Twitter needs to become by far the most accurate source of information about the world. That’s our mission.

| Elon Musk

“I think wishful thinking is innate in the human brain. You want things to be the way you wish them to be, and so you tend to filter the information that you shouldn't filter.”

| Elon Musk

“The internet has been the biggest equalizer in history in terms of access to information and knowledge.”

| Elon Musk

“The extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all.”

| @elonmusk

That's a really long way of saying you don't have the "literal hours of continuous footage" that was claimed.

There are no links to the raw footage for the Twitter interviews. I called them & asked them to provide all raw footage as they provide raw footage for some of their episodes & it would be a significant distinguishing feature for a news organization to provide raw footage for all episodes. Note that you are holding them to a higher standard than other news outlets who rarely provide the raw interview footage & mostly edit the interviews...but I do agree that all raw footage for all interviews should be provided for transparency & to provide more context.

Nonetheless, the Twitter employees still said what they said & expressed their intent to censor political opponents. You can point out that there is no raw footage for Project Veritas, even though all news organizations rarely provide raw footage & they all editorialize & they all edit, but it still does not change the fact of what was said...You might not like their editorialization or their editing, but what was said is still on video. You can call it "deceptive practices", but all news organizations engage in the same "deceptive practices".

I hope they change their policy after my call with them because they have an opportunity be a leading example of even more transparent journalism.

At the end of the day...Elon still owns Twitter, Twitter is having a record inflow of activity & active users, Elon fired the old staff, & many people are happy about it...you can't change that either. You can complain, but it still happened.

Like I said from the very beginning, you can only provide links that are highly edited and leave out the context. At the end of the day only the naive and gullible will trust those videos. Your choice of course.

Then any interview by any organization that is edited, which is the large majority, "leaves out the context" & only the "naive and gullible" would believe it. Or you have a double standard based on the narrative that you want to hear. IMO & the opinion of many, there was more than enough context...it just happens that it's not what you want to hear. They had various ramblings for well over a minute. I don't think any more context is going to change what they were expressing.

Again, it's all moot. These people lost their jobs & good riddance. Twitter is heading in a better direction now. I doubt Twitter employees will ramble on about how they are censoring political opponents to a random stranger anymore.

Also, there was corruption with employees selling blue check marks & the management lied about their bot problem. It just doesn't seem like the company was ran ethically on many fronts. Twitter was hemorrhaging money, was obviously was not run well, & failed to live up to it's potential.

> The source is Project Veritas.

Project Veritas is an American far-right activist group ... produces deceptively edited videos ... and has propagated disinformation and conspiracy theories

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Veritas

That's a hard fail right there - from a gullible disinfo peddler. No critical thinking skills.

It's another form of gaslighting people into not believing their own eyes & ears...

> It's another form of gaslighting people into not believing their own eyes & ears...

How are we supposed to believe our eyes and ears when you haven't provided any links to video for us to watch?

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