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Comment by partiallypro | Hacker News Reader

Politicians should never be able to directly influence the moderation of social media items they find politically unfavorable; I don't care which party does it. I can understand something that involves direct threats/calls to violence, but that's about it. Anyone that has used Twitter for some time knows the moderation was often not all that even, not just by pure political means but also threats of violence etc were always treated differently depending on who they were aimed at.

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Exactly. The fact so many don't understand this is discouraging. Just because you support a particular candidate shouldn't mean it is ok, because it could very easily go against you on another occasion. There needs to be a uniform standard and accountability for this.

what does a particular politician have to do with this? the "leak" literally said both the trump white house and the biden campaign lobbied to have posts removed

i think it's kind of funny that the government is lobbying corporation now, rather than the other way around.

"lobbied". this is mob stuff!

It's as if everyone parroting this line stopped reading at the "However":

"10.Both parties had access to these tools. For instance, in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honored. However:

11. This system wasn't balanced. It was based on contacts. Because Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right. https://t.co/sa1uVRNhuH

12. The resulting slant in content moderation decisions is visible in the documents you’re about to read. However, it’s also the assessment of multiple current and former high-level executives."

Obviously this community is very left leaning and they (used to?) love Elon. So really this is kind of funny to watch.

You do know what this kind of government/corp collaboration is, don't you? It's literally the beginning of a fascist state. This is not hyperbole either, though I wish it was.

What if the content is illegally obtained personal material of the politician's civilian family members?

IANAL but I believe the law says if the journalist didn't aid in whatever made obtaining it illegal, like hacking the data out, then they are clear to publish it. And that's what one Dem called for Twitter to write in its policy, according to the "Twitter files":

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598838041371516929/photo...

Then they can flag the offending post through twitter's reporting system like everyone else

Twitter never shut down Wikileaks or other things in the interest of national security that involved civilians and government officials alike. They have allowed journalists to leak other similar stories from hacks constantly. The Panama Papers, etc were all mostly civilians. Twitter never censored that, except in China at the behest of the CCP. Which comes to the original point. No politician or political arm should have the power or influence to take something down they find unfavorable. I prefer not to live in a CCP like state where the "party" gets an edit button on everyone's thoughts.

In this case the content was legally obtained.

Nude pictures of an individual being distributed without consent isn't politically unfavorable -- its criminal in many places and obscene everywhere.

The "laptop" story is a red herring for Trump's crimes and used to cover them up by making up a load of BS to give cover for Republican whataboutism.

What I find surprising is the defense many HN commentators are giving to this propaganda, especially those that try to say silliness like "Biden was installed!"

I'm neither Republican or Democrat -- I'm an equal opportunity cynic in relation to political parties -- and boy, has the GOP been taking advantage of that opportunity!

The NY Post didn't post any nude photos, and they were banned. So, your talking point is nonsense. If you weren't a part of either party, wouldn't you want to...idk, crackdown on corruption in both parties? Seems that would be the non-partisan thing to do. Instead of saying "well, what Trump did was worse!" Both Trump and Biden should both be held responsible for any corruption. Hunter getting on the board of an energy company with no experience in the field, and then having email chains lending to a possibility of using his father's influence for business...seems like something worth reporting on and looking into. Just as Trump using his hotel chains to collect money from foreign diplomats should also be taken seriously and looked into, among the other terrible things he's done. Having a D or R next to your name shouldn't shield you from anything.

But so does dark money in politics, which is worse than influencing twitter.

Dark money flows to high impact mass distribution channels, and who knows what is truth and what is not, and the response is social media should not be asked to take down false or misleading content?

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