Given Elon Musk handling of other tweets, I doubt he was being transparent. That swastika post just gave him an excuse to remove Kayne.
In the daily business there is much less transparency.
Just look at the accounts that got suspended since Musk's takeover.
I saw an article about a bunch of antifa accounts, but they were posting how to disrupt protests with violence which seems like a pretty clear violation.
Of course those requests can and will be made in a biased manner, and it's naive to assume that the nature of the request isn't going to influence how Twitter responds to it, but it's definitely a murky grey area at that point.
The wording probably matters too. The Biden team asked Twitter to "review" certain tweets instead of "remove" certain tweets. So technically they're not suppressing speech explicitly but implicitly we (and twitter employees) all know what they mean by "review".
I referenced the Biden team's verbiage because that's the only verbiage that was posted with the implied intent on getting tweets removed (besides the DNC). I'd love to see the email's from the White House asking for tweets to be removed.
Oh wait, it’s because clearly this information from a “Twitter source” (aka Elon) is disseminated with a viewpoint and is hardly impartial.
All of this should be viewed with extreme skepticism, and so far none of this seems damning in any way. I haven’t seen anything that says Elon is remotely operating in good faith.
The only solution is to not provide the power in the first place instead of trying to fix it with layers of easily bypassed rules. You can’t have easy censorship if there isn’t an established censorship system already in place.
A system that is limited by law and very fundamental policies is much less prone to abuse (ie, a constitutional republic with transparent but limited policy making power vs monarchical systems with backroom dealing by elites). The minute it became about broadly policing speech via backroom dealing was the minute it became wide open to abuse.
This creates a new kind of abuse. If Twitter has no way of removing illegal content from its platform, then your opponent can use that fact to post illegal content about you (i.e. hacked pictures of your naked body), and you have no recourse.
government used to be weary of any appearance of impropriety, lest people believe they are acting improperly -being slimy. That seems to have gone by the wayside.
two, if the requests were to suppress sensitive government information --secrets, ok, I might lend a sympathetic ear, if they could prove it was so (not because they said "take our word". But this is "don't make us look bad" --sorry, but no, it stays.
And now we are hearing the gov wants to amp up domestic surveillance. The ACLU and EFF, etc should get off their butts and perform their claimed duty. We're not China in that sense yet, but if we let them, we'll get there.
Voters used to punish politicians that seemed improper. They don't anymore. The Trump administration was the capstone on this, obviously, but the trend has been developing for decades.
The white house in this case was the Trump white house so it could have been received positively by the media that twitter is standing up to Trump by suing.
Could you elaborate on why you dont think it would be a free speech violation? Is internet communication not considered speech?
If Twitter decided to remove Hunter Biden content completely on their own, that would be legal. If Twitter decided to remove that content because someone asked nicely- regardless of who that person is, whether they are President or not- that would be legal. It's only a legal issue if the government forces Twitter to remove the content, which is not something Twitter has asserted.
https://twitter.com/aclu/status/1587198479608303622
The government pressuring private companies to censor is a First Amendment violation.
Otherwise what happens when the party in power changes?
"What happens when the party in power changes?" Twitter, like every other company, gets to decide whether or not they want to support or oppose the party in power, and if Twitter feels the government is violating their 1A rights, Twitter can sue them
You do understand that they can collude? It's funny we have spent countless hours hearing about Trump Russia collusion. Now suddenly people can't seem to figure out there is a thing called collusion.
Censorship of this story doesn't exist in vaccum. There is a legitimate argument why this shouldn't be investigated as election interference when we've spent countless hours based on Steele dossier, which turned out to be a political ploy.
There is nothing illegal about requesting review of tweets even through special channels. If Twitter actually has evidence of an illegal act to coerce the review then they should probably rehire whoever was coerced and file suit.
Collusion with a domestically owned bird app re revenge porn of your crackhead son: Worst scandal in US history
Got it.
Where is this information coming from?
The chart displays a breakdown of total employee contributions to the two political parties. As you can see, the "% to democrats" column contains 95%+ for the last 4 years. It would be safe to assume that this metric is a reasonable proxy for Twitter staff's political leanings.
Just to be safe I recommend you review the suite guidelines, specifically about assuming good faith when replying to comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
No it wouldn't be because it doesn't way what percent of employees donate at all. I assume the percentage is pretty low because it's <$200,000 going to Democrats from the entire company.
[1] https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/twitter/totals?id=D00006711...
Consider https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dscc-ads-ga - go through the pay with card and stop before you actual enter in any details.
The page will look like https://imgur.com/sNJFkjS
https://www.quora.com/U-S-Presidential-Campaign-Donations-wh...
https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/keeping-r...
> For each contribution that exceeds $200, either by itself or when added to the contributor’s previous contributions made during the same calendar year, records must identify that contribution by:
Amount; Date of receipt; and Contributor’s full name and mailing address, occupation and employer. If a person has already contributed an aggregate amount of over $200 during a calendar year, each subsequent contribution, regardless of amount, must be identified in the same way.
Please note that contributions to authorized committees are aggregated on a calendar-year basis for recordkeeping purposes, but are aggregated on a per-election basis for purposes of monitoring contribution limits, and on an election-cycle basis for reporting purposes.
---
And thus open secrets is getting the aggregate data that and releasing that.
Please don't post this type of advice here or elsewhere. Don't think that if you are paying with a credit card in your name, that your employer information can't be easily determined if there is an FEC investigation of a candidate receiving a large number of contributions from "unemployed" people. You are telling people not only to break the law, but to do so in a very public way that is impossible for them to hide.
Always tell the truth in all legally required financial disclosures, especially when this is touching campaign financing.
Congress passed no laws in this regard. Whether or not this was illegal activity on the part of the Executive Branch is another question entirely -- and a good one.
The government "asking" a private entity to take some action is inherently coercive due to the power imbalance.
The executive branch can violate the first amendment…
But by this reasoning it sounds like the president could just create an executive order limiting free speech and that would be just fine? Is the president really aloud to create an executive order saying "anyone with red hair is no longer aloud to speak in public" (obviously silly example)?
Initiate a policy or order, mitigating the immediate damage. Then, days, months or years later, a court will decide you didn't have that power and will reverse it. But the threat or problem was already dealt with and there are no repurcussions except political capital spent.
They are instructions from the head of the executive branch (be it President or a state's governor) for an agency in the executive branch to do a certain thing.
For example: Executive Order 14087 of October 14, 2022 https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/10/19/2022-22...
> HHS Actions. In furtherance of the policy set forth in section 1 of this order, the Secretary shall, consistent with the criteria set out in 42 U.S.C. 1315a(b)(2), consider whether to select for testing by the Innovation Center new health care payment and delivery models that would lower drug costs and promote access to innovative drug therapies for beneficiaries enrolled in the Medicare and Medicaid programs, including models that may lead to lower cost-sharing for commonly used drugs and support value-based payment that promotes high-quality care. The Secretary shall, not later than 90 days after the date of this order, submit a report to the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy enumerating and describing any models that the Secretary has selected. The report shall also include the Secretary's plan and timeline to test any such models. Following the submission of the report, the Secretary shall take appropriate actions to test any health care payment and delivery models discussed in the report.
This directs the Department of Health and Human Services (under the executive branch) to do certain things.
---
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/ex...
> Sec. 2. Policy. It is the policy of the executive branch to:
> (a) secure the southern border of the United States through the immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border, monitored and supported by adequate personnel so as to prevent illegal immigration, drug and human trafficking, and acts of terrorism;
> ...
> (d) Except as otherwise noted, “the Secretary” shall refer to the Secretary of Homeland Security.
> Sec. 4. Physical Security of the Southern Border of the United States. The Secretary shall immediately take the following steps to obtain complete operational control, as determined by the Secretary, of the southern border:
Note again, the Department of Homeland Security is under the executive branch.
---
And so, the "could you create an executive order ordering {department} to arrest someone with red hair speaking in public?" The answer is "no" because the ability to arrest someone is under the Judicial branch - not the executive branch.
Secondly, you will note that all of the executive orders are citing the law under which the president (or governor) is given that authority from congress. To arrest a red head for speaking congress would need to have a law (First Amendment!) that allows the executive branch to silence someone.
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I will also point out gag orders which are, well, fairly straight forward censorship. Except that the gag order is from the judicial branch - not the legislative branch.
https://law.yale.edu/mfia/case-disclosed/when-silence-isnt-g...
> The First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression from government interference. It prohibits any laws that establish a national religion, impede the free exercise of religion, abridge the freedom of speech, infringe upon the freedom of the press, interfere with the right to peaceably assemble, or prohibit citizens from petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances. It was adopted into the Bill of Rights in 1791. The Supreme Court interprets the extent of the protection afforded to these rights. The First Amendment has been interpreted by the Court as applying to the entire federal government even though it is only expressly applicable to Congress. Furthermore, the Court has interpreted the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as protecting the rights in the First Amendment from interference by state governments.
This is because the Constitution only authorizes Congress to make any laws in the first place, so only Congress could be guilty of making a law impacting speech. Taking all of the document in the narrow sense you’re taking it would mean the executive branch couldn’t limit speech either because they couldn’t do 99.9% of the things they do today in the first place.
The mainstream test just looks for a "state actor" but even if you want to go textualist, things probably break down like this: if a law empowers the executive to do an act that violates the First Amendment, the law itself is a violation of the First Amendment. If no law empowers the executive to do the action at issue, then the action is illegal by virtue of being in excess of the executive's authority.
Take the state actor doctrine in combination with the fact that the First Amendment is incorporated against the states, and you get the reality that it even applies to, for example, state colleges and universities disciplining students and teachers, despite them not being "Congress," a "law," or even an agent of the federal government at all.
Twitter officers conspired with rogue elements of the US government to defraud US citizens of their constitutionally protected rights.
This is not a game. The people involved should be facing 30 year prison sentences.
If twitter bans me for spamming, do you think I can sue them?
Do we know what they contained? Were they threats? Spam? Copyright infringing? Disagreements about tax policy?
United States citizens have explicit rights, and corporate employees colluding with government officials to “voluntarily” nullify those rights are guilty of conspiracy to defraud the United States
The government represents us, a collusion to defeat our rights is conspiracy against us and subject to civil and criminal action
It actually can not.
The dude behind you with a pipe in his hand asks for your car keys in the parking lot.
Is that ok? He just asked is all…
Could you describe the government at the time this action was taken? What relationship did the people asking Twitter to do things with the government? Did the people making the requests have any authority to direct any department of the Federal Government to take any action?
They committed conspiracy to defraud the United States, and will in due time be charged as such by the Department of Justice.
State employees who participated are traitors.
https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual...
They abused technology designed to prevent the spread of child pornography to censor information harmful to their preferred political candidate at the behest of government officials.
Would be curious on your take of what DeSantis was trying to do to Disney in FL? 30 years in prison for threatening Disney about its speech?
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ron-desantiss-military...
For what crime, specifically?
> The general conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. § 371, creates an offense "[i]f two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.
https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual...
"The intent required for a conspiracy to defraud the government is that the defendant possessed the intent (a) to defraud, (b) to make false statements or representations to the government or its agencies in order to obtain property of the government, or that the defendant performed acts or made statements that he/she knew to be false, fraudulent or deceitful to a government agency, which disrupted the functions of the agency or of the government."
What false statements/representations were made, by anyone?
In addition, they had to in some way "defraud the United States" which is: "They cheat the government out of money or property; They interfere or obstruct legitimate Government activity; or They make wrongful use of a governmental instrumentality." - None of which apply.
For example, a teacher hired at a school cannot argue that they could not be expected to teach.
Much in the same way, a government employee cannot in good faith argue that they cannot be expected to uphold the constitution.
By secretly colluding with private companies (that the government has failed to regulate, I might add) to suppress otherwise constitutionally protected activity government employees are criminally liable
Bigly constitutional
Now, if there's lawmaking/regulation/rulemaking/enforcement aimed at Twitter by the executive branch, that's a very different thing.
But in this particualr case it's also sorta nonsensical. The stuff released today is about the Biden campaign, which was a private entity. Biden himself held no government position at all, so the point gets pretty strained.
But I think it is wrong for the white house to do anything that gifts the impropriety of restricting speech.
Of course mainstream TV and print "news" has been doing this for decades, but for some strange reason people assume they're somehow "better".
I personally think it's great all this is coming out, because it shows how dangerous and manipulative large media (in all forms) really is.
They say if you don't like it you can just start your own Twitter - but when Parler tried to do exactly that, Big Tech colluded to destroy it.
Might is doing a LOT of work in that statement. You know as well as I do stories get buried all over.
> If Twitter decides you're not allowed to read something, where else can you go?
Twitter is insignificant compared to Facebook, YouTube, Fox, CNN, and other global news outlets controlled by a handful of billionaires.
The much more important question is where do you go when THEY bury a story.
Now that we know the laptop is real, what do you think will come of it?
I suppose Musk is saving the real bombshell for... later?
Matt said that the Trump administration also participated in the censoring, yet he did not provide one single example.