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Comment by sasmithjr | Hacker News Reader

What was the content of the "handled" tweets, though? I think that matters a lot. For example, the RealJamesWood tweet (from [0]) seems to be a leaked nude of Hunter; it was most likely (safe to say) posted non-consensually, and I don't really see a big difference between that kind of tweet and revenge porn.

Having "stuff they dislike" removed would be one thing, but using the direct line at Twitter for reporting explicit ToS violations isn't a big deal.

[0] https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598828601268469760

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Lots of people talking about ToS as if it's applied consistently and without bias. Let's assume that the oft-storied "pee tapes" were real, published by a mainstream news outlet and posted to Twitter. Would those same individuals regurgitating ToS violations agree that should receive the same treatment, or would they have been complicit in spreading it as far and wide as possible?

The situation is clouded by the extreme bias of the employees at Twitter. They seemed to believe they were applying the ToS consistently and fairly despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.

It was interesting when they banned Trump that they cited "To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th." as a notable incitement of violence. Someone who can put that up and think of it as a serious interpretation is not working from the same reality as most people.

EDIT It is hard to find, here is the link to the reasoning. It is a fascinating glimpse into the mind of the Twitter executives: https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspensio...

> It was interesting when they banned Trump that they cited "To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th." as a notable incitement of violence.

Can anyone square this? It seems indefensible.

We could be looking at a classic case of groupthink [0]. I've read a lot of political speeches with half-truths to try and gain an advantage, but the Twitter statement stands out as something that might be their honest take. Someone, probably a couple of someones, with high intelligence and communication ability was in such a state that they interpreted the Tweet as inciting violence.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink

A simpler explanation would be confirmation bias.

Regardless, I dont see any sense in it. I wonder if anywhere he can defend it.

I can. The idea is that he’s signaling that an attack on the inauguration won’t injure him, and so it’s mafia talk for “attack the inauguration”.

I don’t support this as a grounds. It’s so flexible that you can see or not see it at will, so, you can give a charitable read to someone you like or a threatening read to someone you don’t. It also relies on mind reading.

Nevertheless a lot of people can read it that way.

Trump attempted to use Twitter to overthrow the government and have the vice president of the United States executed by a mob.

Sources or it’s false. This claim is a pants on fire lie.

No police were killed on that day, contrary to initial reports - but one protester was.

Trump never specifically called for violence but remarked to show protest “peacefully at the capitol” on Twitter. For the lack of evidence, the Jan 6 committee has been running in circles begging for people to step forward.

I don’t have to like Trump or support him to know this claim is asinine.

There is a very lengthy blog posts about why Trump was removed on Twitter's website. I am surprised you pretend like his actions and Tweets around that time are no biggie and that you downplay the violence and actions that occurred on Jan 6 to make it seem like the protestors were the ones who were innocent and harmed, and just FYI the police officer that later died was specifically tied to the events on Jan 6 and several others were seriously injured.

In no way do I want to downplay the actions of the protesters. However, reading what Trump actually said and at the times he said it, it’s way too much a stretch for me to believe that is what he meant.

Also, I think any explainations from Twitter, considering who was running them, are one-sided and should not be taken on face value. That still is the case for who is running it now. I do not trust either for a remotely unbiased assessment.

I think there is a big difference between the sitting POTUS who was known to ask for and receive Russia's help getting elected being shown to have kompromat on him vs the unelected son of a presidential candidate's hacked iCloud nudes being posted

Especially given that in the "pee tapes" trump is clothed while the women are nude and unknown individuals

It's a bit naïve to seriously think this story has anything to do with nudes. The real story was about corruption at the highest levels of government, selling influence, etc. The crack rocks and related pornographic content were a convenient if not shocking distraction. Embarassing? Yes. Scandalous? Sure. But it wasn't what made it news worthy at all.

That’s like saying Clinton using a cigar was nothing of importance to politics.

Clinton was impeached for lying under oath, not for his creative use of cigars.

That’s not the point. It could have been left out. But it was not and catapulted the author to the SCOTUS.

It was important for selling tabloids, which are now indistinguishable from mainstream news.

The lurid bits just helped give the story legs.

The only point of the laptop saga is to cast doubt on Biden's integrity and to counter any sort of similar questions about Trump's.

This was yet another October surprise -- a spiced up rendition of Buttery Males v2.

I know the Trump White House made requests for stuff to be taken down via email, (instead of the Report Tweet button), but I didn't see that President Trump requesting a ToS review for some tweets was this kind of corruption.

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598828932395978752

The pee tape story was completely fabricated, as was the Russian collusion narrative, and that was revealed although carefully subtexted and de-emphasized in the Mueller Report.

The Steele Dossier was acknowledged as "raw intel" from the get go, and the likelihood of some sort of kompromat on Trump is possible and probable.

Mueller also made a point of declaring that his report did not exonerate Trump: https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ap-top-news-crime-po...

No one has exonerated you either. Shouldn't you get cleared of your crimes before commenting?

> the likelihood of some sort of kompromat on Trump is possible and probable.

What "kompromat" could possibly be a big enough deal to compromise Trump at this point? His enemies are trying to persuade the world that he attempted to overthrow the US government and he is still a top-10 candidate for the presidency in the next election.

How are foreigners meant to compete with that?

Sigh, this is why discussing politics with Americans gets exhausting. It's difficult to get a serious answer out of someone, because all they really care about deep down is making their party look good and the other party look bad.

So often they'll reach for "it's different when my party does it because the other party are nazis/communists/russians/pedophiles/etc." It's just so tiresome and anyone outside the circus can see how unproductive it all is, but people in the thick of it really do see it as Marvel vs Thanos.

Revenge porn is illegal

Not just that, but revenge porn is literally illegal in the state of California, where Twitter is HQ'd.

I'm getting increasingly annoyed by people pointing to those removed tweets as a smoking gun while being completely unaware that we know the contents of said tweet and said tweets can easily be interpreted as violating Twitter's ToS at minimum and actively violating California law at worst.

The case in point was the removal and censorship of the NY Post's story on the laptop, which was incredibly relevant to the Presidential election. It revealed Hunter as a degenerate crackhead, and an unqualified man-child who benefited directly from his father's position as Vice President to get a powerful, paid position on the Burisma Board of Directors, a favor for which he committed "10% to the big guy" (among other positions, Burisma was not the only one). It underscored the corruption of the current U.S. president, who used his power and influence over foreign relations with Ukraine to enrich his own family and himself.

The pornographic images, to what extent they were shown in the NY Post, were redacted. The main function they played is in showing that the laptop contents couldn't have been fake.

All that has been shown is that Hunter was a POS trying to profit from his relationship with his father, who has been investigated and exonerated by the GOP: https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/senate-homeland-secur...

Just because they want to offer up 10% to the big guy doesn't mean he took it.

If he was guilty he should have been prosecuted (and would have been). Would you be willing to say the same about Trump?

There's an important distinction here. It seems there were some tweets the Biden campaign raised with contacts at Twitter - they contained porn, and were rightly taken down.

Then there was a NY Post story blocked by Twitter - that move is much harder to defend, but crucially it seems Twitter took it upon themselves to remove that story, with no evidence presented that the Biden campaign had anything to do with it.

A lot of the debate here seems to be conflating those two things.

I question the integrity of the journalist reporting those tweets (Matt Taibbi) at that point I must admit.

So many people seem to conflate the requests for review of ToS violating messages with some kind of power the Democrats had to get Twitter to block the story.

If the Democrats had that kind of power and it was visible in the info available, no doubt this would be shown upfront. Instead we get pretty loaded (lying?) mentions of "requests from connected actors to delete tweets" when the message clearly mentions tweets to review.

In fact the answer "handled" doesn't even imply anything was deleted. Also this so called journalist didn't even try to see what had been deleted in the end to see if it wasn't just blattant ToS violations and worse, material that had really nothing much to do with the campaign in the first place. I fail to see how the right of some tweets of revenge porn to survive a few hours longer because they had to go through the regular queue of moderation was of any import.

It's easy to paint a team as having excessive influence on Twitter. Just have your own team post a lot of ToS abusing materials then later on show the stats of deleted tweets to show the "bias"

They're clearly not acting in good faith and you should stop giving them the benefit of the doubt.

I think there’s a lot more at play than lack of good faith. It’s incredibly tantalizing and comforting to buy into a narrative that the other side is engaged in an unforgivable scandal that will eventually result in your side regaining power or moral superiority. We’re all trapped in an out of control rumor machine just in time for the arrival of AI generated misinformation.

That's one tweet. What about the tweet by the spokeswoman suspended for referencing a NY Post article?

As has been lengthily defended by Twitter, the developing situation was that the material might have been hacked, and the product of an adversarial state government. If that were true in that situation, imagine the implications for Twitter for having amplified it

That's a very convenient excuse for blocking anything you want unt it is irrelevant. I also like how, now that the provenance of the laptop is not doubted, and hacking and Russia were not involved, people say "it doesn't matter, there was nothing incriminating on the laptop anyway". What a strange OP for Russia to pull off, you'd think they sold forge something juicy if it was their plan.

The provenance of the laptop and it’s contents, are doubted. That’s the whole point of all of this.

Seriously, Rudy Giuliani spent most of 2020 in Ukraine trying to dig up dirt on Biden. He would send his findings to the DoJ, and they were so out there that Barr had to set up a to quarantine the noise he was generating.

Then all of a sudden in a classic October surprise, a blind computer repairman finds out what he is in possession of, and instead of calling the FBI he calls none other than Rudy Giuliani.

And wouldn’t you know, what he has found is exactly the kind of bullshit Giuliani had been trying to dredge up in Ukraine for a year but couldn’t get past the DoJ.

So no, the provenance of this thing is in deep question.

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