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Comment by zzzeek | Hacker News Reader

Funny story, Biden was not "in the government" at that time. You're thinking of Trump. That's who was president in 2020.

Does it still rub you the wrong way that Trump was "the government" telling Twitter to remove speech?

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I like all of these comments because they each contain a grain of truth.

Biden wasn't in office at the time of communications, yet was clearly a figure of influence in government.

"Handle" is an okay word to describe the scenario via an internet comment, yet also not a literal quote.

I wish we could get back to trusted parties coming to reasonable conclusions while citing sources. It seems we're stuck in a cycle of gaming SEO and piecemeal info via social media.

I guess us "citizen journalists" are learning just how challenging it can be to relate a story accurately and with minimal bias.

It's actually quite easy to analyze a story with minimal bias. People simply aren't interested in doing it, however.

Resisting temptation to insert bias is rare/hard when you can acquire 1,000 more clicks/followers for tweaking the story or headline just a bit. People have bills to pay and not every story sells. Journalism isn't just about knowing how to write and investigate, you also need to know how to get your stuff out there, otherwise you're dead in the water.

“Biden wasn't in office at the time of communications, yet was clearly a figure of influence in government.”

What in the world are you saying here? What exactly is a “figure of influence in government“, and how does that matter?

Is Trump still influential on government policy etc.? If you don't think so, that's fine, but that's the point I'm making.

How is “influence” relevant here? Also, does that make Tucker Carlson or Peter Thiel “influential on government”. Can these people now not ask a social media company to remove non consensual nude photos of their family members because they are “influential on government“?

Setup, WTF are you saying?

First of all, what I think is a subjective measure. It's my opinion, and you don't need to agree with it. So if you're saying "WTF are you saying" as if you cannot imagine someone would believe Biden's influence has bearing here, then we don't see eye to eye.

Second, Tucker and Thiel are influential but I probably wouldn't say government, I'd say they're influential media figures. Third, yes I imagine Tucker and Thiel do have a greater ability to influence in some areas than your average Joe.

Finally, if your next response contains another WTF-type comment, you'll have the last word.

WTF you’re just tone -policing after losing the argument now.

Saying WTF is fine. My point was if there's still incredulity about where I was coming from after two clarifying comments in an already long chain then I have nothing more to say. Same goes for you.

You haven’t clarified anything. Biden was not in government, and you haven’t explained how that’s not the end of the argument here.

The notion that campaign messaging can indicate what the candidate might do while in office should not be surprising.

Calls for censorship coming from individuals or groups who later assume positions within government are worth reviewing because it may inform how they operate while in office. Calls that come after taking office may be punishable. Therefore, any influence exerted during campaigns of private citizens, while unpunishable, is still interesting to follow. An incumbent up for re-election is not free to exert such influence, though I imagine it still happens on their behalf, and I'd say those unpunishable actions are worth following too.

All private messages aren't interesting, but these ones are because they called for censorship. Also, censorship just means suppression of content. It doesn't have to be done by a government.

What messages “called for censorship“ and what did they ask to censor? I haven’t seen any such messages outside of asking to remove non consensual sexual images of a family member that was against twitters TOS and probably illegal.

Let’s stop being vague, what messages are you talking about?

Everyone knows the Hunter Biden story [1] was censored. Ro Khanna (D-CA 17th) thought Twitter should've allowed it [2].

Here is a US representative, a Democrat no less, arguing that the story should be allowed to remain on the basis that even if it was hacked material, journalists are not responsible for the illegal actions of a source, and because the story is of national interest. On the other hand, the "DNC" [3] and "Biden team" [4] were apparently asking Twitter to clean up certain content in relation to that story. Regardless of what that removed content was, the suppression of the story has itself been national news for awhile and it's worth clearing the air with facts to understand what occurred. One of them was a blurred image of Hunter Biden [5].

So again, it's interesting because these are calls for censorship, and campaign messaging can indicate what the candidate might do while in office.

None of this, by the way, should be construed to be limited to the Biden campaign or Democrats. Groups have been censoring each other for eons. Communists censored everyone but their own messaging, McCarthy censored them, Anthony Comstock did it, religions and dictators do it, and on and on.

[1] https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/email-reveals-how-hunter-biden...

[2] https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598838041371516929

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

[4] https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598827602403160064

[5] https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1598837329250045953

Notice that you didn’t show any message from Biden asking them to do that. This is what was so dishonest about Tiabi’s thread. He conflated two different events. You are saying that Twitter suppressed a story, which they did, on their own!!!

Now Twitter can suppress whatever they want, and we can disagree or agree with it, but there was NO evidence presented that anyone asked them to do that.

Edit: this explains it better than I did. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/12/elon-musk-...

Edit: you know where there were direct messages from a campaign and officials while in government? It was from the Trump team and Fox. Tons of them.

> Notice that you didn’t show any message from Biden asking them to do that.

From my comment above,

> the "DNC" [3] and "Biden team" [4] were apparently asking Twitter to clean up certain content in relation to that story.

If it isn't true, the Biden team and DNC can publicly deny what's presented in those messages.

The Atlantic article you cite makes a different case than you do. They're saying no violation of the first amendment occurred, and I agree with that. I've always found the released communications interesting nonetheless.

> you know where there were direct messages from a campaign and officials while in government? It was from the Trump team and Fox. Tons of them.

All are concerning regardless of party. Sen. Hawley has been probing the same of this admin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfJZ2MTDEWY

Where is the message? What are those tweets? It’s perfectly reasonable to ask Twitter to remove things if they are illegal or violations of twitters TOS. You’ve shown no evidence that it was improper in any way.

I said the comms were interesting. Without seeing them, yet knowing they happened, people might imagine more improper things than actually transpired. Transparency is a good thing in this case.

This is the end of the conversation for me. I've got other things to do.

So there is no evidence of anything improper. I can’t imagine Elon didn’t release the worst ones, so have no reason to believe anything worse is there, and they also said that the Trump team made requests to remove tweets but didn’t release those for some reason.

Gotcha, so there’s nothing here to be concerned about unless they release something new.

Doesn’t this seem like a much bigger problem than what you are complaining about?

https://twitter.com/greggnunziata/status/1599295288081948673...

And the GOP supports him while he calls for suspending the constitution https://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/trump-lot-things-itll-...

That is a concerning statement yeah. However, even if I were only interested in one thing or the other, the general public can certainly address more than one thing at once. So I don't see the point in trying to shut down conversation about one thing just because something else is going on.

Finally, even if I or the public could only focus on one thing, Trump's statement appeared after the Twitter Files release.

Is it really so problematic for you that I, a person distant from you on this planet, express interest here about Twitter's comms with DNC or Biden team?

I haven’t seen any evidence of anything concerning between the DNC and twitter. It’s all conjecture at this point. I’m asking you if you apply these same standards you espouse to the other side. That’s perfectly reasonable.

I think any indication that there were comms between a presidential candidate's team or a political party and Twitter are interesting for reasons already stated.

It's not reasonable to repeatedly ask me to convince you to change your mind. You've seen the same things as me, I think it's interesting, you think it's not. This is end of convo for me.

They said Team Trump asked for tweets to be removed too.

I still have no idea what your point is. Biden was not in government when this happened, and that’s the critical fact.

I don’t think it matters ftw. But I will say I voted for Biden and one of the big reasons is he’s well connected across the aisle due to four decades of crunching out policy. Few politicians have his influence.

Uh, he was a Vice President?

Please go back to school and take a civics class

I just double checked whether or not Joe Biden was a Vice President and it turns out I'm not crazy and that he was. So looks like my Civics education is fine thanks. What is your point?

But he wasn’t when this happened.

David French explains this well https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/12/elon-musk-...

How does that matter?

He was a Vice President, Congressman, and is a presidential candidate backed by the DNC. Stop playing dumb.

So he can’t make a request to remove non consensual sexual images of a family member based on the TOS of Twitter? Honestly, what are you all complaining about?

Biden was Vice President at the time of the emails in question, which is what the Hunter Biden story was always about. That the story was suppressed by Twitter while Trump was in office isn't relevant. The suppression of the story is what matters, since if those emails were reported as accurate it would have wide ranging impact on the election. In fact if the story had been allowed to come out in a timely matter, the Democrats likely would have put forth a better candidate in the primary.

Lol that’s not true at all. There’s no retroactive interpretation of the first amendment. Twitter was not asked by the current government to do anything. They’re a private company and are allowed their free speech. If you’re not just some Russian droid living in a shit hole maybe go back to school. This is embarrassing for you.

You must be replying to the wrong comment. Nothing you have said is related to my post.

Allow me. The tweets violated Twitter's hacked items policy and they removed them. The internal staff had a debate as to whether it fell under the policy and they came to the agreement that it did. They later agreed to update the policy and not remove tweets that referenced it. I don't understand what is so problematic here.

That policy was never used to remove content published by NY Times, WaPo etc. that had originated from hacks or stolen material. In fact, this was the only time they used this policy in that manner to restrict content published by legitimate investigative journalists. That's the entire crux of their argument, selective enforcement when it fit their political desires.

Also, the emails weren't hacked. The laptop was abandoned at a repair shop and they tried to turn it over to the FBI twice but the FBI declined. That's when they turned it over to Giuliani who sent them to the NY Post.

> tried to turn it over to the FBI twice but the FBI declined. That's when they turned it over to Giuliani who sent them to the NY Post.

This is not quite accurate. The FBI did take the laptop, but Isaac (the repairman) made a copy and sent it to Rudy Giuliani as some sort so assurance because he feared the laptop would be black holed by the FBI.

“Hacked” nowadays could include impersonations like deep fakes. The modifications made between Isaac and Giuliani need to be explained before we can use the word legitimate.

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