Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

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> Are there any scenarios where it is acceptable for the President to threaten private companies to change their moderation policies to suit his needs?

If he's asking for something completely reasonable that ~80+% of people think is a good idea, sure. The appropriate thing for Twitter to do would still probably be to ignore him.

Giving Trump influence of Twitter's moderation policies is one of those obviously bad ideas (much like giving the FBI influence, in fact, for similar reasons).

> If Twitter and FBI were aligned, there's no coercion.

Yeah it isn't really a question of coercion, obviously if Twitter wants to support the FBI in political causes they are free to do that. The issue is that the FBI is being funded by taxpayers, not leftists, and shouldn't be deployed in a political capacity to support partisan management policies like what Twitter turned out to have. The easy way to achieve that is a blanket rule - something like "the government doesn't police what people say" which is fair and reasonably objective.

> ...also the FBI, of course that famously leftist institution...

There was the institutional support for the Trump-Russia hoax and the FBI's help in suppression of the Hunter Biden story. While I agree the FBI probably isn't leftist (I'm arguing it is authoritarian and status-quo biased, for what it is worth - they'd pull all the same tricks on someone like Bernie Sanders if he had made it through the primary), it is politically active and spreading a lot of this "misinformation" stuff to try and keep Trump out of office. That is corrupt, and it shouldn't be working with Twitter like it is.

So the big scandal here isn't that the FBI is implicitly threatening Twitter in a way that raises 1st Amendment concerns, but rather that the FBI is using public funds to help a social media company do its job. This has nothing to do with free speech and there's also no evidence the FBI's actions were motivated by partisan concerns.

To me, it's rather clear that a bunch of people who are not particularly principled or have a strong understanding of the ethics or laws involved, but are prone to thinking that anyone working against their own agenda must be evil or nefarious in some ways, reverse-engineering their way into finding faults with how things more or less have always worked. This also isn't some nefarious hidden secret motivated by partisan concerns. Trump's own Director of FBI, Christopher Wray stated that Russia was attempting to interfere in the presidential election:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-security-idU...

> Russia is determined to interfere in U.S. elections despite sanctions and other efforts to deter such actions before the next presidential election in 2020, FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Tuesday.

And he specifically told the public what the FBI is doing about this:

https://time.com/5548544/russian-internet-trolls-strategies-...

> FBI Director Christopher Wray, speaking at the RSA Conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, said social media remains a primary avenue for foreign actors to influence U.S. elections, and the bureau is working with companies on the problem.

> “What has continued virtually unabated and just intensifies during the election cycles is this malign foreign influence campaign, especially using social media,” Wray said. “That continues, and we’re gearing up for it to continue and grow again for 2020.”

Well, the scandal here is the FBI were rolling in, giving Twitter a list of random bystanders with the expectation that they will be silenced. US Federal government agencies are specifically not supposed to do that.

All the stuff observing that the FBI is politically active (and has been pretty much since inception I suspect) is interesting but not really news. It is context for why they are supposed to avoid chummy relationships with Twitter's team of moderators.

> Trump's own Director of FBI, Christopher Wray stated that Russia was attempting to interfere in the presidential election

Yeah, but the Muller report came out around the time he said that and basically debunked the issue as a serious problem; raising the question of what exactly Wray was trying to stir up. He looks like part of the anti-Trump crowd that has been active in the FBI for the last few years.

> Well, the scandal here is the FBI were rolling in, giving Twitter a list of random bystanders with the expectation that they will be silenced. US Federal government agencies are specifically not supposed to do that.

Which is substantially less problematic that the sitting President threatening Twitter. Yet here we are.

> Yeah, but the Muller report came out around the time he said that and basically debunked the issue as a serious problem; raising the question of what exactly Wray was trying to stir up. He looks like part of the anti-Trump crowd that has been active in the FBI for the last few years.

This is so far off the mark that it's hard to take you seriously. The Mueller report extensively documented Russia's attempt to interfere in the 2016 election.

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

> However, the report states that Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was illegal and occurred "in sweeping and systematic fashion

It didn't exonerate the Trump campaign either. It more or less said that it couldn't prove the collusion in large part due to extensive attempts by the President's attempt to torpedo the investigation. It describes these attempts at obstruction of justice, without specifically accusing him (or exonerating) because Mueller didn't think it would be fair even if he believes a crime occurred:

> The report describes ten episodes where Trump may have obstructed justice while president and one before he was elected, noting that he privately tried to "control the investigation". The report further states that Congress can decide whether Trump obstructed justice and take action accordingly, referencing impeachment

> Mueller's belief that it would be unfair to accuse the president of a crime even without charging him because he would have no opportunity to clear his name in court; furthermore it would undermine Trump's ability to govern and preempt impeachment

> Which is substantially less problematic that the sitting President threatening Twitter.

No, in fact quite the reverse. It is quite problematic. Active cooperation between the FBI and Twitter is a threat to the institutions of democratic governance. That is why it is a scandal and there are things like the 1st amendment that basically say "government shouldn't do this, it is illegal".

Part of the draw of Trump was his ongoing battles with every reporting institution on the face of the earth. His Fake News routine was entertaining. And, critically, all happening publicly and with extensive documentation of every act and insult. Compare that to the FBI here where it is almost coincidence that we even have firm evidence of what is going on despite the fact they were handing out names to be blocked.

> The Mueller report extensively documented Russia's attempt to interfere in the 2016 election.

Which aspects of the Russian interference do you think are a bigger deal than the FBI interference in the political process that are being documented in the linked twitter thread?

You can refer to the Muller report if you like. I ask people to cite which bits of it they are worried about and usually their turn out to be bluffing about there being anything defensible in it. There is a lot of bark and no bite, it looks like to maintain credibility they were relying on the report being so think that nobody reads it.

To take the Muller report seriously requires someone to believe in devious Russian plans to reveal the truth to Americans. And that the Chinese are all angels and have no influence operations of note whatsoever. The whole scenario that Muller tried to paint is an insult to the intelligence, which casts a poor light on Wray because he had presumably read and understood the report.

> It didn't exonerate the Trump campaign either.

I'm going to be polite and listen to your opinion despite you likely not being exonerated for any horrible crimes.

That was always political weasel language, and goes a long way to discrediting Muller as purposefully adding spin to the situation. He was looking very hard for a problem and couldn't find anything. When the politicians are forced back to insinuation that means they don't have any actual evidence - because if they have it they lead with it.

> Active cooperation between the FBI and Twitter

It's virtually impossible for the government to do its job without the private individuals and institutions "actively cooperating" with them. Nearly all interactions between the government and private institutions can be described that way.

> That is why it is a scandal and there are things like the 1st amendment that basically say "government shouldn't do this, it is illegal".

This is completely incoherent - the first amendment of course does not say that the government shouldn't cooperate with private individuals or institutions. Like how is it even possible to interpret the first amendment that way? I mean, it's very obvious you have no idea what you're talking about and your motivation here is entirely political, but how is it possible to get things so wrong?

I mean there are so many things wrong here, but one additional thing is that the Constitution enumerates and limits the power of the federal government. The Constitution does not grant the FBI any power whatsoever, except indirectly through the President.

What you're saying (rather extremely incoherently) amounts to saying President Trump was unconstitutionally abusing his powers to hurt his own campaign.

Also, this is how you started:

> the Muller report came out around the time he said that and basically debunked the issue as a serious problem

And this is where you ended:

> To take the Muller report seriously requires someone to believe in devious Russian plans to reveal the truth to Americans

> That was always political weasel language, and goes a long way to discrediting Muller as purposefully adding spin to the situation

And no the Mueller report doesn't insinuate - it extensively documents criminal ways in which Trump obstructed the investigation. He simply felt it was the job of Congress to act on the evidence he found.

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