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Comment by lenkite | Hacker News Reader

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I don't know what specific documents you think did that, but "comprehensively" is absolutely an awful way to describe the Twitter Files. They were anything but "comprehensive". In actuality, they were an excellent example of how easy it is to lie using partial truths. For example, highlighting all the times Twitter took moderation recommendations from a Democratic campaign looks a lot worse if you hide any time they took moderation from Republican campaigns. A simple look at the specific journalists that were given access to Twitter documents and the strings attached to that access reveals that the Twitter Files were not about transparency. They were an ideological play and nothing more. If Musk wanted true transparency, he would have given wider access to more documents or just released them all like Jack Dorsey requested.

Could you please point out the list of moderation recommendations from Republican campaigns that were actually accepted and carried out? The only ones that were revealed so far were of the following types:

1. requests to un-ban or un-suspend right-wing personas

2. removal of explicit death threats.

3. Anything against the vaccine - even actual, scientific data.

From the twitter files, the Twitter team that was wholly left-leaning spent significant time and debate looking for the mildest of excuses to ban right-wing politicians, building black lists for them and even gloating happily as they managed to kick them off. Not much doubt about that - actually no one has even denied that. There were several hearings also in the house judiciary where they even confirmed the same.

(Interestingly, there was pressure applied on Matt Taibbi to either "shut up" or relinquish all his sources to law enforcement. Also, as a form of indirect pressure to rattle him, US tax agents visited his house the VERY DAY he would testify before US Congress stating that his tax returns had been rejected due to identity theft concerns - despite him having the electronic receipt which showed it being accepted.)

>Could you please point out the list of moderation recommendations from Republican campaigns that were actually accepted and carried out?

That is exactly my point. I can't because none were released. That is not a reason to assume they don't exist. You are assuming full transparency in a situation with only partial transparency.

At the same time, there is also no reason to beleive they do exist.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/elon-tru...

WHEN THE WHITE House called up Twitter in the early morning hours of September 9, 2019, officials had what they believed was a serious issue to report: Famous model Chrissy Teigen had just called President Donald Trump “a pussy ass bitch” on Twitter — and the White House wanted the tweet to come down.

That exchange — revealed during Wednesday’s House Oversight Committee hearing on Twitter by Rep. Gerry Connolly — and others like it are nowhere to be found in Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files” releases

Huh? What does this prove? Trump's WH may have requested Teigen's tweet to be removed, but it's still there: https://twitter.com/chrissyteigen/status/1170914148919590914

> there is also no reason to beleive they do exist.

Proof of reason to believe they do exist.

Furthermore, the office of the president, the FBI, the Government making a request to limit the free speech of a citizen is entirely different from Joe Blow in the street making a request.

If anything it gives credence to the theory that while both dem and repub lawmakers request Twitter to remove embarrassing tweets (obvious), Twitter pre-Elon only answered the dem's requests.

Maybe you missed this news story:

  Twitter admits bias in algorithm for rightwing politicians and news outlets[1]

  The research found that in six out of seven countries, apart from Germany, tweets from rightwing politicians received more amplification from the algorithm than those from the left; right-leaning news organisations were more amplified than those on the left; and generally politicians’ tweets were more amplified by an algorithmic timeline than by the chronological timeline.

  According to a 27-page research document [2], Twitter found a “statistically significant difference favouring the political right wing” in all the countries except Germany.

Twitter admits it was boosting right wing accounts over left wing accounts. It treated right wing twitter users who violated its own terms of service better than regular users because of their position as conservative leaders. Trump himself was boosted and promoted while he violated Twitter TOS. It took him using Twitter to wage a coup against the US government for them to ban him. So yeah, there's more than a little reason to believe that there's evidence at Twitter of them boosting right wing accounts.

And PS: Notice that this research by Twitter is never mentioned by Musk or in the Twitter files. They're trying very hard to memory hole this report, and it seems like it's worked on you.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/22/twitter-a...

[2] https://cdn.cms-twdigitalassets.com/content/dam/blog-twitter...

But that was published while the pro-Democrat establishment goons were in charge of Twitter, so of course they would say that because they wanted you to beleive they weren't favouring the left. It's hardly a reiable source. Same applies to Musk-era of course.

In the end, we accept the things we agree with, and discredit the ones we prefer not to believe. Human nature.

As I said, we don't need to know anything internal about Twitter to know for a fact that they bent over backwards to elevate extremist right wing voices. Because they elevated the most important extremist voice for 4 years as he violated the terms of use for their platform. In effect, we all had one TOS, and there was a different, more permissive TOS for the leader of the US MAGA-right wing movement, the most extreme version of right wing politics in America. That's blatant, confirmed, irrefutable, systematic bias and special treatment for conservatives on Twitter, pre Musk.

In case you want to discount the Twitter report as a false flag, here's a report from NYU that independently confirmed Twitter is biased toward conservatives. It also found the same for Facebook: https://bhr.stern.nyu.edu/bias-report-release-page

American universites are notoriously politically biased. Calling that "independent" is a stretch.

Again - we accept evidence that supports what we already believe.

https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe

You really can't just blanket claim that all research from a university is politically biased, even if you feel American universities in general are biased. Come on now, we're here for discourse that's a little more nuanced than that I hope.

Since all you're bringing to the discussion at this point is a comic, I think that's all there is to say.

Yes, discussion over, you learned nothing, you'll carry on defending your fixed beliefs, and you got in a cheap comment about a serious comic. Well done.

This is a lie. We got a glimpse into how accounts like LibsOfTikTok regularly set off alarms only to get tags such as "Do not ban. Ask first."

The only thing selective and explicit was the information Musk allowed bought-and-paid-for "journalists" to access.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com