Tucker’s Message Fiasco Is the Wakeup Call You Need to Auto-Delete Your Messages | Hacker News Reader

Tucker’s Message Fiasco Is the Wakeup Call You Need to Auto-Delete Your Messages

blakeashleyjr.com

26 pointsblakeashleyjr87 comments

“Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink”

Or as Jan Werich said "Don't think. If you do think, don't speak out. If you do speak out, don't write it down. If you do write it down, don't sign it. If you do sign it, don't be surprised."

> Or as Jan Werich said

Do you have a citation for this? I'm familiar with the saying, but have never seen an attribution for it before.

I've found it here

https://citaty.net/citaty/283440-jan-werich-nemysli-kdyz-mys...

From The survival guide to an Orwellian world.

> Think twice before sending a message, even over Signal. You will likely not be able to predict when you will be sued, investigated, or otherwise thrown into the lime-light.

Or, radical new idea here, how about conduct yourself in a reasonable way where if everyone in the world read your text messages you wouldn't be fired or go to jail?

>Or, radical new idea here, how about conduct yourself in a reasonable way where if everyone in the world read your text messages you wouldn't be fired or go to jail?

This is ridiculous. There are so many things you can do that are ethical and illegal. Or ethical and legal and would still piss a lot of people off. Or, how about just wanting to rant off the record with friends?

This idea the default should be "act like you're being watched" is harmful, both to the individual and to society.

Or humour. Hard to make any joke in private that won't offend (or pretend to be offended) someone on the internet.

That's what I call "synthetically offended". It is where there is no offense intended, and none actually received, but the potentially offended party (or more likely a third party) can string together something to make it look like an offense. Often as a "gotcha" to the "offender".

So next time someone takes offense at something, ask them are they really offended, or synthetically offended?

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him"

see https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cardinal_Richelieu for context.

> This idea the default should be "act like you're being watched" is harmful, both to the individual and to society.

As George Orwell said in his 1984 "Big Brother is watching you".

> This idea the default should be "act like you're being watched" is harmful, both to the individual and to society.

Yet, that is oftentimes the reality. You _are_ being watched (online).

Foucault is rolling in his grave.

The bar for "things that could get you fired" is not set by Tucker Carlson's behavior. Remember donglegate, that time an overheard "dongle" joke got someone fired? The limelight is extraordinarily harsh. Having nothing to hide isn't just a function of your own record, it's an assumption that pitchfork-wielding crowds will act reasonably. That's just not how it works. Better to play it safe.

Why limit this to text based communication? How about also limiting what you say when talking with friends in a pub, just in case the conversation gets recorded and then leaked? What about conversations around the dinner table with your family? What about chat between you and your significant other in the bedroom? What about things you say out loud when on your own? What about your thoughts?

> What about your thoughts?

This is the endgame. The perfect citizen will not be capable of thinking the undesired thoughts.

Who says AI alignment / brain washing is impossible?! We are doing a pretty good jobs with humans.

So “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”? Would you tell that to abortion rights activists in Mississippi, journalists reviewing the Panama Papers, or dissidents in China? Radical new idea here, but maybe you shouldn’t believe that everyone in authority from now till you die will only fire and jail people for the ideas that you personally don’t have or like, or suggest data privacy rules for others accordingly.

Not exactly what he's saying.

To be fair, he's expressing himself poorly. Because, yes, "If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so."

He wants to say something more like "Conduct yourself in a way where if everyone read your messages they won't realize what a fucking miserable, intolerant asshole you are".

And let's be completely fair here. Tucker Carlson wasn't fired for holding any of the opinions that he holds. He wasn't fired for voicing those opinions. He wasn't even fired because people knew he had those opinions. He wasn't even fired because there was now evidence of all of that.

He was fired because it looks like doing something. And he made it really fucking easy for them to do it. He was a huge asshole in private messages and he could be sacrificed easily.

It's a similar thing that happened to Jon Gruden a few years back. While investigating Dan Snyder for several things, some emails Jon Gruden wrote during his time at ESPN saying some pretty stupidly racist stuff got "leaked". Then the conversation shifted from Snyder's trafficking of Washington's cheerleaders to Gruden's racism. Gruden resigned as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders as a result of all the hoopla.

All of those emails were sent to someone. They knew about it. Plenty of people worked with and for Gruden. They knew who he was. What kind of language he employs. Mike Tomlin, Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan, and others all knew who the man was. The league knew. ESPN, knew. Not a single thing that got leaked was a surprise to anyone with any input or influence on Gruden's career. He was fired simply to distract from the Washington issue. However, like Carlson, he made it really easy for them to do so by being a miserable asshole.

I don't send a single work email or work message that I would have to defend in the court of public opinion. Even when I step outside the bounds of purely work related issues, I don't express negative opinions about groups of people based on characteristics they have no choice over. The worst you could hit me with would be that I'm not as funny as I try to be. You won't find me being a miserable asshole when* our organization's emails becomes a matter of public record.

*I say when because I work for an organization where this is a very real possibility.

Very well stated. It's not that we have to or need to conduct ourselves like we're being watched, we should just be decent human beings because we should be. I don't have to worry about the sexist or racist or bigoted emails or jokes I've sent coming back to me for one simple reason: I'm not a sexist, a racist or a bigot. That shouldn't be a hard box for most people to check. At least, it shouldn't be.

That's clearly what I meant, but people will read what they want.

This is a good example of why being a decent person may not be enough to keep you out of trouble.

I’m not sure he’s in trouble, though.

It shows how easy it is for your communications to be misinterpreted, which in some contexts could cause problems despite your intentions.

I am requesting that publicly share all of your text messages for the past 10 years. Surely you have nothing you wouldn't want public, or things that any group would find offensive.

This only works if you are also clairvoyant.

There are plenty of things that were uncontroversial a decade ago that would now incite a twitter mob.

End of history bias is very human.

It wasn't that long ago homosexuality was illegal and considered a medical condition.

There are plenty of other examples for why this is a bad excuse to not secure communication.

how about conduct yourself in a reasonable way where if everyone in the world read your text messages you wouldn't be fired or go to jail?

This concept may be put to the test once platforms like Discord leak all their data. It will eventually happen. Discord save everything forever and messages are only marked as deleted. They may even do voice-to-text transcriptions in the background as that is also easy to save forever. This probably also applies to Zoom and Slack, if not now then eventually. Slack had very weak controls for 3rd party integrations in that any employee could add random-integration but hopefully that has changed. I am curious how everything will play out.

Just wait until google sells your data to the insurance companies and they refuse to insure you because you searched once too often for "cancer".

"But it was for my mother in law," you will say.

And they will reply: "We'll cancel her insurance as well."

>Or, radical new idea here, how about conduct yourself in a reasonable way where if everyone in the world read your text messages you wouldn't be fired or go to jail?

There is no man on earth who has ever been able to do that.

Do you have any other impossible suggestions?

My dad always said "Don't do anything you wouldn't want people to read about in tomorrow's newspaper".

Many people also say "What would Jesus do?"

No one can live like Christians believe Jesus did, but it's a guide. No one can be perfectly honest and moral 100% in their lives. It's a principle.

I think the point of the OP comment is "the first lesson Tucker should get out of the ordeal is not being a racist fascist, rather than cover your tracks when you're a racist fascist."

I also think it's valuable for people to know just how revealing text messages can be, and so if you have any valid concern about being targeted by the state, clearing your communications history is wise.

IIRC, that's the kind of behavior that got people crucified.

Hold on there bud, please don't speak for all of us. I'm quite confident that I and most people, even some other men, do not share your risk profile. I prefer to just be a decent person.

> Or, radical new idea here, how about conduct yourself in a reasonable way where if everyone in the world read your text messages you wouldn't be fired or go to jail?

Who's to say whether or not what is today a perfectly innocent message might be socially ostracizing or even criminal hate speech in 5 years?

There's a lot of conflating making jokes with being racist in the replies here.

China is that way, friend.

The problem with Signal is that other party can turn auto delete off for both. Clearly bad design. It should be that the smallest timer wins.

If you can't trust the other party, you have already lost.

This isn't only about other party, you are missing the point. Other party can be hacked or played and I certainly do not trust that people are competent in that domain AT ALL.

The way his phone was compromised was likely with targeted malware like Pegasus v2. Even if you're deleting messages it wouldn't matter, because whatever you're seeing on the screen / typing is all being logged and transmitted somewhere else.

His phone wasn't compromised, it was subpoenaed in a lawsuit.

I postulate that given HNs political guidelines, this whole submission has a high chance of being flagged for some reason.

Most people have no need to auto-delete something that was recorded by a 3rd party already.

The small political portion of this post is almost irrelevant to the message.

Oh yes. I see it clearly now. The problem this whole time was actually that he didn't sufficiently hide the evidence of malicious intent.

What a weird, bland, utterly oblivious take.

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