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Comment by viraptor | Hacker News Reader

That's a weird summary on what's been released from Twitter. They've been shown to do moderation and to receive issue reports both from users and third parties including gov sources. That's far from collusion.

Specifically, (unless I missed some document) they received reports and acted on them independently. There were cases of "report received and acted on", but no proof of "action forced even though employee disagreed".

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Jack Dorsey has publicly stated he capitulated to the Indian government to censor around the Farmers protests because the Indian government was raiding employees homes and threatening to shut down service in the country. [1]

1. https://time.com/6286814/india-twitter-jack-dorsey-clash/

1. That's not really "governmental collusion"?

2. Elon Musk: https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-05-24/under-el...

This whole Twitter Files thing was embarrassing mundane and the amount of censoring twitter does right now is 100x worse. Just look at the Turkish elections...

1. I didn't state that it was. I was replying to the individual who made the claim "There were cases of "report received and acted on", but no proof of "action forced even though employee disagreed".". The censoring of Indian farmers is the clearest example of this claim being false.

2. It is also bad when Elon Musk does it.

I am not interested in any back and forth of "well ackshually now its this percentage worse", I only have a desire for it to stop entirely.

Temporarily complying then reverting the censorship in 2021 then suing the Indian gov in 2022 is not "capitulation".

Only recently did Twitter stop fighting back and Musk just announced it - it wasn't something hidden.

> Temporarily complying then reverting the censorship in 2021 then suing the Indian gov in 2022 is not "capitulation".

Capitulation is the cessation of resistance. It does not stipulate perpetuity. A person/entity can capitulate and then at a later point change their mind. This does not mean they never capitulated.

>Only recently did Twitter stop fighting back

Complying with censorship is not what I consider fighting back. Once you have aided the government in censorship at the moment when dissidents have the opportunity to create change, the damage is done.

>and Musk just announced it - it wasn't something hidden.

I did not state or imply that "it" was hidden.

They've been shown to follow the law in jurisdictions where it's lawful for the government to censor citizens' speech.

What you're missing is it's ILLEGAL and UNCONSTITUTIONAL to do such a thing in the US by the US government, which is at the heart of the Twitter Files controversy. Censoring public discourse among the voting electorate especially concerning matters of national importance and electoral candidates is without question a form of election manipulation, which has, and will continue to, affect the outcome. So it is not wrong to say that our elections, or any elections amidst broad, systemic censorship/collusion by the government with contractors, academia and corporations, was a government-manipulated one.

With free speech one can accept that there will be inaccurate takes from all sides that have to be distilled and debated, but that stops when these ideas can't even be spoken about.

> which is at the heart of the Twitter Files controversy

Ok. Could you quote specifically when that was documented to happen? As in actually forced by a government agency, not just links provided to Twitter as "you should check out these tweets".

A person who is more concerned about the source or origin of potential evidence rather than weighing the merits on the content itself isn't engaging in a good faith discussion.

Did you respond to the wrong comment? I'm literally asking you to show us the content itself which corresponds to what you've written above. Please link to specific examples of the illegal and unconstitutional activity from the US Gov.

In case my previous comment was misunderstood, I meant that: I have not seen any cases where Twitter was forced to do anything. Every case I'm aware of, someone provided a tweet/account and twitter employees made the decision themselves (sometimes agreeing, sometimes pushing back).

> They've been shown to follow the law in jurisdictions where it's lawful for the government to censor citizens' speech.

> What you're missing is it's ILLEGAL and UNCONSTITUTIONAL to do such a thing in the US by the US government, which is at the heart of the Twitter Files controversy.

You're still missing the point. Read the quoted text. You said once again you haven't seen that Twitter was forced to do anything.

The unconstitutional and illegal bit is the US government merely _asking_ Twitter to censor content.

We are asking where the US government is asking Twitter to censor content? Or is the point that no one has asked yet but if they did, it'd be illegal?

Cite where it's illegal or unconstitutional. The US government makes deals with private corps all the time, and Twitter is under no legal requirement to publish anything that it doesn't want to.

I was replying to yours and took issue with what seemed to be a dismissal of allegations based on where or how these allegations are communicated. My understanding of these specific first amendment violations is in part based on the revelations by Mike Benz, former US State Dept official who is behind the Foundation for Freedom Online. He asserts Twitter Files are the tip of the iceberg.

Here's a bite-sized video of the EIP and Atlantic Council under CISA openly bragging about how they accomplish it - pressure them to draft policy, then pressure them to uphold those policies.

Coercion to self-regulate: https://twitter.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/1608688753052377088

The Election Integrity Project was also recently highlighted in this recent WaPO Article: https://archive.ph/PjiVe

With this retort citing direct conversations that highlight that succinctly lays out everything: https://rumble.com/v2t4bha-censorship-industry-decoded-ep.-1...

It bears repeating how these allegations would make it unconstitutional via Supreme Court precedent and the law of agency (citations within link): https://www.newsweek.com/fbi-colluded-twitter-suppress-free-...

It's not like any of this was a secret, either: CISA openly admitted such on their website and even tried to quietly scrub it. Thanks to the Internet Archive preventing a rewrite of history (archive.org links within): https://theohiostar.com/commentary/commentary-government-cen...

It's not a weird summary at all... contrary to some people's views, the federal government actually does have constraints placed on its actions.

At the very least it's a civil action called 'tortious interference'; using Federal money (employee time) wrongly might rise to the level of 'fraudulent conversion'...

You haven't pointed at anything actually breaking those rules.

I really think you are trolling/sealioning at this point.

TI is when a 3rd party interferes with a the interactions between 2 parties. In this case the feds interfered with the user's use of Twitter.

The second is obvious, you spend Federal money on a wrong purpose , just like if you had employees help you remodel your house while they were supposed to be working.

Working with the government to stop the spread of mass fear and bullshit is considered by some as "the swamp". Lots of people think misinformation and lies are free speech that can be forced on any website. Especially with things like "hunter biden's laptop" which no one had proof of yet were pushing it like it was the next Watergate. Still there is very little we've heard from Hunter's laptop other than he was a coke head. Yet it remains the holy grail of the right.

Eyes wide shut.

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