Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1
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If what the DNC did would have been illegal for a government actor to have done, then Mr French has presented a technically correct argument that still won’t pass the sniff test of anybody concerned with keeping the government away from Twitter moderation.
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If Twitter was a public company, I fail to see how that changes anything. The fact that it's private now lets Musk do pretty much whatever he wants, and that includes disclosing whatever he wants.
If, as @jon-nyc said, the GOP had access, the question remains what, if anything, was done with that access. The fact that I own a handgun is irrelevant unless I use to commit a crime. I have access, but...
A lot of the deflection is directed toward the allegation that the censoring of the laptop story is because of the First Son's dick pics. That's a legitimate concern, of course, but it's a deflection to the larger story which alleges that there is evidence of influence-peddling by the VPOTUS.
As to government interference, I haven't seen anything to indicate that the government actually interferes with Twitter - yet. I saw a story that the Trump White House communicated with Twitter regarding stories. If the communications regard issues of national security, I have no problem with it. If they regard coverup of corruption, then there's a problem of course.
Finally criticism has been made of Taibbi's style of reporting, in that he is omitting things that don't fit his argument. That may well be true, but unless you can show that what he revealed is demonstrably false, that's irrelevant.
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If Twitter was a public company, I fail to see how that changes anything. The fact that it's private now lets Musk do pretty much whatever he wants, and that includes disclosing whatever he wants.
If, as @jon-nyc said, the GOP had access, the question remains what, if anything, was done with that access. The fact that I own a handgun is irrelevant unless I use to commit a crime. I have access, but...
A lot of the deflection is directed toward the allegation that the censoring of the laptop story is because of the First Son's dick pics. That's a legitimate concern, of course, but it's a deflection to the larger story which alleges that there is evidence of influence-peddling by the VPOTUS.
As to government interference, I haven't seen anything to indicate that the government actually interferes with Twitter - yet. I saw a story that the Trump White House communicated with Twitter regarding stories. If the communications regard issues of national security, I have no problem with it. If they regard coverup of corruption, then there's a problem of course.
Finally criticism has been made of Taibbi's style of reporting, in that he is omitting things that don't fit his argument. That may well be true, but unless you can show that what he revealed is demonstrably false, that's irrelevant.
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@jon-nyc said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
@George-K How is it irrelevant ?
Is it irrelevant when the NY Times does it?
A fair point. But, selectively omitting parts of a story (as you suggest he did) is substantively different from omitting the entire story, as the NYT did.
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@jon-nyc said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
@George-K How is it irrelevant ?
Is it irrelevant when the NY Times does it?
A fair point. But, selectively omitting parts of a story (as you suggest he did) is substantively different from omitting the entire story, as the NYT did.
@George-K said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
@jon-nyc said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
@George-K How is it irrelevant ?
Is it irrelevant when the NY Times does it?
A fair point. But, selectively omitting parts of a story (as you suggest he did) is substantively different from omitting the entire story, as the NYT did.
There was an eye roll campaign of giggly dismissal targeted at Taibbi when Taibbi took down Goldman Sachs and by extension the investment banking industry. That campaign would have been more substantive regarding the dishonesty or inaccuracies in his reporting, if only the dishonesty and inaccuracies existed sufficiently. They did not, and if they existed, they would have been uncovered. Jon’s claim that Taibbi has no credibility, has no credibility.
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@George-K said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson Don’t Understand the First Amendment
By David French
tl;dr
"Twitter is a private company—not the federal government."
Tell Mr. French that Twitter was a PUBLIC company while they were pulling their shenanigans.
Secondly, the law is usually behind society, particularly technology. I've long agreed with the position that social media such as Twitter or Faceypage is the modern equivalent of the town square. It's time for the law to catch up.
@Jolly said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
"Twitter is a private company—not the federal government."
Tell Mr. French that Twitter was a PUBLIC company while they were pulling their shenanigans.
“public company” is still not “government”
Secondly, the law is usually behind society, particularly technology. I've long agreed with the position that social media such as Twitter or Faceypage is the modern equivalent of the town square. It's time for the law to catch up.
Now you like “big government.”
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@George-K said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
@jon-nyc the RWEC called Trumps
tweetpostmessage political suicide.Only if the leadership of the GOP finally have a positive result in their ongoing and seemingly interminable search for a pair of balls.
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There seems to be some confusion in the definition of public and private. You can use those words to describe whether a non-government company is listed on the stock exchanges, but that's not Mr French's usage. He was distinguishing between the public and private sectors.
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@Jolly said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
"Twitter is a private company—not the federal government."
Tell Mr. French that Twitter was a PUBLIC company while they were pulling their shenanigans.
“public company” is still not “government”
Secondly, the law is usually behind society, particularly technology. I've long agreed with the position that social media such as Twitter or Faceypage is the modern equivalent of the town square. It's time for the law to catch up.
Now you like “big government.”
@Axtremus said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
@Jolly said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
"Twitter is a private company—not the federal government."
Tell Mr. French that Twitter was a PUBLIC company while they were pulling their shenanigans.
“public company” is still not “government”
Secondly, the law is usually behind society, particularly technology. I've long agreed with the position that social media such as Twitter or Faceypage is the modern equivalent of the town square. It's time for the law to catch up.
Now you like “big government.”
No, I like the First Amendment.
Do keep up.
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We seem to only be focusing on the legality and not the morality and ethics. @jon-nyc regardless of the law, was it moral and ethical for the highest levels of Twitter to suppress news stories that were damaging and exposing potentially illegal activities by the former VPOTUS and current Democrat candidate for the Presidency?
The Brad
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BTW, something missing?
“Cry havoc and let slip the DOGE of war!”
Those who cheered as J-6 American prisoners were locked in solitary for 18 months without trial, now suddenly fight tooth and nail for foreign terrorists’ "due process". — Buck Sexton
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We seem to only be focusing on the legality and not the morality and ethics. @jon-nyc regardless of the law, was it moral and ethical for the highest levels of Twitter to suppress news stories that were damaging and exposing potentially illegal activities by the former VPOTUS and current Democrat candidate for the Presidency?
@LuFins-Dad as a former roommate and law student told me after his first day of law school (I was an intern...):
"The truth has nothing to do with justice and justice has nothing to to with the law."
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@Jolly said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
BTW, something missing?
The author of that article wrote this book:
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And the report does indicate that Republicans did have some lines of access, but they were far fewer and very lopsided.
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We seem to only be focusing on the legality and not the morality and ethics. @jon-nyc regardless of the law, was it moral and ethical for the highest levels of Twitter to suppress news stories that were damaging and exposing potentially illegal activities by the former VPOTUS and current Democrat candidate for the Presidency?
@LuFins-Dad said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
We seem to only be focusing on the legality and not the morality and ethics. @jon-nyc regardless of the law, was it moral and ethical for the highest levels of Twitter to suppress news stories that were damaging and exposing potentially illegal activities by the former VPOTUS and current Democrat candidate for the Presidency?
I tried to touch on this when I said this situation wouldn't pass the sniff test for anybody interested in keeping partisan government out of Twitter moderation. Anyway, if it's as easy as a government official instructing their national committee chair to be their moderator agent with Twitter or Facebook, obviously this is not only a legal technicality but a legal loophole that anybody should be in favor of closing.
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I think you’re also misunderstanding the first amendment. The government can make all the moderation requests it wants. It’s only some kind of enforcement that would be unconstitutional.
Also (not directed at you Horace), I see some RW commentators salivating at the prospect of someone going to jail for violating first amendment rights. Even putting aside the fact that no such first amendment violations occurred, if the government does violate your first amendment rights you take the government to federal (civil) court. It isn’t the case that government functionaries get arrested.
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I think you’re also misunderstanding the first amendment. The government can make all the moderation requests it wants. It’s only some kind of enforcement that would be unconstitutional.
Also (not directed at you Horace), I see some RW commentators salivating at the prospect of someone going to jail for violating first amendment rights. Even putting aside the fact that no such first amendment violations occurred, if the government does violate your first amendment rights you take the government to federal (civil) court. It isn’t the case that government functionaries get arrested.
@jon-nyc said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
I think you’re also misunderstanding the first amendment. The government can make all the moderation requests it wants. It’s only some kind of enforcement that would be unconstitutional.
Again a loophole that has obvious ethical hazards. Nobody is so naive to think the request is not transactional in some way. And if it's in any way transactional, it should not be happening.
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@jon-nyc said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
I think you’re also misunderstanding the first amendment. The government can make all the moderation requests it wants. It’s only some kind of enforcement that would be unconstitutional.
Again a loophole that has obvious ethical hazards. Nobody is so naive to think the request is not transactional in some way. And if it's in any way transactional, it should not be happening.
I doubt it was perceived that way at all. Most of the ‘trust and safety’ (sic) team were fellow travelers and didn’t need much convincing.
Also from the emails Taibbi released it looks like there was discussion and, at the margin, disagreement about what to delete and not. They don’t seem to be behaving as if they’re taking orders.
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I doubt it was perceived that way at all. Most of the ‘trust and safety’ (sic) team were fellow travelers and didn’t need much convincing.
Also from the emails Taibbi released it looks like there was discussion and, at the margin, disagreement about what to delete and not. They don’t seem to be behaving as if they’re taking orders.
@jon-nyc said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
I doubt it was perceived that way at all. Most of the ‘trust and safety’ (sic) team were fellow travelers and didn’t need much convincing.
Also from the emails Taibbi released it looks like there was discussion and, at the margin, disagreement about what to delete and not. They don’t seem to be behaving as if they’re taking orders.
Zoom out to the level of the social value of the friends one makes and does favors for, and it becomes transactional by definition. In any case the appearance of impropriety and the ease with which real impropriety could be plausibly denied makes such a situation fraught with hazards. Hazards which, were the shoe on the other foot and the Trust and Safety team were Trumpists in 2019, would be considered existential to the democracy.
