The Twitter Files

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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by SilentMajority » Wed Dec 21, 2022 9:01 am

Vnatale, I'm on Twitter and check it daily. This thread isn't about me and personal anecdotes though. It's about the twitter files and what they are revealing of what's been going on there.

It doesn't matter what % of the content was affected by government action. 99% of tweets and content are totally unimportant with regards to the government narrative. They only interfere with ones they care about.

The idea that a government agency had people in key positions for content moderation, and the government agency was paying the company to have workers affect content to shape public opinion seems like something out of the Soviet Union.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by SilentMajority » Wed Dec 21, 2022 9:06 am

Mountaineer wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 8:54 am
Whether Twitter or the various news outlets, what productive things are we personally expected to do with the information presented (from the perspective of forum participants, not from the perspective of the media)?
Mountaineer do you mean with the information of government involvement in Twitter content?

Here's my take on what you do with it. If you don't like the government using tax dollars to run psy-ops on the American people, I suppose you can vote for politicians who say they'll oppose that. I doubt you'll find many.

Other than that I'd say, being aware that the government is engaged in this with Twitter, it seems impossible to think it's not going on elsewhere. Therefore the next time all the social media and mainstream print and TV/Radio media are pushing a narrative, it's very possible it's being directed by government agencies.

Or ignore it because you're busy with other aspects of your life. Ahhh but you're on an internet forum discussing it so you must be interested on some level.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by vnatale » Wed Dec 21, 2022 9:19 am

Mountaineer wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 8:54 am

Whether Twitter or the various news outlets, what productive things are we personally expected to do with the information presented (from the perspective of forum participants, not from the perspective of the media)?


While I was on Twitter last regarding my favorite college basketball team I got a lot of enjoyment reading all the excited responses by fellow fans to the exciting double overtime win that had just concluded moments before.

Is that considered productive?

This whole aspect of Twitter gets totally missed when people like Donna Brazile refer to Twitter as a cesspool.

It's no different than the internet.

You can engage in areas of the internet that many consider to be a cesspool or you can be engaged in the internet like we are here.

Any medium should not be characterized by its worst excesses while totally overlooking all the value it provides.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by Kbg » Wed Dec 21, 2022 9:27 am

SilentMajority wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 8:22 am
Below is from the NYPost two days ago.

I'm sure this is just perfectly normal. It's some isolated incidents, or evidence that a lot of liberals worked at Twitters.

It's definitely not a lot of FBI agents working in Sr. roles at Twitter, transferring money to the company from the FBI budget to control the content at the site. It just looks like that because that's what all the facts show. But it can't be that unelected government agencies were compensating the company directly to process FBI "requests". It just looks like that because of the facts.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion of course and this is a story with new twists and turns daily, hard to keep up. It looks like anything but some liberals working there and acting in isolated incidents. It looks like pervasive FBI/gov't involvement in content moderation and banning with regards to anything related to their agenda.

And if it was happening at Twitter, imagine what it's like elsewhere where they can 100% control content (CNN/MSNBC/WaPO/ABC/NBC...FOX?)
Step back and think...

Option A: OMG, the FBI is paying Twitter for influence

Option B:

Twitter to FBI: FBI do you have a court order?
FBI to Twitter: Uh, no we don't.
Twitter to FBI: If you have a national security concern here, great. However, we aren't doing your nug work for free. Would you like us to submit for staff time reimbursement or are we're done here?
FBI to Twitter: Ok, fine. Submit the bill.
Inside Twitter: Yea! We have a new revenue stream.

Option A, Fantasy Island. Option B, The Real World.

When the Feds are playing hardball in the real world.

Twitter to FBI: FBI do you have a court order?
FBI to Twitter: Yes, you have 30 days to comply before fines and possible criminal penalties. Here's the fines and penalties just so you are aware. You playing ball or not?
Twitter to FBI: Yes, can you give us an extension?
FBI to Twitter: No, see ya in 30 days.
Inside Twitter: Shall we lawyer up and fight this or just do it?
- Accountants in the background...we recommend just doing it. Lawyers cost more than staff.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by SilentMajority » Wed Dec 21, 2022 9:46 am

Kbg wrote:
Tue Dec 20, 2022 10:58 pm
The only thing Taibbi has dug up is that twitter (a media company) is/was liberal. Anyone stunned by that? I'm not. That's the case with most commercial media organizations.
You made this post last night KBG. Have you changed your mind on it?

Seems like you're now acknowledging the FBI was paying and pressuring Twitter to alter content and user access (as well as having lot of "former" FBI in high places.


More from the NYPost article:

The reports by Shellenberger and fellow independent journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss, have revealed extensive collaboration and employee overlap between Twitter and the FBI, who Taibbi reported last week treated the social media company as a “subsidiary” and repeatedly reported supposed “misinformation.”

In the sixth installment of the Twitter Files, published Friday, Taibbi revealed that the bureau was so aggressive in sending Twitter “possible violative content” to review that an employee described one set of materials as a “monumental undertaking” that required several colleagues to pitch in and help.

On Monday, Shellenberger reported that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies repeatedly primed Twitter’s former head of trust and safety Yoel Roth to dismiss The Post’s bombshell October 2020 report on Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop as a Russian “hack and leak” operation.

The files reveal the FBI could communicate with top Twitter executives through multiple channels, including email accounts and specially built encrypted portals.

The bureau would often send the company lists of users they wanted investigated for terms of use violations.



Why is a government agency so interested in what people say and share on Twitter? Why did they want the Biden laptop story labeled as Russian disinfo? Why do are they paying/pressuring certain users to be banned? - That is the story here. The story is not "there were a lot of liberals working at twitter and they banned or shadow banned conservatives against stated Twitter policy". That might be what the mainstream media is trying to say the Twitter files show, but that's a deliberate lie.
Last edited by SilentMajority on Wed Dec 21, 2022 9:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by Xan » Wed Dec 21, 2022 9:49 am

Kbg wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 9:27 am
SilentMajority wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 8:22 am
Below is from the NYPost two days ago.

I'm sure this is just perfectly normal. It's some isolated incidents, or evidence that a lot of liberals worked at Twitters.

It's definitely not a lot of FBI agents working in Sr. roles at Twitter, transferring money to the company from the FBI budget to control the content at the site. It just looks like that because that's what all the facts show. But it can't be that unelected government agencies were compensating the company directly to process FBI "requests". It just looks like that because of the facts.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion of course and this is a story with new twists and turns daily, hard to keep up. It looks like anything but some liberals working there and acting in isolated incidents. It looks like pervasive FBI/gov't involvement in content moderation and banning with regards to anything related to their agenda.

And if it was happening at Twitter, imagine what it's like elsewhere where they can 100% control content (CNN/MSNBC/WaPO/ABC/NBC...FOX?)
Step back and think...

Option A: OMG, the FBI is paying Twitter for influence

Option B:

Twitter to FBI: FBI do you have a court order?
FBI to Twitter: Uh, no we don't.
Twitter to FBI: If you have a national security concern here, great. However, we aren't doing your nug work for free. Would you like us to submit for staff time reimbursement or are we're done here?
FBI to Twitter: Ok, fine. Submit the bill.
Inside Twitter: Yea! We have a new revenue stream.

Option A, Fantasy Island. Option B, The Real World.

When the Feds are playing hardball in the real world.

Twitter to FBI: FBI do you have a court order?
FBI to Twitter: Yes, you have 30 days to comply before fines and possible criminal penalties. Here's the fines and penalties just so you are aware. You playing ball or not?
Twitter to FBI: Yes, can you give us an extension?
FBI to Twitter: No, see ya in 30 days.
Inside Twitter: Shall we lawyer up and fight this or just do it?
- Accountants in the background...we recommend just doing it. Lawyers cost more than staff.
From the standpoint of results, is there any practical or indeed moral difference between the "softball" versions of A and B?
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by SilentMajority » Wed Dec 21, 2022 9:51 am

Xan wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 9:49 am
From the standpoint of results, is there any practical or indeed moral difference between the "softball" versions of A and B?
Thanks Xan. I was going ask the same question, namely what was KBGs point, but my posts are already too long.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by DogBreath » Wed Dec 21, 2022 10:02 am

vnatale wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 9:19 am


While I was on Twitter last regarding my favorite college basketball team I got a lot of enjoyment reading all the excited responses by fellow fans to the exciting double overtime win that had just concluded moments before.

And that right there explains your jaded view of the situation. I guess nobody is shadow banning your favoite basketball team. ::) :o
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by Kbg » Wed Dec 21, 2022 10:40 am

Xan wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 9:49 am
From the standpoint of results, is there any practical or indeed moral difference between the "softball" versions of A and B?
Moral? Not sure that would be my choice of word. Let me flip the question. What is immoral in the scenario being described?

Free speech is a legal protection enumerated in the constitution of the United States and is backed by the force of law.

Anti-terrorism and foreign corruption laws are acts of Congress which the Executive enforces. As they say, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

Generally courts have sided with life over liberty when the two conflict, and they do conflict at times in the real world. No doubt about it.

But back to the practical, companies do what it is in their best interests to do. Let's not kid ourselves about this basic fact. And you may not trust what I have to say next, but generally there are other certain benefits which I'll not get into here that accrue to companies who chose to cooperate on matters of national security...that are HIGHLY beneficial to them and their shareholders financially.

They do not have to cooperate, and some do not, rest assured. When when the hardball comes out, there was a judge or judges involved and generally that means the FBI has the law on its side.

Notwithstanding, have there been corrupt FBI officials in the past and are there likely some in the system now. Also yes.

The question really is...do you put up with corruption of a few to gain the advantages by the much large whole?

Americans are incredibly naive and rarely think about personal security...the major contributor to our current border crisis is personal security in Latin America along with economic hopes.

It's a balance and not an easy line to walk...but absolutism is why Libertarianism never gets off the ground politically. Ultimately people understand true Libertarianism is actually chaos. Humans by and large aren't up for that.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by Xan » Wed Dec 21, 2022 10:44 am

What's immoral would be that we in theory have a free press, where the government does not decide for us what we see and hear. So for the government to be in the shadows in fact deciding for us what we see and hear is something of a scandal.

Right and wrong aside, this is something that most people didn't think was happening. They thought that the views they generally saw on Twitter generally represented the views of most people, rather than being a biased filtering of such views. So it's useful for everyone to know what's actually happening.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by SilentMajority » Wed Dec 21, 2022 11:03 am

Xan wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 10:44 am
What's immoral would be that we in theory have a free press, where the government does not decide for us what we see and hear. So for the government to be in the shadows in fact deciding for us what we see and hear is something of a scandal.

Right and wrong aside, this is something that most people didn't think was happening. They thought that the views they generally saw on Twitter generally represented the views of most people, rather than being a biased filtering of such views. So it's useful for everyone to know what's actually happening.
And from my perspective, it seems very, very naïve to think it's not happening to a much larger degree at other media companies. Twitter is extremely new and dynamic with very difficult to control content (user posts).

These government agencies have had many decades to infiltrate or form close relationships including pay-offs to legacy media. The content on CNN for example is a tiny tiny fraction of what's on twitter, and the days talking points and stories can be reviewed or directly supplied by this shadow government MUCH easier.

Sounds like a tinfoil hat theory to some, but to me it looks logical and obvious. It sounds like people who just a few posts ago were denying it now agree, just that they think it might be for our own good.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by vnatale » Wed Dec 21, 2022 11:22 am

DogBreath wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 10:02 am

vnatale wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 9:19 am



While I was on Twitter last regarding my favorite college basketball team I got a lot of enjoyment reading all the excited responses by fellow fans to the exciting double overtime win that had just concluded moments before.




And that right there explains your jaded view of the situation. I guess nobody is shadow banning your favoite basketball team. ::) :o


Nor my favorite baseball team. Or, my favorite NBA team. Or, most likely 99.9999% of the content on Twitter.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by Kriegsspiel » Wed Dec 21, 2022 11:25 am

I don't know how many noticed it, but The Intercept put out somewhat of a prelude to the Twitter Files back in October, which put together a lot of the "conspiracy theories" and rumors that had been swirling around for years beforehand. I usually lump it all under the umbrella of "information operations" for convenience.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by Xan » Wed Dec 21, 2022 11:36 am

vnatale wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 11:22 am
DogBreath wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 10:02 am
vnatale wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 9:19 am


While I was on Twitter last regarding my favorite college basketball team I got a lot of enjoyment reading all the excited responses by fellow fans to the exciting double overtime win that had just concluded moments before.

And that right there explains your jaded view of the situation. I guess nobody is shadow banning your favoite basketball team. ::) :o
Nor my favorite baseball team. Or, my favorite NBA team. Or, most likely 99.9999% of the content on Twitter.
Vinny, I think you're looking at this backwards. The concern isn't Twitter preventing most conversations from happening. It's that it prevented some important ones from happening. The concern isn't the health of Twitter, it's the health of the country.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by vnatale » Wed Dec 21, 2022 12:56 pm

Xan wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 11:36 am

vnatale wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 11:22 am

DogBreath wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 10:02 am

vnatale wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 9:19 am



While I was on Twitter last regarding my favorite college basketball team I got a lot of enjoyment reading all the excited responses by fellow fans to the exciting double overtime win that had just concluded moments before.




And that right there explains your jaded view of the situation. I guess nobody is shadow banning your favoite basketball team. ::) :o


Nor my favorite baseball team. Or, my favorite NBA team. Or, most likely 99.9999% of the content on Twitter.


Vinny, I think you're looking at this backwards. The concern isn't Twitter preventing most conversations from happening. It's that it prevented some important ones from happening. The concern isn't the health of Twitter, it's the health of the country.


How is it preventing any from happening? Nor you or anyone else has responded to the following which I have asked a few times.

If I stipulate that Twitter did not allow the New York Post story on the Hunter Biden laptop to be distributed how was this detrimental to the health of the country?

Did the FBI / Twitter prevent anyone with internet access from going directly to the New York Post web site to get the story? Did it prevent anyone from using personal email or texting to distribute the URLs for the articles. Did Facebook also not allow the articles to be publicized?

My concern with this is that everyone is acting like we have one media - Twitter - and that the government is controlling it.

Should I put a poll here to ask ...

1) Are you on Twitter?
2) Is Twitter your own source of information?
3) Are you unable to use the internet to access anything that Twitter provides?

I'm sorry but I find that many conservatives tend to blow things way out of proportion.

I'd constantly read and hear the complaint that CNN said this and did that. What real influence does CNN have when it has a grand total of about 500,000 viewers?
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by Xan » Wed Dec 21, 2022 1:20 pm

I'm not on Twitter at all. But do you really not see the principle here? If unelected bureaucrats at the government are willing and able to coerce (by one or more of various means) the press into suppressing stories they don't like, isn't that bad? The story here is not Twitter per se, it's that these unelected bureaucrats both have and use this power.

We don't know exactly where else they've been using it.

This is completely independent of any position on the Hunter Biden laptop, or the election, or whatever else. Don't we want this kind of influence to not happen?
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by SilentMajority » Wed Dec 21, 2022 1:30 pm

Vnatale if it didn't matter that the FBI was trying to kill the Hunter Biden laptop story on Twitter, why did they do it?

Answer: it did matter. Whatever is trending on Twitter is big news that can't be hidden. Twitter reaches a bazillion more people people than the NY Post.

The answers to your questions are self-explanatory I think. Ten's of millions more people seeing that Hunter's laptop was filled with degeneracy and/or evidence of Joe (the big guy) getting kickbacks from Ukraine (or was it China, or both?) is not something the FBI wanted out there. Have you been paying attention to the last 6 years of FBI actions against candidate and president Trump?

You say it's no big deal. Well then why did they do it? Why is the FBI so interested in who can talk on Twitter and what topics are suppressed? Surely you have theory if you think it's no big deal. It's not on everyone else to explain why government agents doing this in a supposed democracy with a free press is a big deal.
Last edited by SilentMajority on Wed Dec 21, 2022 1:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by Maddy » Wed Dec 21, 2022 1:41 pm

Yeah, and Klaus Schwab is a nobody.

Who could rationally maintain that this information was not material to the outcome of the election, when half of polled voters said that it was?
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by flyingpylon » Wed Dec 21, 2022 2:14 pm

But wait, there's more!

Image
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by flyingpylon » Wed Dec 21, 2022 2:55 pm

Interesting perspective on Twitter Files #8... did all of this start with the Arab Spring, and is it connected to Black Lives Matter?

https://twitter.com/TheLastRefuge2/stat ... 5547217920
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by stuper1 » Wed Dec 21, 2022 2:58 pm

Vinny,

People under say 40 years old hardly use email anymore. If something doesn't show up on their Twitter feed, it may as well have not happened. Twitter suppressing a story like the one about Hunter Biden is little different than Stalin telling Pravda not to mention that millions of people died from starvation last winter.

You could say that Twitter is privately owned and Pravda was state-owned. Ok, fine, but why should the FBI be telling them which stories are legit and which aren't? It just takes the blame up one step on the chain. It's all funny to me, because the leftists said that if Trump was elected, he would be an authoritarian. But Trump was elected, and it wasn't him acting as an authoritarian telling Pravda not to report on starving peasants. It was his own FBI stabbing him in the back. It turns out the authoritarians are the people in the FBI and their ilk, but the leftists don't seem to have any problem with that, as long as it's not their ox getting gored.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by stuper1 » Wed Dec 21, 2022 3:09 pm

flyingpylon wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 2:55 pm
Interesting perspective on Twitter Files #8... did all of this start with the Arab Spring, and is it connected to Black Lives Matter?

https://twitter.com/TheLastRefuge2/stat ... 5547217920
Oh boy, this seems pretty big to me. So Obama, who was supposed to usher in an age of racial harmony in the USA at last, may turn out to be the one who stoked the fires of racial division to an even higher level? I literally cried tears of joy when Obama was elected, because I couldn't believe that my fellow white Americans had moved past racial hatred (I know there is a theme lately of me doing a lot of crying, sorry about that), but now I understand why some conservative African Americans, like Glenn Loury, think that Obama set race relations backward instead of forward.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by I Shrugged » Wed Dec 21, 2022 4:37 pm

The argument that Twitter is a private company doesn’t apply because they were working hand in hand with the government. The government was actively suppressing freedom of speech through Twitter, among others.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by Kriegsspiel » Wed Dec 21, 2022 4:45 pm

flyingpylon wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 2:14 pm
But wait, there's more!

Image
Great timing, that guy was one of the authors of the Intercept story I just linked to a few posts ago.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by Kbg » Wed Dec 21, 2022 7:48 pm

....
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