The Twitter Files

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:Lots of issues are being brought into this discussion and possibly confusing it. So, let's return to the essence of "The Twitter Files".

Did Taibbi show unconstitutional pressure by the US government on Twitter to censure speech? Possibly, when Taibbi says that the Trump White House was able to have content removed. But, more than likely, Twitter voluntary complied with White House requests so this was not an 1st Amendment issue.

Did Taibbi demonstrate illegal or unethical involvement by Democrats in removing content from Twitter. No, Taibbi showed that the Democrats requested that pornographic material involving Hunter be removed. That data violated Twitter's terms of service and should have been removed regardless of who made the request.

Did Twitter block the New York Post article due to government pressure? No, Taibbi says that there was no government involvement in the decision. Based on his tweets, Twitter received a general briefing that US intelligence was expecting a Russian dump of hacked data, but the briefing did not mention Hunter or a laptop. Taibbi does not document any outside interference with Twitter's decision.

Why did Twitter block the Post story? Taibbi shows that internally Twitter was not sure how to respond to the Post laptop story but based on the belief that the story included hacked or stolen data, decided the article violated Twitter's terms of service.

Was Twitter's decision to block the Post article wrong? Content moderation decisions are almost always subjective and each individual is entitled to their own view. As noted above, even within Twitter there was never complete agreement on how to respond. Different staff members had different opinions and ultimately Twitter itself decided to reverse the decision.

Did Twitter violate the First Amendment? Ro Khanna, a very progressive Democrat, expressed such concerns. No, the First Amendment prevents the government from abridging the freedom of speech. Twitter is not the government and, as a private entity, can abridge speech in any manner in which it chooses.

I take exception to much of what you said but particularly the last point.

When people in government (whether they be the president, the president's staff, or government agencies) work with a private company to indicate which speech is censored, it is a violation of free speech.
I believe more will come out about who exactly was pushing for more censorship - both before the 2020 election and after.

You are of course welcome to believe whatever you want, but the only documented interference by governmental officials was by the Trump White House. While you apparently consider that to be a violation of free speech, it might not have been depending on the nature of the communications. Since Taibbi didn't providing supporting documentation for that allegation, we don't know enough to determine either way.

The clearest sign that Taibbi came up empty is that so many of you are counting on more coming out in the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:Lots of issues are being brought into this discussion and possibly confusing it. So, let's return to the essence of "The Twitter Files".

Did Taibbi show unconstitutional pressure by the US government on Twitter to censure speech? Possibly, when Taibbi says that the Trump White House was able to have content removed. But, more than likely, Twitter voluntary complied with White House requests so this was not an 1st Amendment issue.

Did Taibbi demonstrate illegal or unethical involvement by Democrats in removing content from Twitter. No, Taibbi showed that the Democrats requested that pornographic material involving Hunter be removed. That data violated Twitter's terms of service and should have been removed regardless of who made the request.

Did Twitter block the New York Post article due to government pressure? No, Taibbi says that there was no government involvement in the decision. Based on his tweets, Twitter received a general briefing that US intelligence was expecting a Russian dump of hacked data, but the briefing did not mention Hunter or a laptop. Taibbi does not document any outside interference with Twitter's decision.

Why did Twitter block the Post story? Taibbi shows that internally Twitter was not sure how to respond to the Post laptop story but based on the belief that the story included hacked or stolen data, decided the article violated Twitter's terms of service.

Was Twitter's decision to block the Post article wrong? Content moderation decisions are almost always subjective and each individual is entitled to their own view. As noted above, even within Twitter there was never complete agreement on how to respond. Different staff members had different opinions and ultimately Twitter itself decided to reverse the decision.

Did Twitter violate the First Amendment? Ro Khanna, a very progressive Democrat, expressed such concerns. No, the First Amendment prevents the government from abridging the freedom of speech. Twitter is not the government and, as a private entity, can abridge speech in any manner in which it chooses.

I take exception to much of what you said but particularly the last point.

When people in government (whether they be the president, the president's staff, or government agencies) work with a private company to indicate which speech is censored, it is a violation of free speech.
I believe more will come out about who exactly was pushing for more censorship - both before the 2020 election and after.

So if government asks platforms not to show revenge porn or kiddie porn, that is censorship?

[Anonymous]

Twitter, I think it was Yoth, filed a response to FEC in 2020 about this censorship, and said they had received noticed that material involving Hunter could be part of the Russian disinformation.

[Anonymous]

What is the evidence that it was particular pictures that were requested for deletion? The links themselves don't work.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:What is the evidence that it was particular pictures that were requested for deletion? The links themselves don't work.

The links are archived.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:Lots of issues are being brought into this discussion and possibly confusing it. So, let's return to the essence of "The Twitter Files".

Did Taibbi show unconstitutional pressure by the US government on Twitter to censure speech? Possibly, when Taibbi says that the Trump White House was able to have content removed. But, more than likely, Twitter voluntary complied with White House requests so this was not an 1st Amendment issue.

Did Taibbi demonstrate illegal or unethical involvement by Democrats in removing content from Twitter. No, Taibbi showed that the Democrats requested that pornographic material involving Hunter be removed. That data violated Twitter's terms of service and should have been removed regardless of who made the request.

Did Twitter block the New York Post article due to government pressure? No, Taibbi says that there was no government involvement in the decision. Based on his tweets, Twitter received a general briefing that US intelligence was expecting a Russian dump of hacked data, but the briefing did not mention Hunter or a laptop. Taibbi does not document any outside interference with Twitter's decision.

Why did Twitter block the Post story? Taibbi shows that internally Twitter was not sure how to respond to the Post laptop story but based on the belief that the story included hacked or stolen data, decided the article violated Twitter's terms of service.

Was Twitter's decision to block the Post article wrong? Content moderation decisions are almost always subjective and each individual is entitled to their own view. As noted above, even within Twitter there was never complete agreement on how to respond. Different staff members had different opinions and ultimately Twitter itself decided to reverse the decision.

Did Twitter violate the First Amendment? Ro Khanna, a very progressive Democrat, expressed such concerns. No, the First Amendment prevents the government from abridging the freedom of speech. Twitter is not the government and, as a private entity, can abridge speech in any manner in which it chooses.

I take exception to much of what you said but particularly the last point.

When people in government (whether they be the president, the president's staff, or government agencies) work with a private company to indicate which speech is censored, it is a violation of free speech.
I believe more will come out about who exactly was pushing for more censorship - both before the 2020 election and after.

You are of course welcome to believe whatever you want, but the only documented interference by governmental officials was by the Trump White House. While you apparently consider that to be a violation of free speech, it might not have been depending on the nature of the communications. Since Taibbi didn't providing supporting documentation for that allegation, we don't know enough to determine either way.

The clearest sign that Taibbi came up empty is that so many of you are counting on more coming out in the future.

Requests came from DNC and Biden campaign. DNC includes government officials in the House and Senate, which at the time one of those was under the control of Democrats, and the other one would be in 3 months. Biden would of course be President in 3 months. But you wish to say it was not the government because it was done thru intermediaries.
And of course the social media companies had Democrat operatives handling their moderation, making it very easy to get what they wanted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:Lots of issues are being brought into this discussion and possibly confusing it. So, let's return to the essence of "The Twitter Files".

Did Taibbi show unconstitutional pressure by the US government on Twitter to censure speech? Possibly, when Taibbi says that the Trump White House was able to have content removed. But, more than likely, Twitter voluntary complied with White House requests so this was not an 1st Amendment issue.

Did Taibbi demonstrate illegal or unethical involvement by Democrats in removing content from Twitter. No, Taibbi showed that the Democrats requested that pornographic material involving Hunter be removed. That data violated Twitter's terms of service and should have been removed regardless of who made the request.

Did Twitter block the New York Post article due to government pressure? No, Taibbi says that there was no government involvement in the decision. Based on his tweets, Twitter received a general briefing that US intelligence was expecting a Russian dump of hacked data, but the briefing did not mention Hunter or a laptop. Taibbi does not document any outside interference with Twitter's decision.

Why did Twitter block the Post story? Taibbi shows that internally Twitter was not sure how to respond to the Post laptop story but based on the belief that the story included hacked or stolen data, decided the article violated Twitter's terms of service.

Was Twitter's decision to block the Post article wrong? Content moderation decisions are almost always subjective and each individual is entitled to their own view. As noted above, even within Twitter there was never complete agreement on how to respond. Different staff members had different opinions and ultimately Twitter itself decided to reverse the decision.

Did Twitter violate the First Amendment? Ro Khanna, a very progressive Democrat, expressed such concerns. No, the First Amendment prevents the government from abridging the freedom of speech. Twitter is not the government and, as a private entity, can abridge speech in any manner in which it chooses.

I take exception to much of what you said but particularly the last point.

When people in government (whether they be the president, the president's staff, or government agencies) work with a private company to indicate which speech is censored, it is a violation of free speech.
I believe more will come out about who exactly was pushing for more censorship - both before the 2020 election and after.

You are of course welcome to believe whatever you want, but the only documented interference by governmental officials was by the Trump White House. While you apparently consider that to be a violation of free speech, it might not have been depending on the nature of the communications. Since Taibbi didn't providing supporting documentation for that allegation, we don't know enough to determine either way.

The clearest sign that Taibbi came up empty is that so many of you are counting on more coming out in the future.

Requests came from DNC and Biden campaign. DNC includes government officials in the House and Senate, which at the time one of those was under the control of Democrats, and the other one would be in 3 months. Biden would of course be President in 3 months. But you wish to say it was not the government because it was done thru intermediaries.
And of course the social media companies had Democrat operatives handling their moderation, making it very easy to get what they wanted.

Is the government in the room with us right now?

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:Lots of issues are being brought into this discussion and possibly confusing it. So, let's return to the essence of "The Twitter Files".

Did Taibbi show unconstitutional pressure by the US government on Twitter to censure speech? Possibly, when Taibbi says that the Trump White House was able to have content removed. But, more than likely, Twitter voluntary complied with White House requests so this was not an 1st Amendment issue.

Did Taibbi demonstrate illegal or unethical involvement by Democrats in removing content from Twitter. No, Taibbi showed that the Democrats requested that pornographic material involving Hunter be removed. That data violated Twitter's terms of service and should have been removed regardless of who made the request.

Did Twitter block the New York Post article due to government pressure? No, Taibbi says that there was no government involvement in the decision. Based on his tweets, Twitter received a general briefing that US intelligence was expecting a Russian dump of hacked data, but the briefing did not mention Hunter or a laptop. Taibbi does not document any outside interference with Twitter's decision.

Why did Twitter block the Post story? Taibbi shows that internally Twitter was not sure how to respond to the Post laptop story but based on the belief that the story included hacked or stolen data, decided the article violated Twitter's terms of service.

Was Twitter's decision to block the Post article wrong? Content moderation decisions are almost always subjective and each individual is entitled to their own view. As noted above, even within Twitter there was never complete agreement on how to respond. Different staff members had different opinions and ultimately Twitter itself decided to reverse the decision.

Did Twitter violate the First Amendment? Ro Khanna, a very progressive Democrat, expressed such concerns. No, the First Amendment prevents the government from abridging the freedom of speech. Twitter is not the government and, as a private entity, can abridge speech in any manner in which it chooses.

I take exception to much of what you said but particularly the last point.

When people in government (whether they be the president, the president's staff, or government agencies) work with a private company to indicate which speech is censored, it is a violation of free speech.
I believe more will come out about who exactly was pushing for more censorship - both before the 2020 election and after.

You are of course welcome to believe whatever you want, but the only documented interference by governmental officials was by the Trump White House. While you apparently consider that to be a violation of free speech, it might not have been depending on the nature of the communications. Since Taibbi didn't providing supporting documentation for that allegation, we don't know enough to determine either way.

The clearest sign that Taibbi came up empty is that so many of you are counting on more coming out in the future.

Requests came from DNC and Biden campaign. DNC includes government officials in the House and Senate, which at the time one of those was under the control of Democrats, and the other one would be in 3 months. Biden would of course be President in 3 months. But you wish to say it was not the government because it was done thru intermediaries.
And of course the social media companies had Democrat operatives handling their moderation, making it very easy to get what they wanted.

That is a real stretch. First of all, the email from the DNC that Taibbi provided was from Oct. 2020. Biden hadn't been elected President yet. The fact that the DNC has members who are government officials is meaningless. The request was to remove pornographic pictures which violated Twitter's terms of service. Are you seriously suggesting that request was inappropriate?

If you want to argue that moderation on Twitter was biased towards Democrats, be my guest. Studies have demonstrated the opposite, but it doesn't matter anyway. Nothing illegal or unethical about a private company demonstrating bias. If there were, Fox News would be in trouble.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:Lots of issues are being brought into this discussion and possibly confusing it. So, let's return to the essence of "The Twitter Files".

Did Taibbi show unconstitutional pressure by the US government on Twitter to censure speech? Possibly, when Taibbi says that the Trump White House was able to have content removed. But, more than likely, Twitter voluntary complied with White House requests so this was not an 1st Amendment issue.

Did Taibbi demonstrate illegal or unethical involvement by Democrats in removing content from Twitter. No, Taibbi showed that the Democrats requested that pornographic material involving Hunter be removed. That data violated Twitter's terms of service and should have been removed regardless of who made the request.

Did Twitter block the New York Post article due to government pressure? No, Taibbi says that there was no government involvement in the decision. Based on his tweets, Twitter received a general briefing that US intelligence was expecting a Russian dump of hacked data, but the briefing did not mention Hunter or a laptop. Taibbi does not document any outside interference with Twitter's decision.

Why did Twitter block the Post story? Taibbi shows that internally Twitter was not sure how to respond to the Post laptop story but based on the belief that the story included hacked or stolen data, decided the article violated Twitter's terms of service.

Was Twitter's decision to block the Post article wrong? Content moderation decisions are almost always subjective and each individual is entitled to their own view. As noted above, even within Twitter there was never complete agreement on how to respond. Different staff members had different opinions and ultimately Twitter itself decided to reverse the decision.

Did Twitter violate the First Amendment? Ro Khanna, a very progressive Democrat, expressed such concerns. No, the First Amendment prevents the government from abridging the freedom of speech. Twitter is not the government and, as a private entity, can abridge speech in any manner in which it chooses.

I take exception to much of what you said but particularly the last point.

When people in government (whether they be the president, the president's staff, or government agencies) work with a private company to indicate which speech is censored, it is a violation of free speech.
I believe more will come out about who exactly was pushing for more censorship - both before the 2020 election and after.

You are of course welcome to believe whatever you want, but the only documented interference by governmental officials was by the Trump White House. While you apparently consider that to be a violation of free speech, it might not have been depending on the nature of the communications. Since Taibbi didn't providing supporting documentation for that allegation, we don't know enough to determine either way.

The clearest sign that Taibbi came up empty is that so many of you are counting on more coming out in the future.

Requests came from DNC and Biden campaign. DNC includes government officials in the House and Senate, which at the time one of those was under the control of Democrats, and the other one would be in 3 months. Biden would of course be President in 3 months. But you wish to say it was not the government because it was done thru intermediaries.
And of course the social media companies had Democrat operatives handling their moderation, making it very easy to get what they wanted.

We could also discuss Katie Hobbs, who was absolutely a government official

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:Lots of issues are being brought into this discussion and possibly confusing it. So, let's return to the essence of "The Twitter Files".

Did Taibbi show unconstitutional pressure by the US government on Twitter to censure speech? Possibly, when Taibbi says that the Trump White House was able to have content removed. But, more than likely, Twitter voluntary complied with White House requests so this was not an 1st Amendment issue.

Did Taibbi demonstrate illegal or unethical involvement by Democrats in removing content from Twitter. No, Taibbi showed that the Democrats requested that pornographic material involving Hunter be removed. That data violated Twitter's terms of service and should have been removed regardless of who made the request.

Did Twitter block the New York Post article due to government pressure? No, Taibbi says that there was no government involvement in the decision. Based on his tweets, Twitter received a general briefing that US intelligence was expecting a Russian dump of hacked data, but the briefing did not mention Hunter or a laptop. Taibbi does not document any outside interference with Twitter's decision.

Why did Twitter block the Post story? Taibbi shows that internally Twitter was not sure how to respond to the Post laptop story but based on the belief that the story included hacked or stolen data, decided the article violated Twitter's terms of service.

Was Twitter's decision to block the Post article wrong? Content moderation decisions are almost always subjective and each individual is entitled to their own view. As noted above, even within Twitter there was never complete agreement on how to respond. Different staff members had different opinions and ultimately Twitter itself decided to reverse the decision.

Did Twitter violate the First Amendment? Ro Khanna, a very progressive Democrat, expressed such concerns. No, the First Amendment prevents the government from abridging the freedom of speech. Twitter is not the government and, as a private entity, can abridge speech in any manner in which it chooses.

I take exception to much of what you said but particularly the last point.

When people in government (whether they be the president, the president's staff, or government agencies) work with a private company to indicate which speech is censored, it is a violation of free speech.
I believe more will come out about who exactly was pushing for more censorship - both before the 2020 election and after.

You are of course welcome to believe whatever you want, but the only documented interference by governmental officials was by the Trump White House. While you apparently consider that to be a violation of free speech, it might not have been depending on the nature of the communications. Since Taibbi didn't providing supporting documentation for that allegation, we don't know enough to determine either way.

The clearest sign that Taibbi came up empty is that so many of you are counting on more coming out in the future.

Greenwald has a different opinion:

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:Lots of issues are being brought into this discussion and possibly confusing it. So, let's return to the essence of "The Twitter Files".

Did Taibbi show unconstitutional pressure by the US government on Twitter to censure speech? Possibly, when Taibbi says that the Trump White House was able to have content removed. But, more than likely, Twitter voluntary complied with White House requests so this was not an 1st Amendment issue.

Did Taibbi demonstrate illegal or unethical involvement by Democrats in removing content from Twitter. No, Taibbi showed that the Democrats requested that pornographic material involving Hunter be removed. That data violated Twitter's terms of service and should have been removed regardless of who made the request.

Did Twitter block the New York Post article due to government pressure? No, Taibbi says that there was no government involvement in the decision. Based on his tweets, Twitter received a general briefing that US intelligence was expecting a Russian dump of hacked data, but the briefing did not mention Hunter or a laptop. Taibbi does not document any outside interference with Twitter's decision.

Why did Twitter block the Post story? Taibbi shows that internally Twitter was not sure how to respond to the Post laptop story but based on the belief that the story included hacked or stolen data, decided the article violated Twitter's terms of service.

Was Twitter's decision to block the Post article wrong? Content moderation decisions are almost always subjective and each individual is entitled to their own view. As noted above, even within Twitter there was never complete agreement on how to respond. Different staff members had different opinions and ultimately Twitter itself decided to reverse the decision.

Did Twitter violate the First Amendment? Ro Khanna, a very progressive Democrat, expressed such concerns. No, the First Amendment prevents the government from abridging the freedom of speech. Twitter is not the government and, as a private entity, can abridge speech in any manner in which it chooses.

I take exception to much of what you said but particularly the last point.

When people in government (whether they be the president, the president's staff, or government agencies) work with a private company to indicate which speech is censored, it is a violation of free speech.
I believe more will come out about who exactly was pushing for more censorship - both before the 2020 election and after.

You are of course welcome to believe whatever you want, but the only documented interference by governmental officials was by the Trump White House. While you apparently consider that to be a violation of free speech, it might not have been depending on the nature of the communications. Since Taibbi didn't providing supporting documentation for that allegation, we don't know enough to determine either way.

The clearest sign that Taibbi came up empty is that so many of you are counting on more coming out in the future.

Requests came from DNC and Biden campaign. DNC includes government officials in the House and Senate, which at the time one of those was under the control of Democrats, and the other one would be in 3 months. Biden would of course be President in 3 months. But you wish to say it was not the government because it was done thru intermediaries.
And of course the social media companies had Democrat operatives handling their moderation, making it very easy to get what they wanted.

Is the government in the room with us right now?

😂 “ I see government people”

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:Lots of issues are being brought into this discussion and possibly confusing it. So, let's return to the essence of "The Twitter Files".

Did Taibbi show unconstitutional pressure by the US government on Twitter to censure speech? Possibly, when Taibbi says that the Trump White House was able to have content removed. But, more than likely, Twitter voluntary complied with White House requests so this was not an 1st Amendment issue.

Did Taibbi demonstrate illegal or unethical involvement by Democrats in removing content from Twitter. No, Taibbi showed that the Democrats requested that pornographic material involving Hunter be removed. That data violated Twitter's terms of service and should have been removed regardless of who made the request.

Did Twitter block the New York Post article due to government pressure? No, Taibbi says that there was no government involvement in the decision. Based on his tweets, Twitter received a general briefing that US intelligence was expecting a Russian dump of hacked data, but the briefing did not mention Hunter or a laptop. Taibbi does not document any outside interference with Twitter's decision.

Why did Twitter block the Post story? Taibbi shows that internally Twitter was not sure how to respond to the Post laptop story but based on the belief that the story included hacked or stolen data, decided the article violated Twitter's terms of service.

Was Twitter's decision to block the Post article wrong? Content moderation decisions are almost always subjective and each individual is entitled to their own view. As noted above, even within Twitter there was never complete agreement on how to respond. Different staff members had different opinions and ultimately Twitter itself decided to reverse the decision.

Did Twitter violate the First Amendment? Ro Khanna, a very progressive Democrat, expressed such concerns. No, the First Amendment prevents the government from abridging the freedom of speech. Twitter is not the government and, as a private entity, can abridge speech in any manner in which it chooses.

I take exception to much of what you said but particularly the last point.

When people in government (whether they be the president, the president's staff, or government agencies) work with a private company to indicate which speech is censored, it is a violation of free speech.
I believe more will come out about who exactly was pushing for more censorship - both before the 2020 election and after.

You are of course welcome to believe whatever you want, but the only documented interference by governmental officials was by the Trump White House. While you apparently consider that to be a violation of free speech, it might not have been depending on the nature of the communications. Since Taibbi didn't providing supporting documentation for that allegation, we don't know enough to determine either way.

The clearest sign that Taibbi came up empty is that so many of you are counting on more coming out in the future.

Greenwald has a different opinion:

Sadly, Greenwald has become a discredited propagandist. He is quite obviously conflating two things: 1) the Twitter posts that the DNC requested by removed which consisted if pornographic pictures, and; 2) New York Post articles that were blocked by Twitter due to their own moderation decisions.

Greenwald got way over his skies before Taibbi punished his tweets and predicted much more would be revealed. Instead of admitting that he was wrong, he has been trying to bamboozle his way out of it.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:Lots of issues are being brought into this discussion and possibly confusing it. So, let's return to the essence of "The Twitter Files".

Did Taibbi show unconstitutional pressure by the US government on Twitter to censure speech? Possibly, when Taibbi says that the Trump White House was able to have content removed. But, more than likely, Twitter voluntary complied with White House requests so this was not an 1st Amendment issue.

Did Taibbi demonstrate illegal or unethical involvement by Democrats in removing content from Twitter. No, Taibbi showed that the Democrats requested that pornographic material involving Hunter be removed. That data violated Twitter's terms of service and should have been removed regardless of who made the request.

Did Twitter block the New York Post article due to government pressure? No, Taibbi says that there was no government involvement in the decision. Based on his tweets, Twitter received a general briefing that US intelligence was expecting a Russian dump of hacked data, but the briefing did not mention Hunter or a laptop. Taibbi does not document any outside interference with Twitter's decision.

Why did Twitter block the Post story? Taibbi shows that internally Twitter was not sure how to respond to the Post laptop story but based on the belief that the story included hacked or stolen data, decided the article violated Twitter's terms of service.

Was Twitter's decision to block the Post article wrong? Content moderation decisions are almost always subjective and each individual is entitled to their own view. As noted above, even within Twitter there was never complete agreement on how to respond. Different staff members had different opinions and ultimately Twitter itself decided to reverse the decision.

Did Twitter violate the First Amendment? Ro Khanna, a very progressive Democrat, expressed such concerns. No, the First Amendment prevents the government from abridging the freedom of speech. Twitter is not the government and, as a private entity, can abridge speech in any manner in which it chooses.

I take exception to much of what you said but particularly the last point.

When people in government (whether they be the president, the president's staff, or government agencies) work with a private company to indicate which speech is censored, it is a violation of free speech.
I believe more will come out about who exactly was pushing for more censorship - both before the 2020 election and after.

You are of course welcome to believe whatever you want, but the only documented interference by governmental officials was by the Trump White House. While you apparently consider that to be a violation of free speech, it might not have been depending on the nature of the communications. Since Taibbi didn't providing supporting documentation for that allegation, we don't know enough to determine either way.

The clearest sign that Taibbi came up empty is that so many of you are counting on more coming out in the future.

Greenwald has a different opinion:

Sadly, Greenwald has become a discredited propagandist. He is quite obviously conflating two things: 1) the Twitter posts that the DNC requested by removed which consisted if pornographic pictures, and; 2) New York Post articles that were blocked by Twitter due to their own moderation decisions.

Greenwald got way over his skies before Taibbi punished his tweets and predicted much more would be revealed. Instead of admitting that he was wrong, he has been trying to bamboozle his way out of it.

Apparently, more is coming tomorrow according to Musk

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:Lots of issues are being brought into this discussion and possibly confusing it. So, let's return to the essence of "The Twitter Files".

Did Taibbi show unconstitutional pressure by the US government on Twitter to censure speech? Possibly, when Taibbi says that the Trump White House was able to have content removed. But, more than likely, Twitter voluntary complied with White House requests so this was not an 1st Amendment issue.

Did Taibbi demonstrate illegal or unethical involvement by Democrats in removing content from Twitter. No, Taibbi showed that the Democrats requested that pornographic material involving Hunter be removed. That data violated Twitter's terms of service and should have been removed regardless of who made the request.

Did Twitter block the New York Post article due to government pressure? No, Taibbi says that there was no government involvement in the decision. Based on his tweets, Twitter received a general briefing that US intelligence was expecting a Russian dump of hacked data, but the briefing did not mention Hunter or a laptop. Taibbi does not document any outside interference with Twitter's decision.

Why did Twitter block the Post story? Taibbi shows that internally Twitter was not sure how to respond to the Post laptop story but based on the belief that the story included hacked or stolen data, decided the article violated Twitter's terms of service.

Was Twitter's decision to block the Post article wrong? Content moderation decisions are almost always subjective and each individual is entitled to their own view. As noted above, even within Twitter there was never complete agreement on how to respond. Different staff members had different opinions and ultimately Twitter itself decided to reverse the decision.

Did Twitter violate the First Amendment? Ro Khanna, a very progressive Democrat, expressed such concerns. No, the First Amendment prevents the government from abridging the freedom of speech. Twitter is not the government and, as a private entity, can abridge speech in any manner in which it chooses.

I take exception to much of what you said but particularly the last point.

When people in government (whether they be the president, the president's staff, or government agencies) work with a private company to indicate which speech is censored, it is a violation of free speech.
I believe more will come out about who exactly was pushing for more censorship - both before the 2020 election and after.

You are of course welcome to believe whatever you want, but the only documented interference by governmental officials was by the Trump White House. While you apparently consider that to be a violation of free speech, it might not have been depending on the nature of the communications. Since Taibbi didn't providing supporting documentation for that allegation, we don't know enough to determine either way.

The clearest sign that Taibbi came up empty is that so many of you are counting on more coming out in the future.

Greenwald has a different opinion:

Sadly, Greenwald has become a discredited propagandist. He is quite obviously conflating two things: 1) the Twitter posts that the DNC requested by removed which consisted if pornographic pictures, and; 2) New York Post articles that were blocked by Twitter due to their own moderation decisions.

Greenwald got way over his skies before Taibbi punished his tweets and predicted much more would be revealed. Instead of admitting that he was wrong, he has been trying to bamboozle his way out of it.

Apparently, more is coming tomorrow according to Musk

He said that on Friday. Did anything else come out?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:Lots of issues are being brought into this discussion and possibly confusing it. So, let's return to the essence of "The Twitter Files".

Did Taibbi show unconstitutional pressure by the US government on Twitter to censure speech? Possibly, when Taibbi says that the Trump White House was able to have content removed. But, more than likely, Twitter voluntary complied with White House requests so this was not an 1st Amendment issue.

Did Taibbi demonstrate illegal or unethical involvement by Democrats in removing content from Twitter. No, Taibbi showed that the Democrats requested that pornographic material involving Hunter be removed. That data violated Twitter's terms of service and should have been removed regardless of who made the request.

Did Twitter block the New York Post article due to government pressure? No, Taibbi says that there was no government involvement in the decision. Based on his tweets, Twitter received a general briefing that US intelligence was expecting a Russian dump of hacked data, but the briefing did not mention Hunter or a laptop. Taibbi does not document any outside interference with Twitter's decision.

Why did Twitter block the Post story? Taibbi shows that internally Twitter was not sure how to respond to the Post laptop story but based on the belief that the story included hacked or stolen data, decided the article violated Twitter's terms of service.

Was Twitter's decision to block the Post article wrong? Content moderation decisions are almost always subjective and each individual is entitled to their own view. As noted above, even within Twitter there was never complete agreement on how to respond. Different staff members had different opinions and ultimately Twitter itself decided to reverse the decision.

Did Twitter violate the First Amendment? Ro Khanna, a very progressive Democrat, expressed such concerns. No, the First Amendment prevents the government from abridging the freedom of speech. Twitter is not the government and, as a private entity, can abridge speech in any manner in which it chooses.

I take exception to much of what you said but particularly the last point.

When people in government (whether they be the president, the president's staff, or government agencies) work with a private company to indicate which speech is censored, it is a violation of free speech.
I believe more will come out about who exactly was pushing for more censorship - both before the 2020 election and after.

You are of course welcome to believe whatever you want, but the only documented interference by governmental officials was by the Trump White House. While you apparently consider that to be a violation of free speech, it might not have been depending on the nature of the communications. Since Taibbi didn't providing supporting documentation for that allegation, we don't know enough to determine either way.

The clearest sign that Taibbi came up empty is that so many of you are counting on more coming out in the future.

Greenwald has a different opinion:

Sadly, Greenwald has become a discredited propagandist. He is quite obviously conflating two things: 1) the Twitter posts that the DNC requested by removed which consisted if pornographic pictures, and; 2) New York Post articles that were blocked by Twitter due to their own moderation decisions.

Greenwald got way over his skies before Taibbi punished his tweets and predicted much more would be revealed. Instead of admitting that he was wrong, he has been trying to bamboozle his way out of it.

Apparently, more is coming tomorrow according to Musk

He said that on Friday. Did anything else come out?

Nope.