[AaronFriel]

Yes, but did you ever have a conflict of interest between your two positions? As other people are pointing out, psyops (generally speaking) involves tweaking public opinion in ways that favor the government. This person also happened to have editorial control and influence on Twitter.

If he were just a developer, it might be different, no?

[chrissnell]

Your argument is logical but if you had served in the military (at least the US military...can't speak for others), it's laughable.

The day-to-day of the average reservist's military (even a senior officer!) is mind-numingly boring and not important in the big picture. In a MISO unit (the new US Army name for PSYOP), an officer's day is spent planning training events and doing simulations of what their job might be "downrange" in wartime.

We're not scheming on ways to infiltrate our civilian employers--we're too busy trying to get hold of the lazy DoD civilian at Fort Bumblefuck with the full voicemail to get our training area allocated for the mandatory annual trip to the rifle range in November.

Now, is it possible that if we went into full-scale conflict with Iran and the Middle East was on fire that the UK and US might call upon this Twitter exec/reserve officer to help out? Sure. But, it would be above-the-board. He would get orders to active duty and turn in his Twitter laptop before heading off to spend the next year and a half at a military installation advising on Middle East info campaigns. This happens all the time and happened to a lot of us during OIF and OEF. The whole reason for existence of the reserve forces is to leverage critical knowledge learned in the civilian sector.

[AaronFriel]

You seem to be suggesting that we should just ignore conflict of interest concerns when the military is involved?

Most jobs involve large periods of mind-numbingly boring work that's not important to the big picture. The problem is the small, sometimes minute, fraction of time spent where the work is important to the big picture and there is a conflict of interest.

[corodra]

So, do you believe the general public should create a list of past government employed individuals and ban them from accessing the job market? That completely has no chance, what so ever, to have any negative repercussions in time. But draws the line to solve the problem you're having. Then no one with a conflicting interest from the gov can persuade their opinion into the public through private enterprise means.

[AaronFriel]

No, the issue here is that there's a concurrent conflict of interest where the same person has two jobs where it's clear they may need to recuse themselves from certain decisions.

I haven't said anything at all about:

1. banning 2. all 3. past government employees 4. from all jobs

Those were all generalizations you added.

I am talking about the need to:

1. scope recusals or avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest 2. For some jobs 3. For current government employees who have concurrent roles in which their interests could be misaligned 4. For some jobs where such a conflict of interest can occur

I hope you understand that some people might be frustrated with you when you turn a rather minimalist position into this maximalist nightmare that even past government employees should be considered unemployable.

[corodra]

Aye, but you also need to set a limit on such ideas. It's very easy for something like that to run away. Because you make it seem like a psyops reservist is out to persuade the public to goose step around. What if the ilks of Twitter bring those people in specifically to combat misinformation because that's what they're good at? Someone in that position is like a hammer. A hammer can be used to create or destroy. It's generally the company's responsibility to figure that out.

Moonlighting is a dangerous thing to regulate. It starts to impede on personal freedoms. Until social media is regulated as a public sphere, there's really no bearing for anyone to make judgement who work there with either current or past employment.

Oh, also, I hope you understand that other people's opinion of me don't affect me. The same as my opinion of you shouldn't concern you either.

[AaronFriel]

> Oh, also, I hope you understand that other people's opinion of me don't affect me. The same as my opinion of you shouldn't concern you either.

I was trying to politely tell you that you are frustrating to disagree with. You keep speaking of "logic" and maximalist positions of individual liberty, while at the same time applying logical fallacies ad nauseum - a slippery slope at the start of this comment I'm replying to! As far as I can tell, no one is arguing that it should be illegal for Twitter to hire people with potential conflicts of interest, but that seems to be what you're arguing against. Instead, people are saying Twitter should avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest, not as a legal maxim but a moral one that might influence their decision to use or trust Twitter. And that doesn't rely on social media being regulated as part of the public sphere.

> there's really no bearing for anyone to make judgement who work there with either current or past employment.

Yes, there is. People judge companies all the times based on their employment decisions, their policies, their impact on the world. This can be another factor that people consider: Twitter doesn't shy away from conflicts of interest.

> Oh, also, I hope you understand that other people's opinion of me don't affect me. The same as my opinion of you shouldn't concern you either.

Ugh, it is draining for people to argue with you when you don't take their arguments seriously or for what they are, while insisting that you're logical and others' arguments are laughable. Please, take care to change your attitude about whether other people's opinions matter. They do. No one wants to argue with someone who cannot empathize with or humanize the other side. Well, perhaps you do, but it's an awful experience for most people.