[CoastalCoder]

> Being realistic: if your life hangs by the thread of twitter moderation, you should either run and hide, or get your affairs in order.

Perhaps a 3rd option is to go on the attack, and find some angle from which to sue Twitter?

[pseudo0]

The focus on Twitter seems a bit strange. Per the author's post, the government of Pakistan is arresting journalists and activists, manufacturing a pretext after the fact:

> In Pakistan, activists and journalists are routinely picked up (abducted) and tortured by the country's police and secret services. Same happened this time, some of the top journalists and anchors were picked up - some without warrants with fake cases filed post-arrest.

Twitter removing the fake claims won't stop the ISI or whoever from kicking his door in, if/when he returns to Pakistan.

[notch656a]

This article reads like an asylum claim. Hopefully they already have permanent legal permanent residence somewhere else, if not they will likely by applying for asylum. It could be the whole thing was written expressly for the purpose of asylum.

Going back to Pakistan at this point would mean basically picking how you want to go out. Either by defending your life in one last moment before a corrupt government takes your down, or letting them beat you in prison and slowly watch your soul and fighting spirit wither away in prison until you die. I presume if that's how they wanted to go, they would have been doing this journalism inside Pakistan right now.

[frank_nitti]

The US government may be complicit in the dynamics of Pakistan’s government, so I’m not sure they are working under any directives to help asylum seeking muckrakers:

https://youtu.be/3jFNJtjm-wI

[waqasx]

i am not. i find this accusation disgusting. i do not have a problem, legally, in staying here. my problem is exactly because i WANT to go back and not face any violence.

[a1369209993]

> i WANT to go back and not face any violence.

In that case you need to arrange for the violent overthrow of the current (ie since ~5 months ago) Pakistani government. The absence/removal of malicious libel from twitter, even if twitter were non-evil enough to bother doing that, will not prevent you from being kidnapped and tortured.

[lstodd]

What bullshit, man. Where were you living last 15 years?

You want to go back to your country and not be killed on the spot, you organize a coup there, not whine on Twitter or to it. Whines don't do shit, it's that simple.

[notch656a]

I don't understand, you don't want to be here. You want to go back. But an American technology company is what's stopping you? Once twitter does what you say you can safely go back home?

[NavinF]

> go back and not face any violence

Seems kinda unrealistic after the gov’t accused you of inciting violence.

[toast0]

> Perhaps a 3rd option is to go on the attack, and find some angle from which to sue Twitter?

Sueing twitter isn't likely to go far. Twitter doesn't have responsibility for their users' speech (with some very specific exceptions that don't include libel or defamation), and doesn't have a legal obligation to operate its moderation system. I don't think there's much to pursue there, unless there's something very unusual in the TOS.

You'd need to sue the people making the claims, but there's jurisdiction issues; if the alleged corruption of the government of Pakistan is the case, suing in Pakistan would seem to be unlikely to result in the desired outcome. On the other hand, a court in the US, where the OP resides, may not be willing to assert jurisdiction over speech by someone in another country, and the speaker is unlikely to participate in a US case.

In any event, such a case is likely to take years, which doesn't address the immediate nature of this issue. But I don't know how Twitter could really evaluate truthfulness of claims like these.

[MichaelCollins]

That won't solve the problem of people wanting him dead.

[notch656a]

Yeah. Change my mind: if people want you dead violently, police are likely to be 15 minutes to an hour too late, and the courts a couple years late behind that. Unfortunately violence is often either solved by running away, hiding, or meeting violence with direct self defense.

Maybe after you're lucky, you can win a suit against twitter, after their massive legal team drags it out for years with N number of hurdles. You'd be lucky to sue a nobody in podunk small claims court in time to effect meaningful change for something that needed done in days to weeks.