[rhaksw]

The notion that campaign messaging can indicate what the candidate might do while in office should not be surprising.

Calls for censorship coming from individuals or groups who later assume positions within government are worth reviewing because it may inform how they operate while in office. Calls that come after taking office may be punishable. Therefore, any influence exerted during campaigns of private citizens, while unpunishable, is still interesting to follow. An incumbent up for re-election is not free to exert such influence, though I imagine it still happens on their behalf, and I'd say those unpunishable actions are worth following too.

All private messages aren't interesting, but these ones are because they called for censorship. Also, censorship just means suppression of content. It doesn't have to be done by a government.

[jshen]

What messages “called for censorship“ and what did they ask to censor? I haven’t seen any such messages outside of asking to remove non consensual sexual images of a family member that was against twitters TOS and probably illegal.

Let’s stop being vague, what messages are you talking about?

[rhaksw]

Everyone knows the Hunter Biden story [1] was censored. Ro Khanna (D-CA 17th) thought Twitter should've allowed it [2].

Here is a US representative, a Democrat no less, arguing that the story should be allowed to remain on the basis that even if it was hacked material, journalists are not responsible for the illegal actions of a source, and because the story is of national interest. On the other hand, the "DNC" [3] and "Biden team" [4] were apparently asking Twitter to clean up certain content in relation to that story. Regardless of what that removed content was, the suppression of the story has itself been national news for awhile and it's worth clearing the air with facts to understand what occurred. One of them was a blurred image of Hunter Biden [5].

So again, it's interesting because these are calls for censorship, and campaign messaging can indicate what the candidate might do while in office.

None of this, by the way, should be construed to be limited to the Biden campaign or Democrats. Groups have been censoring each other for eons. Communists censored everyone but their own messaging, McCarthy censored them, Anthony Comstock did it, religions and dictators do it, and on and on.

[1] https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/email-reveals-how-hunter-biden...

[2] https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598838041371516929

[3] https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598828601268469760

[4] https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598827602403160064

[5] https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1598837329250045953

[jshen]

Notice that you didn’t show any message from Biden asking them to do that. This is what was so dishonest about Tiabi’s thread. He conflated two different events. You are saying that Twitter suppressed a story, which they did, on their own!!!

Now Twitter can suppress whatever they want, and we can disagree or agree with it, but there was NO evidence presented that anyone asked them to do that.

Edit: this explains it better than I did. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/12/elon-musk-...

Edit: you know where there were direct messages from a campaign and officials while in government? It was from the Trump team and Fox. Tons of them.

[rhaksw]

> Notice that you didn’t show any message from Biden asking them to do that.

From my comment above,

> the "DNC" [3] and "Biden team" [4] were apparently asking Twitter to clean up certain content in relation to that story.

If it isn't true, the Biden team and DNC can publicly deny what's presented in those messages.

The Atlantic article you cite makes a different case than you do. They're saying no violation of the first amendment occurred, and I agree with that. I've always found the released communications interesting nonetheless.

> you know where there were direct messages from a campaign and officials while in government? It was from the Trump team and Fox. Tons of them.

All are concerning regardless of party. Sen. Hawley has been probing the same of this admin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfJZ2MTDEWY

[jshen]

Where is the message? What are those tweets? It’s perfectly reasonable to ask Twitter to remove things if they are illegal or violations of twitters TOS. You’ve shown no evidence that it was improper in any way.

[rhaksw]

I said the comms were interesting. Without seeing them, yet knowing they happened, people might imagine more improper things than actually transpired. Transparency is a good thing in this case.

This is the end of the conversation for me. I've got other things to do.

[jshen]

Doesn’t this seem like a much bigger problem than what you are complaining about?

https://twitter.com/greggnunziata/status/1599295288081948673...

And the GOP supports him while he calls for suspending the constitution https://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/trump-lot-things-itll-...

[rhaksw]

That is a concerning statement yeah. However, even if I were only interested in one thing or the other, the general public can certainly address more than one thing at once. So I don't see the point in trying to shut down conversation about one thing just because something else is going on.

Finally, even if I or the public could only focus on one thing, Trump's statement appeared after the Twitter Files release.

Is it really so problematic for you that I, a person distant from you on this planet, express interest here about Twitter's comms with DNC or Biden team?

[jshen]

I haven’t seen any evidence of anything concerning between the DNC and twitter. It’s all conjecture at this point. I’m asking you if you apply these same standards you espouse to the other side. That’s perfectly reasonable.

[rhaksw]

I think any indication that there were comms between a presidential candidate's team or a political party and Twitter are interesting for reasons already stated.

It's not reasonable to repeatedly ask me to convince you to change your mind. You've seen the same things as me, I think it's interesting, you think it's not. This is end of convo for me.