[pannSun]

Did you miss [1]? The US govt. used its influence over Twitter to help sell its foreign policy (military interventions included) to the US and global audience. The only way you could not take issue with it, is if you're fine with govt. psyops/undisclosed propaganda.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34111071

[spamizbad]

I mean we allowed the alphabet agencies to cooperate with social media companies to fight "ISIS propaganda." -- what did you think would happen?

Scorpion, frog, etc.

If we had stood up to them in 2013, drew a line in the sand and said "No, a bunch of poorly edited snuff films aren't going to cause a bunch of American teens to join an Islamic revolution" these relationships wouldn't exist.

By the way, we are currently trying to ban TikTok because of similar concerns about it rotting teens brains. Before we start frothing at the mouth in rage at some problematic app let's do a thought experiment and consider the future blowback from taking such extreme action.

[ummonk]

It is simply a fact that ISIS did successfully radicalize and recruit western teenagers via the internet.

What if anything the government should do to prevent such recruitment is a matter of debate, but you shouldn't pretend such recruitment didn't happen.

[spamizbad]

> It is simply a fact that ISIS did successfully radicalize and recruit western teenagers via the internet.

At no meaningful scale. If some dumbass wants to throw their life away in a foreign country we obviously should use all legal means to discourage that but part of being a liberal democracy means you do in fact have to give people enough freedom (rope) to hang themselves.

[thrashh]

Just like how a bunch of random people paid for flight school classes with cash… oh wait, that ended in 9/11

No one knows what is gonna be credible, but damned if you do and damned if you don’t

[dbfx]

And what did they do about it once they got this information? Yeah that's what I thought.

[thrashh]

You think there’s only one suspicious thing going on at any given moment?

There’s probably hundreds of new things at this very second and probably none of them are going to result in anything, but no one knows that for sure

[fallingknife]

No one is talking about banning TikTok because it's rotting anyone's brain. They are talking about it because it gives the CCP direct access to data on millions of US citizens.

[hellfish]

> I mean we allowed the alphabet agencies to cooperate with social media companies to fight "ISIS propaganda." -- what did you think would happen?

I remember thinking earlier, it's kind of odd that teenagers "running off to join ISIS" was a widespread problem. In hindsight the shills probably blew that whole thing out of proportion to justify more agency scope creep

[kevin_thibedeau]

> these relationships wouldn't exist.

The government has been involved with the data broker industry since well before the dotcom era. That is the underpinning of all current day surveillance capitalism. It's an intelligence resource they will never overlook.

[robert_foss]

It used to be CIA and TV. Nothing new under the sun.

[colpabar]

I really don't get this response. Cops treating black people horribly is also "nothing new under the sun". Does that make it ok? Has everyone just given up on the idea of reigning in these federal agencies?

[pannSun]

I didn't read that response as a defense. It sounded more like the opposite.

[philippejara]

One would hope that after the patriot act, the bush jr wars, cablegate, the nsa leaks and so on just in the last 20 years people would desire to not keep the old habits, but I suppose all it took was one buffoon to take presidency and all that rolls back.

Truly a sad sight from those looking hopeful after the occupy movement and all the anti surveillance sentiment post-leaks.

[zmgsabst]

All of that is still happening in the populist movement, both left (Russell Brand, Jimmy Dore, etc) and right (Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, Robert Barnes, etc.). The populist movement which has been gaining traction through new media and new organizations outside of traditional parties.

Also, the “Woke” psyop used to destroy Occupy Wall St has now destroyed corporate America with ESG and Woke media scandals. As usual, the CIA and friends are bad at managing blowback.

[barbacoa]

Endless war, domestic surveillance, expanding government power.

The modern left has become the neo-conservatives.

[yucky]

   > the bush jr wars

Small correction, we can't call them the Bush Jr. wars when they survived and thrived for 8 years under Obama. These were FULLY bipartisan fuckups of monumental proportion that proves how much both parties are in the pocket of Raytheon & Northrop Grumman.

[beej71]

I'm struggling to understand what punishment needs to be handed out, here. The government asked Twitter to keep some of their fake propaganda accounts online and Twitter did. What laws have been violated?

[OrvalWintermute]

I am a strong supporter of the intelligence community when it is focused on its correct mission of nation-state hostiles, real terrorists like Bin Ladin & international/federal criminals, but I think the government overstepped the line in multiple ways that favored partisan political campaigns and certain parties. Though I believe firmly that these institutions are vital to our success as a nation, I also think they can be internally weaponized against specific groups, and that is going on currently.

It is pretty clear that these are Hatch Act violations which is about preventing your tax dollars being put to use as a part of partisan political campaigns, which is what happened.

Civilian "unempowered" agencies fall under the Less Restricted Hatch Act category, and certain Agencies like the IC, fall under a more stringent part of this, the Further Restricted category, see [1]

Some of these IC members in the Further Restricted Category were prompting BigTech censorship, or, running defense for the "Laptop from Hell" story, similar to some of the things they did back in the 60s when they were involved with unlawful activities regarding Civil Rights and Civil Liberties campaigns.

I'd argue in favor of:

(1) Strengthening the Hatch Act

(2) Handling Constitutional violations by the IC under the Hatch Act

(3) Prosecutions of the Hatch Act under existing Law

(4) Clearance revocations

(5) Removal of Section 230 protections for BigTech when acting as an agent of govt censorship

(6) Budget cuts / Budget reformations for some select Federal Agencies, FBI being foremost

(7) Forced retirement / exit from federal service of those involved in these behaviors.

(8) Debarring of contractors involved in some of these heinious activities

(9) Strengthening Federal Acquisition Regulation

(10) Diffusion of Federal Agencies HQs throughout the United States to prevent centralization in overly partisan areas

(11) Applying Diversity & Inclusion to political parties and other important characteristics of job seekers

(12) Adding restrictions or longer "Cooling Off Periods" for the revolving doors between IC, Congress, BigTech, Lobbyists, and the Consultant Class.

[1] https://osc.gov/Services/Pages/HatchAct-Federal.aspx

[pannSun]

We are discussing whether the event is notable, not if it is legal. And as someone not from the US, I care more about making people aware that Twitter collaborates with the US to help spread their govt. propaganda (in the same way I would want them to know if the doctor they're discussing smoking with is employed by the tobacco industry), than whether Twitter complies with laws written by that same government.

I.e. claiming no laws were violated (hypothetically) is as much a defense of Twitter as claiming TikTok hasn't broken Chinese law.

[beej71]

People should definitely know. For any government and public-facing system, that government will use that public-facing system to achieve its ends.

Sometimes this is asking that system to print a PSA. Sometimes this is asking that system to maintain propaganda accounts.

This definitely exists, and I'm not sure why people think it wouldn't.

We can complain, but the real remedy is to put laws in place if this is something we really care about.

[NaturalPhallacy]

The First Amendment:

>Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It's since been expanded through court cases to extend from congress to every government entity including local ones.

The government is constitutionally forbidden from meddling with the press, even through private entities via the 14th amendment. The FBI and CIA meddled with twitter. The particulars aren't relevant. They're expressly forbidden from doing what they did.

[beej71]

This doesn't mean the government can't make requests to private companies, including the press.

[wrycoder]

Government “requests” are usually treated as directives, since it’s well understood that they have many seemingly unrelated ways to make life difficult for a company and its officers.

[ceejayoz]

That’s not even true for Twitter.

https://transparency.twitter.com/en/reports/removal-requests...:

> Overall, Twitter withheld or otherwise removed some or all of the reported content in response to 51% of global legal demands, down 5% from the previous reporting period.

[wrycoder]

Your category is "global" "legal" requests i.e. take-down requests. The FBI has special access and its requests aren't included in that report.

[hellfish]

Good idea, it's high time this practice gets banned

[michaelmrose]

This isn't true asking for your post to be removed doesn't violate your rights. It would if requests were accompanied by legal threats. Twitter is the one removing content and with every right to do so.