[throwaw12]

is "[w]e ...." literal text from a message?

when this kind of wording is used usually in english? For me typing "we" is much easier.

reason I am asking is, if text was written "e are operating as fk....." then it's very easy to claim: "oh I wanted to write "they are", when talking about FTX" and blame them for everything (IANAL)

[sowbug]

Setting aside whether the original letter was actually capitalized, the rule is common in English writing: https://style.mla.org/capitalizing-start-of-quotation/ ("If the first letter of the first word you quote is capitalized in your source, use a lowercase letter enclosed in square brackets").

More specifically, The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation provides one of many sources of angst for first-year law school students in the United States. Its secondary purpose is to prescribe much of the structure and formatting of U.S. legal writing, down to whether there's a space between the period and the capital S in something like "314 F. Supp. 1217 (N.D. Tex. 1970)" (there is), and whether there is one between the period and the 3 in "945 F.3d 265 (5th Cir. 2019)" (there isn't).

The most important Bluebook rule when altering quotations is not to change the meaning of the original text. The second most important rule is to explain the purpose of each alteration through a long set of rules (whether emphasis was in the original, whether a typo existed in the original, etc.). That covers your concern.

[nightpool]

In legal context it almost always means "We" quoted as "we" or vice versa to match the capitalization required for the context it's quoted in. if it was "e are operating" then they probably would have notated it differently.

[ZephyrBlu]

I don't know why he quoted it like that because in the actual filing it's literally quoted as "we are operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro.".

Not capitalized or missing the "w". Page 29 if you're curious. Ctrl + F also works.

[smeyer]

I'm not sure why the tweet adds the brackets around the w, since I don't see it in the SEC complaint. Here's what's in the linked complaint. For clarity, the "emphasis added" part is from the SEC bolding the text inside the quote, not something I added.

111. As Binance’s CCO bluntly admitted to another Binance compliance officer in December 2018, “we are operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro.” (Emphasis added.)

[TylerE]

It's an editorial correction. E.g. fixing a typo to what was obviously intended, while indicating it isn't an exact quote.