Elon's Twitter

[River]

Impy, Hunter had dick pics on a computer that somehow made its way into the wrong hands and some really nasty people, for reasons of their own, posted his dick pics to Twitter without his consent. Twitter (a private entity) took these images down per policy (and likely some revenge porn laws) after the Biden campaign (another private entity) asked them to. Apparently, according to figures on the far right, this was a violation of the free speech rights of whoever was disseminating the stolen images of Hunter Biden's genitals and proves the Biden Administration (which didn't actually exist when the incident occurred) was corruptly interfering with Twitter because the public got deprived of stolen pictures of a private citizen's private parts. Some people feel entitled to that sort of thing.

[RoseMorninStar]

It's shameful, that's what it is.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Impy, Hunter had dick pics on a computer that somehow made its way into the wrong hands and some really nasty people, for reasons of their own, posted his dick pics to Twitter without his consent. Twitter (a private entity) took these images down per policy (and likely some revenge porn laws) after the Biden campaign (another private entity) asked them to. Apparently, according to figures on the far right, this was a violation of the free speech rights of whoever was disseminating the stolen images of Hunter Biden's genitals and proves the Biden Administration (which didn't actually exist when the incident occurred) was corruptly interfering with Twitter because the public got deprived of stolen pictures of a private citizen's private parts. Some people feel entitled to that sort of thing.

Also, the Trump administration (which actually did exist at the time) also apparently requested that Twitter remove some posts at the time (it appears to be unclear what they were) which actually might have been a violation of free speech rights.

[Frelga]

Yep. The big reveal was that Twitter, in accordance with its policy and possibly some laws, declined to host explicit pictures of a private citizen that were obtained illegally and posted without his consent. Big wow.

[N.E. Brigand]

Over the weekend, Matt Taibbi and another independent reporter working on the "Twitter Files" project for Elon Musk, Bari Weiss, "discovered" that the attorney at Twitter now vetting these files for their analysis, Jim Baker, the firm's deputy general counsel -- apparently the top remaining lawyer at Twitter since Musk's acquisition of the company, apart from Musk's personal lawyer whom he brought in -- was also one of the correspondents of some of those very emails. Baker previously had been the top lawyer at the FBI from 2014 through 2017. In that role, he naturally had been involved in investigations related to Donald Trump and Russia, and he was the subject of much ire from the Trumpist right for having been the conduit by which Michael Sussmann brought concerns about Alfa Bank to the FBI.

Taibbi posted this news Monday, and as a result, Musk announced that he had arranged for Baker to be "exited" from the company. Musk is claiming that he only just learned that Baker was Twitter's number two lawyer, but that's not true: he was told this last April and publicly acknowledged it at the time.

[N.E. Brigand]

Here is a very long but frequently useful analysis by Mike Masnick of what the 2020 Twitter emails reveal.

[Impenitent]

Ah! I hadn't realised that the pics originated in that illegally acquired laptop. Now it all makes sense.

[RoseMorninStar]

Amazon, Uber ads appear on Twitter pages of white nationalists restored by Musk

[Dave_LF]

The most obvious change I've seen was yesterday when a chummy autoplaying crypto ad prominently featuring Musk's face occupied position 1 in my feed

[N.E. Brigand]

A second installment in the "Twitter Files" expose has been released, this time by Bari Weiss. It purports to show that Twitter had a policy of shadowbanning and deamplifying conservative voices, but as noted in this post and its replies, lots of people who made leftwing posts over many years were subject to apparently excessive moderation by Twitter. Also Weiss appears to misunderstand how some of Twitter's features worked: "Do Not Amplify" seems to have meant not "discourage the sharing of the post" but rather "do not allow Twitter Amplify to run on this user's content": Twitter Amplify is a program that attaches advertisements to videos, but some advertisers don't want their commercials attached to potentially controversial content.

Also there are serious questions, which Twitter isn't answering, about what kind of access Taibbi and Weiss have been given to users' content. There may be legal issues, but as lately noted, Musk this week fired the top lawyer who had remained at the company following his takeover. Unfortunately for Musk's "independent" journalists, "the most legally defensible version of events from Twitter is that [Bari Weiss] was led to or given specific bits of information to construct the narrative Musk wants. But that makes it obvious she’s working as Musk’s toady."

In any case, three members of Twitter's Trust & Safety Council resigned today, saying "A Twitter ruled by diktat is not a place for us."

[River]

Found on Ask a Manager: I work at Twitter...what do I do? and update: I work at Twitter...what do I do?

Spoiler alert: the letter writer is no longer at Twitter.

Edited to fix link.

[RoseMorninStar]

I took the time to read through that. Wow. Just, wow.

[N.E. Brigand]

Yesterday a New York Times reporter noted that last week, for the first time in more than a decade, Twitter did not send representatives to an annual roundtable for social media companies hosted by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is the leading organization addressing such issues in the U.S. This is odd given that Elon Musk has repeatedly said that his "priority #1" as Twitter's owner is to address the ways in which social media can be used to harm kids. Presumably the reason Twitter didn't send anyone to this high profile event is that Musk had previously fired most or all of the Twitter employees whose job it was to address these concerns.

Meanwhile, Musk is trying to get the former head of Twitter's trust and safety department, Yoel Roth, killed by defaming him as a sexual predator. (Ironically, Roth was supportive of Musk's work at first.) Musk has a history of doing this. A few years ago, after one of the cave divers organizing the rescue operation for a school group trapped in a Thai cave turned down Musk's offer to build a robot submarine, Musk tweeted that the man was a "pedo." (The diver sued, but a jury found Musk not liable, apparently buying the argument from Musk's lawyers that everyone knows that what gets said on social media should be understood not to be statements of fact.) Musk has similarly impugned the reputations of the three Twitter advisory panel members who stepped down (which I mentioned yesterday). What are Elon Musk's real motivations in undermining Twitter's efforts to fight child exploitation while pretending otherwise?

[N.E. Brigand]

Interesting: a 2021 study found that Twitter's algorithms amplified conservative posts more than liberal posts.

[N.E. Brigand]

Rolling Stone reports that prior to Elon Musk's takeover, an internal investigation at Twitter had found that a "network of trolls linked to the Chinese government was behind some of the harassment of women reporters critical" of it. Twitter had been planning to release that report this fall, but Elon Musk got rid of the team responsible for that work, and there are serious doubts, given Musk's interest in China's production and consumption of Tesla vehicles, that he will release the report or follow its advice on steps needed to stop the Chinese government's misuse of Twitter.

[N.E. Brigand]

The latest journalist to report as part of Elon Musk's "Twitter Files" project, Michael Shellenberger -- who is revealing internal discussions at Twitter about whether to suspend President Trump's account following the January 6 insurrection (and remember, Twitter had repeatedly let Trump get away with rulebreaking for which numerous other users had been banned) -- previously suggested that the "QAnon shaman" (who left a threatening note for Vice President Pence in the Capitol, subsequently pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding, and said that he took these actions out of "loyalty" to President Trump) might have been a paid actor in that day's events.

- - - - - - - - - -
Also today, Musk, who has made news this week through by using reporters to selectively release previously confidential Twitter documents to the public, warned Twitter employees not to leak confidential Twitter documents to the press or the public.

[N.E. Brigand]

Internal messages reveal that nine days ago, Twitter shadowbanned* a Twitter account that tracks Elon Musk's private jet. As noted on that account, anyone as the legal "right to post jet whereabouts, ADS-B data is public, every aircraft in the world is required to have a transponder, even Air Force One." And doing so doesn't violate Twitter's terms of service, either. Of course, Twitter is a private company with and can modify its rules at any time. But this does smell like a hypocritical move.

*What Twitter has actually done is to "apply heavy VF [visibility filtering]" to the account. Is that "shadowbanning"? By the definition of Elon Musk's journalists, it is.

[Frelga]

I'm seeing reports that Twitter is planning to raise the character limit to 4K. If there is one thing that can break my Twitter habit, it's that.

[RoseMorninStar]

Internal messages reveal that nine days ago, Twitter shadowbanned* a Twitter account that tracks Elon Musk's private jet. As noted on that account, anyone as the legal "right to post jet whereabouts, ADS-B data is public, every aircraft in the world is required to have a transponder, even Air Force One." And doing so doesn't violate Twitter's terms of service, either. Of course, Twitter is a private company with and can modify its rules at any time. But this does smell like a hypocritical move.

*What Twitter has actually done is to "apply heavy VF [visibility filtering]" to the account. Is that "shadowbanning"? By the definition of Elon Musk's journalists, it is.

But transparency! Open honest discourse!

[N.E. Brigand]

Elon Musk today called for Dr. Anthony Fauci to be prosecuted for how he supposedly mishandled the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mind you, on March 19, 2020, Musk wrote on Twitter that he believed China was telling the truth about there being no new Covid cases in that country, and he added that the U.S. would probably have zero new cases by the end of April.