HACKER Q&A
📣 mind-blight

Are there valuable insights from the Twitter files?


I've been reading the Twitter files, but I'm struggling to find anything that's much of a revelation in them.

Twitter removes pictures of Hunter Biden's penis, and US three-letter agencies meet with top social media execs seem pretty weak.

I'm fairly left-leaning though, so I may be glossing over something. Objectivity, are there details that are valuable outside of scoring political points?


  👤 mtmail Accepted Answer ✓
Best summary I've read so far is https://mastodon.social/@malwaretech@infosec.exchange/109547...

"Certain foreign governments have been known to engage in hacking to obtain dirt on politicians, which they then leak around election time to influence voters (remember the DNC leaks? That was Russian Intelligence). Social media platforms are aware of this, and are actively working to try and limit foreign intelligence agencies ability to influences the public via these 'hack-and-leak' operations. [...]"


👤 colpabar
All the responses from “left leaning” people claiming that this is all no big deal has fully cemented the notion that the left I signed up for is dead and gone. I thought free expression and not trusting the government and not trusting corporations and recognizing that when governments and corporations work together it’s almost always a bad thing for regular people.

What the hell happened? How is this a nothingburger? The latest drop reveals that the pentagon was involved too, and it was using special access to promote US propaganda in the middle east. Now that it’s not about “hunter biden’s penis” anymore, can we start getting upset? I feel like I’m losing my mind!

https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1605292454261182464


👤 meepmorp
No, it's ginned up nonsense that appeals to people who are looking for a justification for their anger and sense of grievance.

👤 tatrajim
Well, I like the part about the ex-FBI agents at Twitter having their own slack channel. Reminds me of the CCP committees now required at every Chinese private corp. Who doesn't love a secret police network at one's workplace?

👤 throwawayCAF
It seems a bit unfair to summarize it as removing pictures of Hunter Biden's penis. They willingly suspended news organizations at the behest of the FBI for something the FBI knew was legit, and as a result they (and other social media outlets) directly influenced US elections.

It's easy to ignore that point when you're happy with the outcome, but it should give you the heebie-jeebies to see that kind of political collusion between the government and big tech.


👤 keithalewis
The FBI meddled with the 2020 election. Who needs the Russians when you've got the FBI?

👤 faeriechangling
Depends on what you consider valuable or surprising. Nothing revealed so far shocks me all that much. A few people at a company with a very much centre-left culture had it out for right wingers, sometimes for less justifiable reasons, sometimes because the person they disliked had been skirting around the rules for years. What a shock.

Jack as expected generally was pretty consistently seen pushing back against such notions but not very strongly. One thing the Twitter files did reveal to me is that Jack is exactly the sort of person I thought he was, mostly a voice of sober second thought relative to those reporting to him.

The thing I've found most interesting about the Twitter files is how Musk insisted on a selective leak honestly. Because this leak was so selective, I don't have much choice but to presume what he isn't leaking is exculpatory evidence. I don't see how Twitter was run under Agarwal to be any worse than how it's run under Musk honestly, it just sucked in a different way, and mostly wish Jack was still in charge. Because you know, he actually believed in Free Speech and wasn't a phony like Musk.


👤 jonfw
You don’t see an issue with members of congress and us intelligence pressuring social media companies to suppress political speech?

A private company censoring speech is one thing- it was widely known that Twitter was moderated with a bias towards liberals. But the government doing so seems like a violation of the first amendment, doesn’t it?


👤 someNameIG
The target audience for the files seem to be right wing Americans, and I'm neither of them so haven't paid much attention.

But they seem to be a bunch of half-truths, only releasing information that Musk wants. @jack asked Elon to release all his email yet that wasn't done, so it's very possible there's a lot that either contradicts and/or puts in context that goes against the narrative the files are trying to push.


👤 h2odragon
Flip it round. If the Trump White House had ordered social media to suppress reports about their involvement with russia, would that be "ho hum that just happens?"

It's not just the penis; it's the emails detailing "10% for the big guy". Just like it wasn't the "pee tape," but the komprmat; right?