I think "anything based on arbitrary user input on a major platform has some moderation tools" is far from "conspiracy theorists".

How far? As I understand it, the conspiracy here is that Twitter uses these moderation tools to silence people with a certain political perspective. I think — assuming that is indeed the case — this does lean more on the conspiratorial side, and is not akin to moderators banning bots trying to shift cialis pills.

The reason why I liken this to Snowden is because at least anecdotally, the typically dialogue I have seen is

Conspiracy Theorist: "Twitter are shadow-banning people!"

Normal Person A: "That's a dumb conspiracy theory."

Twitter: "We are not shadow-banning people."

Normal Person B: "Here is proof that Twitter shadow-bans people."

Normal Person A: "Well yeah, obviously. It would be pretty naïve to think they weren't always doing this."

---

You can quite accurately substitute Twitter with the US government, shadow-banning with spying, and Normal Person B with Edward Snowden.

I was specifically just talking about the reaction to the trending mod tools existing, as if that was bad or surprising in itself. That there are mod tools doesn't prove that there is political targeting. And in reverse, if you claim that Twitter isn't especially targeting some group, you hopefully aren't basing that claim on a naive "they can't be doing that because they don't have moderation tools".

Yes. We can also remember that Richard Stallman called Snowden a 'Hero' [0] for revealing the PRISIM programme was his strongest evidence around the NSA mass-surveillance and backdoors in general using internet services and companies. Without this, it would still be another 'conspiracy theory' which would have lacked any concrete evidence to support Stallman's claims.

[0] https://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2014/02/18/richard-stallman-calls-...

The most visible part of Web site being moderated is not a scandal.

I think that depends on the nature of the moderation. If a major platform were deliberately amplifying right-wing extremists for example, it would likely be a scandal.

Yes, the the bad thing mentioned in this thread was supposed to be existence of admin moderation tools. Nit the way they use it, but that it even exists.