The current Twitter Files aren't that interesting either. I haven't seen anything related to them that even seems different than how I thought it was working at the time, nor that seems illegal or incorrect.

The idea that the fruits of a hack should not be published by media outlets (including Twitter) for at least a cooling off period makes alot of sense. Also for Podesta to be involved in that since the hacking of his emails was one of the main events of the 2016 election cycle and he was keenly aware of the speed at which those hacks can entangle people and have a profound impact on the democratic process. There's no way a responsible company would want that traffic on their site.

Do you feel the same about Snowden or the other WikiLeaks dumps? I am not accusing you of being in this camp, but the conventional wisdom at that time was that information should be released as soon as possible with no redactions, even if doing so risked the lives of agents in the field

> conventional wisdom at that time was that information should be released as soon as possible with no redactions, even if doing so risked the lives of agents in the field

Actually I feel very differently about these two things specifically because Snowden didn't just blindly dump everything he could get regardless of the consequences.

> Snowden didn't just blindly dump everything he could get regardless of the consequences.

Snowden leaked information about NSA surveillance of foreign persons not on US soil - that kind of activity is explicitly within the NSA's core mission and the legal framework around it. I'll leave aside any debate of the domestic programs - he very definitely did expose entirely legal secret activities. That's either careless or malicious.

I’m honestly not sure if I missed something. I’ve been under the impression that he gave all the files to journalists and let them be the judge of what’s relevant. Sometimes things go beyond domestic vs international - because it’s someone else’s domestic surveillance and if that someone is an ally it’s at least a tiny bit problematic and worthy of review.

> I’ve been under the impression that he gave all the files to journalists and let them be the judge of what’s relevant.

That would mean he wasn't careful at all, having outsourced the selection of what data to make public to a 3rd party.

> Sometimes things go beyond domestic vs international - because it’s someone else’s domestic surveillance and if that someone is an ally it’s at least a tiny bit problematic and worthy of review.

Everybody does this with everyone, allies and enemies alike, and doing so is a matter of state foreign policy. This type of activity is exactly what the NSA is charted for. We've reviewed this stuff in writing the laws that charter the agency and govern it's activity.

Snowden revealed warrantless wiretapping of US citizens, not just foreign nationals. Unlike WikiLeaks he reviewed each document before release to attempt to minimize harm.

I'm not sure why you're bringing up a completely tangential topic, even as you seemingly agree with the core point I made: Snowden revealed information about completely and indisputably legal intelligence activities.

It's either careless or malicious.

I rather think that revealing that our government is violating our 4th amendment rights is worth whatever minor harm it may have done to our ability to spy on our allies. I don't think you can reveal something like PRISM being used domestically without also revealing it's non-domestic applications. You think foreign intelligence agencies can't do the math on what it means for the NSA to have unfettered access to places like Google?

Also legal does not mean moral.

Your free to disagree, but my opinion is that Snowden did the American people a public service, and put clear effort into minimizing the damage. It's not some unambiguous knight in shining armor situation, but more of a shades of grey situation where in my opinion the good outweighed the harm.

It is very unfortunate. Snowden is no hero. What he revealed was abhorrent, and should have never occurred. He did right by the world in revealing what he did. But it was reckless. It was sloppy. It was "baby with the bathwater" in such a way that the lives of those in the field were at risk. And then he fucked right off to Russia, where similar and worse activities are undertaken by that government.

So he revealed a terrible fact in an irresponsible way, and then sought asylum in a country which shits on human rights left and right. And this isn't whataboutism, it is an expectation for consistency in morals

> the conventional wisdom at that time was that information should be released as soon as possible with no redactions

That was very much not the conventional wisdom at the time. This choice by Wikileaks was hugely controversial and in stark contrast with Snowden’s leaks, which were published by journalists after having been analysed, filtered and redacted. Citing Snowden and Wikileaks as if they operated in the same way is simply wrong.

And yes, just dumping stuff without at least checking them is morally and practically wrong. If only because it makes you very likely to take part voluntarily or not in disinformation campaigns if you’re fed false documents.

As someone else said, Snowden pawned off the responsibility to redact and protect to a group of journalist with no subject matter expertise. It was a reckless and irresponsible choice. If anyone in the chain of custody knew what to redact to protect those in the field, it was Snowden. But he chose to abdicate that responsibility to journalists.

That was the sensible decision, as he was too close to the material. He would bear more responsibility than he already did, yes, but it would also look partial and one-sided. Investigative journalists know how to handle this kind of material and have training and experience. Snowden very much did not.

Snowden and WikiLeaks were about data that is much more highly classified and is in a different league. My reading of the Twitter Files is that they are process oriented (this is how those decisions were made, these are the decisions that were made and may not have been obvious to the casual observer). The thing with the Twitter Files is they are so obviously PR-driven. Snowden and Wikileaks were doing political releases because those people/orgs believed the underlying data showed prevarication by people like General Hadley at the NSA and potential crimes within the US armed forces that needed public scrutiny.

No, there really is very little comparison there.

A not-so-fine line between compulsion and requests. The government is allowed to reach out to and talk to Twitter.

Taibbi mentions two "suppression" interactions:

> Taibbi reported Twitter had "received and honored" deletion requests from both the Biden campaign and the Trump White House; he presented examples of the former but not of the latter.

(per Wiki)

Only one of those groups was actively in government and as expressed both were requests.

Social media company censoring and so-called "fact checking" really stepped up around 2018. That's when Congress hauled heads of social media companies into Congressional hearings and both Democrats and Republicans demanded that they start filtering out "bad" information, or else Congress would make them! In a strictly legal sense this was not "compulsion", but given Government's power to destroy their businesses if it chose, this was essentially government outsourcing censorship.

> I feel like the really interesting part of "The Twitter Files" isn't the arbitrary moderation decisions made (we sort of knew what they were thru their implementation and it's hard for moderation to be "not arbitrary" whether you agree with the decisions or not) but the involvement of US government representatives in it.

I haven't followed parts 2 & 3 of the Twitter files. But the irony here is that the government officials involved in part 1 were the Trump administration. Biden was not yet elected and should be considered a private citizen.

Perhaps legally this is how it would work (IANAL), but given what's played out during elections I think that subjecting a candidate to the criteria of a public official in this regard has merit.

This is one of the ways in which the deep state matters.

"The Trump Administration" can be opposed to actual-Trump.

It must be nice to have an escape-hatch to use whenever something doesn't line up with how you feel it should.

The FBI helped him get elected in 2016 and was headed by his own appointee. If it was acting against his interests in 2020 that's an extraordinary failure in leadership.

The illuminati did it :o

According to a heavily edited, and biased Twitter files release the only government entity that was censoring stuff was the Trump administration. But it’s unclear what they were censoring as Elon edited that part in his lame attempt to created a false narrative

>it is illegal for the government to "outsource censorship" to private parties in order to silence speech protected by 1A. A relative of DNC's Podesta or an FBI lawyer working for Twitter add to the impression more than the legal argument I guess.

This is the entire story, but lede buried by MuskHate.

Does no one out here realize this is the same hate-everything-acknowledge-nothing behavior regarding Trump?

That you must hate the person and nothing else matters... "always shoot the messenger"... It seems clear as day to me, but I guess I'm the crazy one.

EDIT: It's called cathartic scapegoating. And if you point it out, it must mean you're a Trump loving far-right loonie toon. Look at the extent that people will go to prove they aren't just shooting the messenger right here, it's just evidence it is happening.

> That you must hate the person and nothing else matters...

It’s funny you mention that because a lot of the alt-right’s success the past few years has been fueled by a pure, unadulterated hatred of anything deemed liberal or progressive.

The disclosures actually showed that the Trump government and Biden campaign both requested removals. But only one of those two is a government entity and (oddly) evidence of that government entity's request was left out of the disclosures. Talk about burying the lede.

You seem to both be mad about government interference in 2020 and mad about people criticizing the Trump Administration. But the government in 2020 was the Trump Administration, so it seems like only one or the other can be a valid complaint.

You’ve bought into right wing propaganda, so of course it’s clear as day that it’s a government conspiracy and a first amendment violation to you.

To normals, “DNC Podesta FBI” are keywords signifying far-right conspiracy talk.

Wasn't the government at the time still the Trump government?