And even with that prerogative, we all saw how the NSA's 'Terrorist Surveillance Program' expanded quickly, in breach of law, to encompass American citizens.
Government surveillance is going to be a hot button issue for the forseeable future, and if every time somebody does something bad is an excuse to expand its reach, there won't be anything beyond its reach before long.
Comparing Twitter getting reports about ToS violations from FBI via email instead of from users via the report button isn’t in the same galaxy.
I am struggling to think of a more bad faith argument than comparing this to the Patriot act.
Citation needed. The vast majority of the complaints during that era were due to portraying all Muslims as radical or focusing the efforts on Muslims without applying the same standards to the far more numerous (in the U.S., anyway) Christian extremists making anti-gay, anti-black, etc. messages. Clear rules which are fairly applied are a very different level.
The disclosure here is that Twitter didn’t have “clear rules which are fairly applied.” It was filtered through people who believed wacky things—for example, ones so blinded by anti-Christian bias they think there is any comparison between Christian “extremism” and the global problem of Islamic radicalism.
The Twitter internal discussions we are talking about.
> I haven’t seen any evidence of “anti-Christian bias”. If you’re referring to my comment, note that my position is that all radicals should be treated with concern
The anti-Christian bias is in creating a false equivalency between Christian “extremists” and Islamic radicals. You responded to my comment by bringing up “anti-gay anti-Black” statements from “Christian extremists.” That’s an absurd comparison. What you’re talking about is the average person in my Muslim home country: https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2.... The FBI shouldn’t be investigating those people. What I’m talking about is a different level entirely: https://time.com/4365890/bangladesh-arrests-5000-crackdown-r...
The bias reflected in your comment is exactly the sort of biases through which Twitter moderation decisions are filtered. Your average Twitter moderator is the kind of sheltered person who thinks his racist uncle back home in Indiana bears mention in the same breath as Islamic radicalism. These are the same people who flipped out when the FBI was investigating Islamic fundamentalism, but now cheers in the FBI now that the target is white Christians.
Can you point to a specific detail supporting this claim? I have read the thread and don’t know what this is based on.
> You responded to my comment by bringing up “anti-gay anti-Black” statements from “Christian extremists.” That’s an absurd comparison.
Not if you’re looking at who’s threatening or committing crimes here in the US. School children aren’t doing active shooter drills because of Muslims, public events aren’t being cancelled because of bomb threats made by Muslims, etc. This is exactly what I’d expect based on demographics, so again my point is simply that I’m not surprised that the FBI is finding more crimes committed by nominal Christians in a majority Christian country.
Doesn’t seem like a great use of FBI resources though — maybe they could put some focus on the crypto scams on Twitter that people keep falling for, or better yet the threads of thousands of videos of police brutality on Twitter from the last 2.5 years alone.
Here, the same people who wanted the government to toe the line when it comes to foreign terrorist threats are cheering on the FBI to turn those weapons inwards towards American citizens with disfavored political views.