Twitter sees jump in govt demands to remove content of reporters, news outlets

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When one government&#x2F;party (implicitly or explicitly) gets twitter to put content favorable to it to the detriment of its opponents, right there, twitter lost the script, and the moral standing.<p>the talk of legality is nonsense, because there are jurisdictions where anything can be made legal.<p>The vast majority of the world will be better off with a twitter&#x2F;fb etc cut down to size, and the current massive power of social media networks being reduced.

Thought experiment: a US government-hosted social network.<p>Because the government is the host, they can&#x27;t censor anything on the platform, unlike private social networks. The moderation policy would effectively be the content of the first amendment, barring actual illegal content.<p>Call it publicsquare.gov

People arguing about Twitter being a private company with the freedom to censor content are missing the point. Yes – that&#x27;s true, but the disturbing thing here is the fact that <i>governments</i> are increasingly pressuring them to do it (and that carries a lot of weight, with or without legal force).<p>The real problem is that governments think this kind of behavior is okay, and continue to do it. I don&#x27;t care if a company decides to censor content on its platform, but if my government is telling them (and other platforms) what can and can&#x27;t be said, I consider that a clear violation of free speech. This is a failure of government, not Twitter (or not <i>only</i> Twitter).<p>Twitter needs to publish a list of exactly who in the government is doing this, and we should hold those people responsible and replace them. The government works for us, remember?

I like Github&#x27;s policy where they publish all of the takedown requests to a public repository to be viewed by anyone. I hope this can be a standard for other tech companies as well.

Time for more service decentralization.

Key points:<p>Timeline for the report was the back half of 2020.<p>India and the US were the top requestors for take downs. There are new laws in India and some other countries regarding control of speech online.<p>I wonder if the US based takedown trends will continue into 2021 with the new administration.

I&#x27;m glad to see this topic so hotly debated here.<p>After having read most of the comments here, most of the discussion is turning on the point of what the first amendment does or does not require. That&#x27;s great - the law should be the low bar for behaviour of the government, corporations and populance.<p>The first amendment is an excellent part of the constitution, putting the U.S. far ahead of many other regimes when it comes to free speech. However, it&#x27;s not the be-all end-all. The corporate and political landscape, the balance of power between the people and government, and the U.S.&#x27;s geopolitical situation have changed since 1791.<p>Too many people treat the American constitution like the U.S.A. Law-Bible - ever correct, never flawed, never to be updated. That is absurd. The last amendment was ratified in 1992, and I&#x27;d say we are overdue for a few more.<p>In your arguments, please distinguish what is legal from what you think is the right thing to do.

&gt; In its transparency report published on Wednesday<p>Although easy to find on Google[0], does anyone else find it frustrating that the sentence in the article isn&#x27;t cited?<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;transparency.twitter.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;transparency.twitter.com&#x2F;</a>

Twitter has no power in this censorship. The power passes through them, but it is not their power because they have no choice. And it&#x27;s not coming from the government either.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;graymirror.substack.com&#x2F;p&#x2F;big-tech-has-no-power-at-all" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;graymirror.substack.com&#x2F;p&#x2F;big-tech-has-no-power-at-a...</a>

This should be seen also in the context of the recent relevations by the Guardian and Sophie Zhang. Social media has created the machine for mass manipulation that authoritarians have been waiting for

The slippery slope is real.<p>The power to veto anyone&#x27;s speech is toxic. Entrusting it to anyone, particularly those in power, is the implicit agreement to forfeit liberty.

Julian Assange was the canary in the coal mine. Authoritarian censorship is going to be a major political battle this decade.

History has never been kind to institutions when those institutions attempted to influence the distribution of information. It just shows how fragile and desperate those institutions are.

I don&#x27;t see any problem here, Twitter was removing news outlets&#x27; content on their own [1] (and possible by undisclosed requests of their shareholders, you know who). Now they have to do just the same in the more transparent manner on behalf of public service.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.breitbart.com&#x2F;tech&#x2F;2021&#x2F;06&#x2F;21&#x2F;twitter-censors-conservative-news-site-for-story-on-tweet-reporting-coronavirus-vaccine-death&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.breitbart.com&#x2F;tech&#x2F;2021&#x2F;06&#x2F;21&#x2F;twitter-censors-co...</a>

A &quot;man bites dog&quot; story.

Boris Johnson’s recent comments after England’s Euro 2020 loss highlight this challenge the best.<p>Government officials are pressuring social media corporations to define and continually refine their content policies.<p>Simultaneously governments are requesting content removal from the corporations.<p>It’s a back and forth where the users and general population are ignored. Our elected officials should be structuring new frameworks for social media companies to operate within. We’re entering a new era with outdated laws.

Twitter isn&#x27;t FBI raid-proof and that&#x27;s a SPoF. The US govt has the technical power and legal force to shut it off when it has or invents the authority to do so. This existential threat means Twitter, in the absence of moral&#x2F;ethic leadership courage, is compelled to bow down to individual legal demands.<p>If end users want freedom with a centralized service, it has to be based in a neutral country and also accessible by VPN, p2p overlay network, etc. It would also be better if such a service were also distributed.

ITT: people with no education in political thought confusing censorship and moderation to feel smart.

A refreshing change of pace to twitter journalists demanding the removal of anybody else&#x27;s content

Freedom of speech is certainly under attack and has been under attack by the previous administration more blatantly than ever. And of course, as is typical with the US, once one administration gets away with something, the future ones do, as well.