X/Twitter Censorship
Among the key reasons Elon Musk insisted he had to buy Twitter were (1) that it was too political in how it was managed and how content moderation was done, (2) the company was not as transparent as it should be, and (3) it was too quick to censor.
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We can only confirm how much more willing to censor he is because he finally released a transparency report. Twitter had been among the first internet companies to regularly release transparency reports, talking about content moderation, copyright takedown demands, and (of course) government demands for both information and content/account removals. Every six months, like clockwork, Twitter would publish detailed, thorough transparency reports.
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As I’ve said, in both those cases, I think it was good that he was willing to stand up to over-aggressive government demands. But it’s hard to see it as any strong commitment to free speech when he’s so quick to comply elsewhere. Indeed, he’s already backed down in Brazil, to much less fanfare.
Separately and importantly, Elon has been way more willing to hand over user data to governments upon request. This was another thing that old Twitter was aggressive in fighting back against, but Elon seems quite willing to roll over on.
Twitter under Musk is certainly censoring differently. People who were banned have been unbanned and vice-versa. The misleading information policy has changed. Maybe there is more variety of content than before, but it does not really seem to be following the principles that Musk laid out at the acquisition.
Elizabeth Lopatto (Hacker News):
X is preventing users from posting links to a newsletter containing a hacked document that’s alleged to be the Trump campaign’s research into vice presidential candidate JD Vance. The journalist who wrote the newsletter, Ken Klippenstein, has been suspended from the platform. Searches for posts containing a link to the newsletter turn up nothing.
The document allegedly comes from an Iranian hack of the Trump campaign. Though other news outlets have received information from the hack, they declined to publish.
Ken Klippenstein (via Hacker News):
First, I never published any private information on X. I linked to an article I wrote here, linking to a document of controversial provenance, one that I didn’t want to alter for that very reason.
The dossier did violate Twitter’s policy because it contained unredacted personal information, but that does not explain why links to the article were blocked. Musk is on record that Old Twitter should not have blocked links to the leaked Hunter Biden information, which was more personal and damaging. From what I’ve seen, the Vance dossier itself is far less interesting. The most notable aspects are its source (Iran) and the fact that Twitter wants to suppress it.
And, as far as I know, Twitter is still messing with Substack links.
Another user on Twitter notes that their own account was temporarily suspended not even for tweeting out a link to the Vance dossier story, but for tweeting a link to Ken’s post about getting suspended!
Previously:
- Telegram Founder Arrested
- Digital Services Act and Thierry Breton vs. Twitter
- Brazil vs. Twitter
- Twitter Delays URLs for Certain Sites
- Twitter Restricts Substack Links
- Elon Musk Finalizes Twitter Acquisition
- Elon Musk Buys Twitter
- Apple Forces Telegram to Close Channels Run by Belarus Protestors
