How do you feel about the government illegally telling social media companies to silence people's free speech?

[Anonymous]

And no I am not talking about social media companies right to censor their platforms, I am asking only and specifically about the US government ordering them to silence people. If your response is "but they are private companies they can do what they want"... Of course they are.. I already know that.. Your opinion is invalid as a result.. Keep your responses to government censorship nothing more, nothing less or your comment will be ignored.

[Anonymous]

Not the way it went down. Since I was on the TF at Twitter from 2013-2021, a few things you should probably know:

Federal assistance and resources at Twitter (and later at Facebook as well) were provided at the written request of Twitter.

FBI was only one agency on the TF out of three, with relatively smaller participation. The TF mission was to assist social media platforms in identifying FOREIGN actors and vectors engaged in large-scale disinformation operations against the United States. The majority were based on indictments in absentia against these foreign agencies (Russia's Internet Research Agency was one).

Our mission was to identify and recommend. We had zero authority to command the platform to do anything. We also had a small bevvy of pearl-clutching lawyers there to make sure none of our activities were targeting (directly or indirectly) US citizens. We had no interest in US persons, only how pieces of disinformation entered the platform. We had no authority, and did not, delete any tweets or suspend any accounts. That was Twitter's business.

The Newsweek piece makes some pretty bold assertions, but doesn't provide any evidence to support its outrageous claims. If such evidence was there, a lot of people would have lost jobs and likely be in prison. Funny how media makes a lot of claims, but never furnishes the actual documentation. Try writing Twitter and asking for the documentation, and they probably won't respond. But anyone wanting correspondence between Twitter and the USG can get it through a FOIA request. Nobody will probably ask for it since conspiracy theorists are going to conspiracy theory, and they'll believe what they want.

[Asker]

They were in the Twitter files that Elon released. Are you going to tell me that that was fake? And we know for a fact that they censored conservatives and trump supporters way more than anyone else while at the same time allowing the map and pedo community to flourish.

[Anonymous]

The fact that so many people aren't bothered by this is just disturbing. It's like they don't understand that once rights are taken away, they're taken away for everyone, not just the people they don't like. Precedent, people. Once it's a thing, you can't just undo it.

[Lliam]

I'm very strongly opposed. It's the government circumventing the first amendment by hiding behind privatization of telecommunications providers, which is how social media companies should be classified.

[gorydetails]

It’s disgusting and the fact that half the country thinks it’s ok means we need a national divorce

[DextroShade]

We need a civil war that sees all the woke people killed or put into chains.

[Anonymous]

Its scary.. we dont have freedom of speach anymore. There was a guy on this site that got his opinion removed today for his opinion on women play a very important role in the home as mothers.. which is true but it gets taken down

[DextroShade]

It's a blatant violation of the 1st amendment and Biden should be impeached for it along with all the other corrupt criminal deeds he has committed with his crackhead son.

[disgustingweebtrash]

If the FBI or any agency related to the US Government requests a site to remove accounts for certain views then the first amendment is pretty much just a scrap of paper

[Anonymous]

Where are you getting that USG is ordering media companies to “silence” US persons?

[Asker]

You must be living under a rock. www.newsweek.com/fbi-colluded-twitter-suppress-free-speech-where-outrage-opinion-1768801

[Opinion Owner]

I merely asked a question. Keep your insults to yourself.

[Asker]

Lady I didn't insult you. An insult is calling you a name, not a metaphorical observation.. In any case anon.. Blocked.

[inhua]

it's no different to Communist China

[Alli39]

What context are we talking about this in?

[Asker]

www.newsweek.com/fbi-colluded-twitter-suppress-free-speech-where-outrage-opinion-1768801

[Alli39]

Ah. The whole censoring hate speech thing on social media. It honestly doesn't cross too much of a line for me. If it becomes a more common practice then sure it's a problem, but for this specifically I just don't mind. There's a certain level of vile that just doesn't need to exist in the universe.

[Asker]

I think you miss the point. ANY government involvement is illegal.. Period. Hate speech is protected speech. And it want just hate speech they censored. You're response screams "how to tell me you know nothing about the situation without telling me you know nothing about the situation".

Imagine when what you have to say is deemed hate speech and you're censored...

[Alli39]

Why am I saying anything terrible enough to have it censored to begin with?

But I don't know that much about the issue, it's certainly not something I focus on all that much, so I'm going to bow out gracefully. I've given my opinion and have no desire to argue about it.