Now, we could have an interesting discussion (and I actually do think it’s an interesting discussion) about whether or not the government should be flagging accounts to review as terms of service violations. In fact, they are explicit in their email that the accounts “may potentially constitute violations of Twitter’s Terms of Service” and that Twitter can take “any action or inaction deemed appropriate within Twitter policy.” When the FBI did so, it was pretty clear that it was just flagging these accounts for Twitter to review, and had no expectation that the company would or would not do anything about it. What the files show is that the FBI would occasionally (not very often, frankly) use reporting tools to alert Twitter to accounts that potentially violated Twitter’s rules. But… there’s literally no scandal here (or if there is one, it’s something entirely different, which we’ll get to at the end of the article). I’m no fan of the FBI, and have spent much of the two and a half decades here at Techdirt criticizing it. The problem is that, once again, that’s not what “the Twitter Files” show, even as the reporters working on it - Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and Michael Shellenberger - either don’t understand what they’re looking at or are deliberately misrepresenting it. Most of the people who believed that have either ignored that there was no evidence to support it, or have simply moved on to this new lie, suggesting that “the FBI” was “sending lists” to Twitter of people to censor. It’s just flat out wrong.Īs with pretty much every one of these misleading statements regarding the very Twitter that he runs, where people (I guess maybe just former people) could explain to him why he’s wrong, it takes way more time and details to explain why he’s wrong than for him to push out these misleading lines that will now be taken as fact.īut, since at least some of us still believe in facts and truth, let’s walk through this.įirst up, we already did a huge, long debunker on the idea that the FBI (or any government entity) was in any way involved in the Twitter decision to block links to the Hunter Biden laptop story. Authorities clearly didn’t realize that “destroy” is slang for “party.This would be a big scandal if true. In 2012, two British tourists were kept in a cell for 12 hours after landing in Los Angeles and jokingly tweeting that they planned to “destroy America” and “dig up Marilyn Monroe” during their holiday there. She added 30,000 followers and escaped jail, unlike an unlucky pair visiting the U.S., points out Oliver Smith, also at the Telegraph. Others have tried to make their make their bomb threats light-hearted … It is a worrying trend, and seems to me like the most thoughtless rebellion a teenager can do … After all, what’s wrong with playing loud music in your room and staying out too late? It worked for my generation. Many of the tweeters have immediately sent out disclaimers saying things like, ‘it’s just joke’, as though a grammatically incorrect apology can make up for a serious offence. In the same way that people who post inappropriate photos tend to regret it the second a future employer discovers the offending picture, it’s possible that these ‘bomb-threat teens’ are going to look back on their prank tweets and come to seriously regret them. Heavy-handed would have been if she’d been taken to court (remember Paul Chambers, who found himself in court after angrily tweeting that he’d blow up a South Yorkshire airport? That was heavy-handed.)įor Radhika Sanghani at The Daily Telegraph, the whole affair is just another example of how teens do not think of social media in the same terms as real life. Heavy-handed would have been if the FBI had swooped down upon her. Where can you draw the line? If there had been some truth in it, the consequences could have been much worse. But it would have been irresponsible for American to ignore the tweet completely, regardless of how improbable it is that a member of Al-Qaeda would directly threaten an airline via Twitter. In retrospect, the reaction seems hypersensitive, a reflection of a ridiculous national security mindset. In a comment piece in The Independent, Helen Williams sympathizes with the airline’s predicament. After being questioned, commonsense appears to have prevailed and she has not been charged with anything. On Monday, the girl, accompanied by a parent, turned herself into police in Rotterdam. Article content omfg I was kidding I’m so sorry I’m scared now I was joking and it was my friend not me, take her IP address not mine I was kidding pls don’t I’m just a girl pls and I’m not from Afghanistan yeah I know, and my parents are gonna kill me if I tell them this omg pls Twitter Twitter Twitter This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |