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Did you miss [1]? The US govt. used its influence over Twitter to help sell its foreign policy (military interventions included) to the US and global audience.

Did you miss [1]? The US govt. used its influence over Twitter to help sell its foreign policy (military interventions included) to the US and global audience. The only way you could not take issue with it, is if you're fine with govt. psyops/undisclosed propaganda. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34111071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34111071

robert_foss 4y ago
It used to be CIA and TV. Nothing new under the sun.
- philippejara 4y ago
  One would hope that after the patriot act, the bush jr wars, cablegate, the nsa leaks and so on just in the last 20 years people would desire to not keep the old habits, but I suppose all it took was one buffoon to take presidency and all that rolls back. Truly a sad sight from those looking hopeful after the occupy movement and all the anti surveillance sentiment post-leaks.
  - barbacoa 4y ago
    Endless war, domestic surveillance, expanding government power. The modern left has become the neo-conservatives.
  - zmgsabst 4y ago
    All of that is still happening in the populist movement, both left (Russell Brand, Jimmy Dore, etc) and right (Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, Robert Barnes, etc.). The populist movement which has been gaining traction through new media and new organizations outside of traditional parties. Also, the “Woke” psyop used to destroy Occupy Wall St has now destroyed corporate America with ESG and Woke media scandals. As usual, the CIA and friends are bad at managing blowback.
  - yucky 4y ago
    > the bush jr wars Small correction, we can't call them the Bush Jr. wars when they survived and thrived for 8 years under Obama. These were FULLY bipartisan fuckups of monumental proportion that proves how much both parties are in the pocket of Raytheon & Northrop Grumman.
- colpabar 4y ago
  I really don't get this response. Cops treating black people horribly is also "nothing new under the sun". Does that make it ok? Has everyone just given up on the idea of reigning in these federal agencies?
  - pannSun 4y ago
    I didn't read that response as a defense. It sounded more like the opposite.
spamizbad 4y ago
I mean we allowed the alphabet agencies to cooperate with social media companies to fight "ISIS propaganda." -- what did you think would happen? Scorpion, frog, etc. If we had stood up to them in 2013, drew a line in the sand and said "No, a bunch of poorly edited snuff films aren't going to cause a bunch of American teens to join an Islamic revolution" these relationships wouldn't exist. By the way, we are currently trying to ban TikTok because of similar concerns about it rotting teens brains. Before we start frothing at the mouth in rage at some problematic app let's do a thought experiment and consider the future blowback from taking such extreme action.
- ummonk 4y ago
  It is simply a fact that ISIS did successfully radicalize and recruit western teenagers via the internet. What if anything the government should do to prevent such recruitment is a matter of debate, but you shouldn't pretend such recruitment didn't happen.
  - spamizbad 4y ago
    > It is simply a fact that ISIS did successfully radicalize and recruit western teenagers via the internet. At no meaningful scale. If some dumbass wants to throw their life away in a foreign country we obviously should use all legal means to discourage that but part of being a liberal democracy means you do in fact have to give people enough freedom (rope) to hang themselves.
    - thrashh 4y ago
      Just like how a bunch of random people paid for flight school classes with cash… oh wait, that ended in 9/11 No one knows what is gonna be credible, but damned if you do and damned if you don’t
      - dbfx 4y ago
        And what did they do about it once they got this information? Yeah that's what I thought.
beej71 4y ago
I'm struggling to understand what punishment needs to be handed out, here. The government asked Twitter to keep some of their fake propaganda accounts online and Twitter did. What laws have been violated?
- pannSun 4y ago
  We are discussing whether the event is notable, not if it is legal. And as someone not from the US, I care more about making people aware that Twitter collaborates with the US to help spread their govt. propaganda (in the same way I would want them to know if the doctor they're discussing smoking with is employed by the tobacco industry), than whether Twitter complies with laws written by that same government. I.e. claiming no laws were violated (hypothetically) is as much a defense of Twitter as claiming TikTok hasn't broken Chinese law.
  - beej71 4y ago
    People should definitely know. For any government and public-facing system, that government will use that public-facing system to achieve its ends. Sometimes this is asking that system to print a PSA. Sometimes this is asking that system to maintain propaganda accounts. This definitely exists, and I'm not sure why people think it wouldn't. We can complain, but the real remedy is to put laws in place if this is something we really care about.
- NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
  The First Amendment: >Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. It's since been expanded through court cases to extend from congress to every government entity including local ones. The government is constitutionally forbidden from meddling with the press, even through private entities via the 14th amendment. The FBI and CIA meddled with twitter. The particulars aren't relevant. They're expressly forbidden from doing what they did.

robert_foss 4y ago

It used to be CIA and TV. Nothing new under the sun.

philippejara 4y ago
One would hope that after the patriot act, the bush jr wars, cablegate, the nsa leaks and so on just in the last 20 years people would desire to not keep the old habits, but I suppose all it took was one buffoon to take presidency and all that rolls back. Truly a sad sight from those looking hopeful after the occupy movement and all the anti surveillance sentiment post-leaks.
- barbacoa 4y ago
  Endless war, domestic surveillance, expanding government power. The modern left has become the neo-conservatives.
- zmgsabst 4y ago
  All of that is still happening in the populist movement, both left (Russell Brand, Jimmy Dore, etc) and right (Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, Robert Barnes, etc.). The populist movement which has been gaining traction through new media and new organizations outside of traditional parties. Also, the “Woke” psyop used to destroy Occupy Wall St has now destroyed corporate America with ESG and Woke media scandals. As usual, the CIA and friends are bad at managing blowback.
- yucky 4y ago
  > the bush jr wars Small correction, we can't call them the Bush Jr. wars when they survived and thrived for 8 years under Obama. These were FULLY bipartisan fuckups of monumental proportion that proves how much both parties are in the pocket of Raytheon & Northrop Grumman.
colpabar 4y ago
I really don't get this response. Cops treating black people horribly is also "nothing new under the sun". Does that make it ok? Has everyone just given up on the idea of reigning in these federal agencies?
- pannSun 4y ago
  I didn't read that response as a defense. It sounded more like the opposite.

spamizbad 4y ago

I mean we allowed the alphabet agencies to cooperate with social media companies to fight "ISIS propaganda." -- what did you think would happen? Scorpion, frog, etc. If we had stood up to them in 2013, drew a line in the sand and said "No, a bunch of poorly edited snuff films aren't going to cause a bunch of American teens to join an Islamic revolution" these relationships wouldn't exist. By the way, we are currently trying to ban TikTok because of similar concerns about it rotting teens brains. Before we start frothing at the mouth in rage at some problematic app let's do a thought experiment and consider the future blowback from taking such extreme action.

ummonk 4y ago
It is simply a fact that ISIS did successfully radicalize and recruit western teenagers via the internet. What if anything the government should do to prevent such recruitment is a matter of debate, but you shouldn't pretend such recruitment didn't happen.
- spamizbad 4y ago
  > It is simply a fact that ISIS did successfully radicalize and recruit western teenagers via the internet. At no meaningful scale. If some dumbass wants to throw their life away in a foreign country we obviously should use all legal means to discourage that but part of being a liberal democracy means you do in fact have to give people enough freedom (rope) to hang themselves.
  - thrashh 4y ago
    Just like how a bunch of random people paid for flight school classes with cash… oh wait, that ended in 9/11 No one knows what is gonna be credible, but damned if you do and damned if you don’t
    - dbfx 4y ago
      And what did they do about it once they got this information? Yeah that's what I thought.

beej71 4y ago

I'm struggling to understand what punishment needs to be handed out, here. The government asked Twitter to keep some of their fake propaganda accounts online and Twitter did. What laws have been violated?

pannSun 4y ago
We are discussing whether the event is notable, not if it is legal. And as someone not from the US, I care more about making people aware that Twitter collaborates with the US to help spread their govt. propaganda (in the same way I would want them to know if the doctor they're discussing smoking with is employed by the tobacco industry), than whether Twitter complies with laws written by that same government. I.e. claiming no laws were violated (hypothetically) is as much a defense of Twitter as claiming TikTok hasn't broken Chinese law.
- beej71 4y ago
  People should definitely know. For any government and public-facing system, that government will use that public-facing system to achieve its ends. Sometimes this is asking that system to print a PSA. Sometimes this is asking that system to maintain propaganda accounts. This definitely exists, and I'm not sure why people think it wouldn't. We can complain, but the real remedy is to put laws in place if this is something we really care about.
NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
The First Amendment: >Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. It's since been expanded through court cases to extend from congress to every government entity including local ones. The government is constitutionally forbidden from meddling with the press, even through private entities via the 14th amendment. The FBI and CIA meddled with twitter. The particulars aren't relevant. They're expressly forbidden from doing what they did.