The Senate Snowflake Grievance Committee Quizzes Tech CEOs On Tweets & Employee Viewpoints

from the this-is-not-how-any-of-this-works dept

On Wednesday morning the Senate Commerce Committee held a nearly four hour long hearing ostensibly about Section 230 with three internet CEOs: Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook, Sundar Pichai from Google, and Jack Dorsey from Twitter. The hearing went about as expected: meaning it was mostly ridiculous nonsense. You had multiple Republican Senators demanding that these CEOs explain why they had taken actions on certain content, with some silly "whataboutism" on other kinds of content where action wasn't taken. Then you had multiple Democratic Senators demanding these CEOs explain why they hadn't taken faster action on pretty much the same content that Republicans had complained some action had been taken on.

The shorter summary was that Republicans were demanding that their own lies and propaganda should be left alone, while Democrats demanded that lies and propaganda should be removed faster. Both of these positions are an anathema to the 1st Amendment, and the people advocating for them on both sides should be embarrassed. While each platform has the right, under the 1st Amendment, to host or not host whatever speech they want, based on whatever policies they set, Congress cannot and should not, be in the position of either telling companies what content they need to host or what content they must take down. And yet, we saw examples of both during the hearing. On the Democratic side, Senators Markey and Baldwin, among a few others, pushed the companies to take down more content. This is extremely troubling on 1st Amendment grounds. On the Republican side, many, many Senators demanded that certain content should be unblocked -- in particular the NY Post's Twitter account.

And there were a few (very limited) good points from both sides of the aisle. Senator Brian Schatz noted that the entire hearing was being done in bad faith by Senate Republicans to try to bully the companies into not removing disinformation in the final week of the election. He noted that, while he had many questions for the three CEOs, he would not participate in this "sham" by asking questions during this particular hearing. Kudos to him. On the Republican side, Senator Jerry Moran noted that changes to Section 230 were the kinds of things that the three companies before the Committee could handle, but which would hamstring smaller competitors (to be fair, Jack Dorsey made this point in his opening testimony as well).

But I wanted to focus on some specific grandstanding by a few key Senators who made particularly ridiculous statements. And, I will point out upfront that these all came from Republicans. I'm not pointing that out because I'm "biased" against them, but because of the simple objective fact that it was these Republican Senators who made the most ridiculous statements of the day. The key theme between them was a ridiculous sense of grievance, and a false belief that the company's moderation practices unfairly targeted "conservatives." Except nearly all of them assumed that because more Republicans were moderated, that was proof of bias -- and not the idea that, perhaps, Republicans do more things that violate the policies of these companies. In the same manner that I'm picking on mostly Republican Senators here, that has more to do with their own actions, than any personal "bias."

What was most frightening, however, in the comments from these Senators is how at home they would have been in the days of Joseph McCarthy. Multiple Senators demanded to know about the personal ideological viewpoints of people who worked for these companies. Both Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg correctly pointed out that they do not ask their employees about their political leanings (Pichai stated that they hire from all over, implying that there was a diverse ideological pool within their workforce).

It is stunning and dangerous for Senators to be demanding to know the political leanings of employees at any particular company. Senators Mike Lee, Ron Johnson and Marsha Blackburn all asked questions along these lines. Lee, who historically has been aligned with libertarian viewpoints, completely misrepresented the content moderation policies of these companies and insisted that they disproportionately target conservatives. They do not. If conservatives are violating their policies more than others, then that's on those people violating the policies, and not on the policies themselves. Lee also fell into the ridiculous myth that Google's policies directly targeted conservatives in demonetizing The Federalist. As we've discussed multiple times, that's utter bullshit. We received identical treatment to The Federalist. So did Slate and Buzzfeed. Lee, ridiculously, argued that the companies saying -- accurately -- that they do not target moderation decisions based on ideology perhaps violated laws against "unfair or deceptive trade practices." Basically because Lee falsely believes these companies target conservative speech (because he's so deep in his own filter bubble he doesn't even know it hits others as well), that they're engaging in deceptive practices.

Lee demanded that each company list "left leaning" accounts that had received similar treatment, and the various CEOs promised to get back to him, but this was a nonsense argument.

However the most ridiculous part of Lee's grandstanding was his disingenuous framing of content moderation. He started asking about how these companies "censor" content. In the past, we've discussed how moderation and censorship differ, but Lee stretched the definition to insane levels:

I think the trend is clear, you almost always censor -- meaning.... uh... when I use the word censor here I mean block content, fact check or label content, or demonetize websites.

In what fucking world does Senator Lee live in that fact checking is censorship? This is utter nonsense. Indeed, when Sundar Pichai actually pushed back and said "we don't censor," Lee jumped in obnoxiously to say that "I used the word censor as a term of art there and I defined that word." That's not how it works. You can't redefine a term to mean the literal opposite of what it means "as a term of art" and then demand that everyone agrees that they "censored" when your own definition includes fact checking or responding to a statement with more speech.

Senator Ron Johnson's time was particularly egregious. He read the following tweet into the record.

It's a tweet from a "Mary T. Hagan" saying:

Sen Ron Johnson is my neighbor and strangled our dog, Buttons, right in front of my 4 yr old son and 3 yr old daughter. The police refuse to investigate. This is a complete lie but important to retweet and note that there are more of my lies to come.

Yes, he read that whole thing into the record, and then whined directly to Jack Dorsey that this should not have been left up, and that people might not go to the polls and vote for him if they read it. It's hard to know where to begin on this one. Especially since it came right after Johnson was mad about other moderation choices Twitter had made to takedown content. But the most incredible bit was that the obvious point of this tweet (which seemed to fly right over Johnson's head) is to make fun of Johnson's own willingness over the past few months to push Russian-originated propaganda talking points, and then whine that the media won't do anything about it and that law enforcement won't investigate.

So, a simple question for Johnson to answer would be: if he wants this tweet removed, how about removing his own efforts at pushing unverified propagandistic nonsense about Joe Biden?

But, really, this was par for the course for so much of the hearing. Senators (both Democrats and Republicans) showing a vast misunderstanding of how content moderation works, would call up a single example of a content moderation choice and demand an explanation -- often ignoring the explanations from Dorsey and Zuckerberg who would calmly explain what their policy was, why a certain piece of content did or did not violate that policy -- and then scream louder as if they had found some sort of "gotcha" moment.

But honestly, the most insane moment of the hearing most likely involved Senator Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee. Blackburn has a long history of saying the complete opposite argument depending on which way the wind blows at any particular time. For example, during the net neutrality fight she screamed about how it was an example of government interference with innovation and that if we had net neutrality it would destroy "Facebook, YouTube, Twitter" (literally those three companies). Yet a few years later, she supported a bill to regulate the internet in the form of PIPA, a pro-censorship copyright bill.

Then, four years ago, she insisted that internet services had an obligation to delete "fake news." Yet, in the hearing on Wednesday, she flipped out at the companies for trying to moderate any news at all.

And then she took it one step further, and demanded to know if a Google engineer who made fun of her was still employed at the company.

Blackburn (R-Tenn.) asked CEO Sundar Pichai whether Blake Lemoine, a senior software engineer and artificial intelligence researcher, still has a job at Google.

“He has had very unkind things to say about me and I was just wondering if you all had still kept him working there,” Blackburn said during the hearing, where she and other GOP lawmakers accused tech companies of squelching free speech.

Pichai said he did not know Lemoine’s employment status.

Breitbart News reported in 2018 that Lemoine had criticized Blackburn’s legislative record in excerpts of internal company messages and said Google should not “acquiesce to the theatrical demands of a legislator.”

“I’m not big on negotiation with terrorists,” Lemoine said, according to Breitbart.

Having a sitting US Senator specifically call out an employee for criticizing her, and asking to know his employment status is fundamentally terrifying. It is, again, reminiscent of the McCarthy hearings, and having elected officials targeting people for their political viewpoints. If people were serious about calling out "cancel culture," they'd be screaming about how dangerous it is that Blackburn was saying something like this.

The end result of the hearing was a lot more nonsense grandstanding that demonstrated that too many Senators simply do not understand the nature of content moderation, and because they personally disagree with certain policies, or the implementation of certain policies, it means that the companies are somehow doing it wrong. But this is the very nature of content moderation. No single human being will agree with every decision. To immediately leap to the assumption of bad intent (or bad policies) because you disagree with a small sample set of decisions is intellectually lazy and dishonest.

Oh, and Ted Cruz also did some theatrical bullshit, that was mostly performative idiocy, but since he only did it to get a few social media snippets and headlines, we're not going to play that game, and just say simply that Senator Cruz came off like a total disingenuous jackass, who wanted to make the hearing about himself, rather than anything even remotely substantive.

Filed Under: content moderation, ed markey, grandstanding, jack dorsey, mark zuckerberg, marsha blackburn, mike lee, ron johnson, section 230, senate commerce committee, sundar pichai, ted cruz
Companies: facebook, google, twitter

Zuckerberg And Facebook Throw The Open Internet Under The Bus; Support Section 230 Reform

from the because-of-course dept

This shouldn't be much of a surprise, unfortunately, but it appears that once again Facebook is the first to crack under political pressure, and has decided to sell out the open internet and free speech online. In testimony Mark Zuckerberg is planning to give tomorrow to the Senate Commerce Committee, he's going to say a few nice things about Section 230, immediately followed by him saying the company now supports reforming the law. The praise for Section 230 is accurate, but it doesn't much matter when he takes it back immediately:

However, the debate about Section 230 shows that people of all political persuasions are unhappy with the status quo. People want to know that companies are taking responsibility for combatting harmful content—especially illegal activity—on their platforms. They want to know that when platforms remove content, they are doing so fairly and transparently. And they want to make sure that platforms are held accountable.

This ignores that people are unhappy for contradictory reasons. Some are unhappy because sites are taking down propaganda and disinformation. Others are upset that they're not taking down propaganda and disinformation (or not taking it down fast enough). NOTHING will satisfy everyone. Pretending that there's some magical reform that will work is crazy talk.

But here's the real problem. Whatever nuance there is to be discussed here, whatever recognition of the problems this will cause, the following paragraph will be seen as declaring open season on Section 230 because "even Facebook supports changing the law."

Section 230 made it possible for every major internet service to be built and ensured important values like free expression and openness were part of how platforms operate. Changing it is a significant decision. However, I believe Congress should update the law to make sure it’s working as intended. We support the ideas around transparency and industry collaboration that are being discussed in some of the current bipartisan proposals, and I look forward to a meaningful dialogue about how we might update the law to deal with the problems we face today.

This is nonsense. It is working as intended. It's allowing companies to make their own decisions, and to experiment with different moderation regimes. That many people are unhappy with those choices is the very nature of content moderation. It's not like Congress is going to step in and create rules that work any better. It will only create rules that work worse.

At Facebook, we don’t think tech companies should be making so many decisions about these important issues alone. I believe we need a more active role for governments and regulators, which is why in March last year I called for regulation on harmful content, privacy, elections, and data portability. We stand ready to work with Congress on what regulation could look like in these areas. By updating the rules for the internet, we can preserve what’s best about it—the freedom for people to express themselves and for entrepreneurs to build new things—while also protecting society from broader harms. I would encourage this Committee and other stakeholders to make sure that any changes do not have unintended consequences that stifle expression or impede innovation.

And, yes, he's repeating what he's said before, knowing full fucking well that any regulations that Congress puts in place will simply serve to lock in Facebook's position. Facebook can handle the compliance costs. The upstart companies that might disrupt Facebook will have a much harder time.

Make no mistake about it: this is Mark Zuckerberg pulling up the innovation ladder he climbed behind him.

This probably isn't a huge surprise. Facebook's vocal support for FOSTA -- the law that amended Section 230 and put lives at risk -- was only a first step. I was told, point blank, by a Facebook lobbyist that the company needed to support that "minor" change to Section 230 or Congress would have passed something even worse. And here we are, with Congress seeing Facebook's initial caving not as a way to be satiated, but rather as the go-ahead to continue dismantling the framework of an open internet.

And, once again, here's Facebook, happily willing to go along with it.

Facebook is throwing the open internet under the bus -- in part gleefully, as so-called "critics" of Facebook stupidly demanded "reforms to Section 230" incorrectly believing that 230 was a "special subsidy" for Facebook. Facebook doesn't need it any more, but all of the people who called for such reforms are now going to help cement Facebook's position of dominance.

Unfortunately, this is likely to be the focus of tomorrow's hearing, with Senators taking this as permission to destroy the open internet. It is likely that they will ignore fellow panelist Jack Dorsey giving the opposing message that Section 230 is necessary to enable new competitors and free speech on an open internet:

As we consider developing new legislative frameworks, or committing to self-regulation models for content moderation, we should remember that Section 230 has enabled new companies—small ones seeded with an idea—to build and compete with established companies globally. Eroding the foundation of Section 230 could collapse how we communicate on the Internet, leaving only a small number of giant and well-funded technology companies.

We should also be mindful that undermining Section 230 will result in far more removal of online speech and impose severe limitations on our collective ability to address harmful content and protect people online. I do not think anyone in this room or the American people want less free speech or more abuse and harassment online. Instead, what I hear from people is that they want to be able to trust the services they are using.

That's the right message and an accurate one. And it will be stomped on by the message from Zuckerberg agreeing to throw the open internet under a speeding bus.

Filed Under: free speech, jack dorsey, mark zuckerberg, open internet, section 230
Companies: facebook, twitter

Trumpist Republicans Latest Freakout A Total Self-Own, As They Reveal They Don't Read What They Tweet

from the how-are-you-this-fucking-dumb? dept

I know, I know: Trumpists have decided that part of the culture war they need to create for the election is that "big tech" is somehow "censoring conservatives." The narrative is complete bullshit, but the Trump cultists are so deeply bought into it that they'll make themselves look absolutely ridiculous to further it. The latest is that a bunch of Republican officials apparently don't understand Twitter and, in trying to continue this anti-tech culture war, instead demonstrated to the world that they can't read.

The issue: a few weeks back Twitter introduced a new feature, popping up a little warning if you go to retweet an article before actually clicking through on it. They had been testing this for a few months, but finally rolled it out widely a few weeks ago. The idea is to try to get people to read through what it is they're retweeting, rather than blindly retweeting it without reading. It's an experiment to try to slow the spread of disinformation and to get people more engaged. I don't know how well it will work, but the logic behind it makes some amount of sense.

Except... on Wednesday, prominent Republicans discovered this feature, and incorrectly thought that it was (1) blocking retweets (2) blocking access to links it was actually telling people to click on and (3) only applying this to content that Trumpists liked.

The Twitter account for the House Judiciary Committee Republicans tweeted a screenshot claiming that Twitter "put a warning label" on a Sean Hannity link. Of course, in their very screenshot (which it appears they did not read) it clearly says: "Headlines don't tell the full story. You can read the article on Twitter before Retweeting." And then it has a link to "Learn more" which tells people about the policy.

So, to be clear: this is not a warning label. It is not applied selectively to Republican content. If they had actually clicked through to the underlying article they wouldn't have seen it. If they had read the label that they screenshotted it clearly explains it. If they had any confusion they could have clicked on the link to get even more information about what's happening.

But, no, these geniuses immediately insisted it was a Twitter plot against "conservatives."

And the thing is, their idiot followers are buying it. There are tons of replies to the tweet about how Congress needs to take away Section 230 or shut down Twitter because of this... effort to encourage people to read before they tweet.

But, of course, it spread quickly. The President's son Don Jr. retweeted someone else showing a screenshot and added three sirens:

He also tweeted out a somewhat infamous internet troll claiming that Twitter only does it for the Republican fundraising site WinRed, but not for the Democratic fundraising site ActBlue. This is wrong. All it means is that the troll clicked through to an ActBlue page before trying to retweet, but not the WinRed page. And yet, the troll's supporters are incorrectly claiming this is "election interference."

Then we have Rep. Doug Collins from Georgia, currently running to be Senator in Georgia (against Kelly Loeffler, so there are no good choices), who got the same message FOUR TIMES and apparently read it zero times because he took screenshots and retweeted all four times, even though it says quite clearly that all it's asking you to do is to READ a link before you retweet it. And Collins is apparently too stupid to realize that this is happening on any article you have first clicked on. Finally, it's NOT "censorship" in any sense of the word to nudge you towards actually reading the article. It's like the reverse of censorship. It's encouraging you to read the content.

I'd really like to believe that there are some competent, level-headed politicians within Congress, but right now the Republicans there seem to be embracing the "we're so fucking stupid that we'll tweet out examples of how we can't read" as a strategic culture war play.

Filed Under: donald trump jr. house republicans, doug collins, gop, judiciary committee, reading, reading comprehension
Companies: twitter

Republicans, Who Have Made Sure The Federal Election Commission Can't Do Anything, File A Complaint About Twitter's Moderation Practices

from the this-is-not-how-any-of-this-works dept

Last week, Senator Josh Hawley (who knows better) sent a ridiculous letter to the Federal Election Commission claiming that Twitter and Facebook's decision (based on different reasons) to limit the sharing of a sketchy NY Post article was election interference. We explained why that was nonsense, but it appears that the Republican Party no longer gives a shit about what the law actually says when it can play the victim.

On Friday, the Republican National Committee filed a formal complaint with the FEC as well. Before we get into the details of why this complaint is horseshit, it is worth noting that the FEC cannot meet right now because it does not have enough members for a quorum. And this is on the Republicans themselves. Last year, the FEC also was without a quorum, which prevents it from issuing fines, making rules, or conducting audits.

Earlier this year, the FEC very briefly had a quorum, when the Senate confirmed Trey Trainor to a spot in May. Yet a month later another Commissioner, Caroline Hunter, resigned. And, once again the FEC cannot conduct most business. And while Trump has announced who he "intends" to nominate, there is no indication that that nomination was ever officially sent to the Senate. At the very least, the Senate has shown no sign that it is moving ahead with the nomination. And that means there will not be a functioning FEC from now until at least the election.

Given that, it does seem at least somewhat ironic that the Republicans are now demanding FEC action over Twitter's content moderation practices. The FEC can't actually do anything right now. Because Republicans in the Senate haven't filled the seats.

And, of course, even if they did, this complaint would go nowhere for a variety of reasons (including that the person Trump is nominating has strong 1st Amendment credentials). But, more to the point, whether you agree with their policies or not, both Facebook and Twitter showed clear, long-standing policy reasons for why they slowed the spread of the NY Post story. And in neither case was it "because we want to help Joe Biden." That wasn't the rationale, and it's silly for Republicans to pretend otherwise. And for it to be an FEC violation, it would have to have been "for the purpose of influencing an election." There is no way that either company's actions qualify for that, no matter how many whiny Republicans insist that that is the reason.

On top of that, not wishing to host certain stories is not, in any way shape or form, making a "contribution" to a political campaign. If it was, Fox News has spent most of its life "interfering" with Democratic candidates, and providing "contributions" in the form of news coverage "of value... for the purpose of influencing an election." And, indeed, in the past some have argued that Fox News has violated campaign finance laws -- but the FEC has responded by pointing out that this is allowed under the 1st Amendment.

The same thing is true of Twitter choosing not to host a link as well. It has a 1st Amendment right not to be compelled to host speech it disagrees with. You would think that the party that fought hard to make sure a baker didn't have to bake a cake with a message it disagreed with would understand that concept.

Finally, this move goes against Republicans long-standing support for Citizens United, in which they insisted (and took to the Supreme Court and won) the claim that effectively says the 1st Amendment cannot be overruled by campaign finance law.

It is an incredibly ridiculous move for these very same Republicans who have long fought battles on the other side to now try to argue that Twitter's totally justifiable (even if I think wrongly decided) policy decision is somehow a campaign finance violation. It's not, and it's both cynical and hypocritical for Republicans to claim otherwise.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, content moderation, electioneering, fec, republicans
Companies: twitter

Another Anti-Section 230 Bill? Sure, Why Not?

from the another-day,-another-attack-on-free-speech dept

Because there haven't already been enough attempts by Congress this year to attack free speech on the internet, here's another one. Rep. Ted Budd has introduced yet another bill to wipe out Section 230 and undermine free speech online. Of course, he's really just putting his House stamp on the ridiculous and unconstitutional Senate bill released earlier this year by Senators Hawley, Rubio, Loeffler, Cotton and Braun that we took apart at the time. I'm not going to go over all the reasons the bill is ridiculous and unconstitutional. We covered that when it was released in the Senate.

But Budd's "statement" about the bill deserves to be picked apart because it's utter lunacy.

“Recent acts of political censorship by Twitter and Facebook are a disgrace. Big Tech bias has gone too far in suffocating the voices of conservatives across our country. If these companies want to continue to receive legal protection, they should be forced to play by a fair set of rules in good faith. I’m extremely proud to join Sen. Hawley in this fight.”

Everything about this is wrong. Twitter and Facebook are not "censoring." They are moderating. They are saying there is certain speech they don't want to host, and this is their right, just like Fox News or the NY Post get to spew one sided news and the government cannot do anything about it. But they can't demand that other private companies help them promote that nonsense. That's not censorship. It's moderation or discretion. And it's protected by the 1st Amendment. You know, the thing that Rep. Budd swore to protect and uphold.

Imagine if Congress introduced a bill saying that Fox News actually had to be "fair and balanced" and be more positive towards Democrats and Joe Biden. Republicans like Budd would be screaming about how that was an unfair and unconstitutional infringement of Fox News' 1st Amendment rights. And they'd be right. But the desire to ignore all that and compel speech from social media companies just demonstrates that elected officials like Budd are not coming from a place of principled support of the Constitution or free speech. Rather they are pathetic simpletons who think that they can abuse their power to force companies to promote their bullshit.

That's not how it works, and we shouldn't let grifters in Congress get away with pushing such nonsense. Rep. Budd should be ashamed that he's shitting all over the 1st Amendment while pretending to support free speech. His constituents should think deeply about why they've elected someone so willing to sell out the 1st Amendment.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, content moderation, good faith, intermediary liability, josh hawley, section 230, ted budd
Companies: facebook, twitter

DOJ Says Trump's Tweets Declassifying All Russia Investigation Docs Doesn't Mean Anything; Judge Says They Better Go Ask Him

from the how's-that-work-again? dept

Investigative reporter/FOIA terrorist Jason Leopold has been suing the US government for a while now, trying to get access to the full Robert Mueller special counsel report investigating President Trump's alleged ties to Russia. While a version of the report has been released, it was heavily redacted, sometimes in important areas. Leopold and Buzzfeed are seeking the report along with additional interview details, emails, memos, letters, and charts used by Mueller's office in preparing it. Not surprisingly, the DOJ has been fighting this.

Then, on October 6th, Trump announced on Twitter (naturally) that he had "fully authorized the total declassification of any & all documents" regarding the investigation:

About 40 minutes later, he tweeted that "all Russia Hoax Scandal information was Declassified by me long ago. Unfortunately for our Country, people have acted very slowly":

That put the DOJ in a bit of a bind, because it had been saying in the lawsuit that it couldn't reveal this classified information. Leopold and his lawyers quickly filed an emergency motion, pointing out that the President had now declassified this information, and thus the DOJ no longer had any excuse to withhold it:

On October 6, 2020, the President of the United States directed that all documents pertaining to investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election, which includes the Mueller investigation, be released to the public, and stated that he had, in fact, previously ordered this be done. Twitter, @realDonaldTrump, Oct. 6, 2020 at 8:41pm (“I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!”); Twitter, @realDonaldTrump, Oct. 6, 2020 at 9:21pm (“All Russia Hoax Scandal information was Declassified by me long ago. Unfortunately for our Country, people have acted very slowly, especially since it is perhaps the biggest political crime in the history of our Country. Act!!!”) (attached as Group Exhibit A). As a result, (1) Exemption 1 no longer applies because the records are no longer classified, and (2) any FOIA exemptions have been waived with the exception of disclosures prohibited by the Privacy Act, Rule 6(e), or other statutes that prohibit release.

As a result, Plaintiffs ask the Court to order the government to reprocess the 302s to remove all redactions or withholdings based on Exemption 1 or any discretionary exemptions like Exemption 5, by October 28, 2020. This should be a simple process that requires no independent analysis or consultation beyond simply reviewing which exemptions were asserted and removing the applicable redactions based solely on which exemption claimed.

It should be noted here (and this is kind of important) that the President of the United States has total freedom to declassify anything on his own whims at any time. And these tweets sure looked like him doing exactly that.

The DOJ has now decided to pretend that the statements from the President are not actually official statements from the President. In its opposition to Leopold's filing as well as the declaration in support, they argue that the President's tweets insisting that he is declassifying everything don't mean jack squat.

There is no basis to require the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) to reprocess over 4,000 pages of FD-302s from the Special Counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election by October 28. The President’s recent statements on Twitter referencing the “declassification” of information were not an order to the Department of Justice (the “Department” or “DOJ”) to declassify the materials in this case.... The Twitter statements do not constitute a self-executing declassification order. ...

Oh really? The declaration from the Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer basically says that White House lawyers told them to ignore the tweets.

As concerns the above-referenced tweets from the President, the Department has not received a declassification order from the President related to the materials at issue in this or any other FOIA case. After the President issued his statements on Twitter, I and other Department officials consulted with the White House Counsel's Office about the matters discussed in those statements, including potential declassification of documents related to the Russia Investigation and Hillary Clinton's emails, and whether the Twitter statements were meant as an order to alter any redactions that have already been taken on any materials in this case and other FOIA cases. The purpose of this consultation was to obtain the official position of the White House regarding the meaning and effect of the President's statements.

In other words, the DOJ is saying that it can't actually follow the plain language of the President's own tweets, and must check with the White House's lawyers to ask "did he really mean that?"

The White House Counsel's Office informed the Department that there is no order requiring wholesale declassification or disclosure of documents at issue in this matter. The Department was further informed that the President's statements on Twitter were not self-executing declassification orders and do not required the declassification of any particular documents. Instead, the President has authorized the Attorney General to declassify documents as part of his ongoing review of intelligence activities relating to the 2016 Presidential election and certain related matters. The Attorney General has not ordered the declassification and release of any of the redacted material in this case based on the President's tweets. The Department was further informed that the President's statements on Twitter do not require altering any redactions on any record at issue in this case, including, but not limited to, any redactions taken pursuant to any discretionary FOIA exemptions. Nor do the President's statements on Twitter prevent the Department from taking appropriate exemptions and redacting documents consistent with law and the positions the Department takes in FOIA matters.

So: we're just ignoring what the President tweeted because we want to.

Leopold and Buzzfeed have since responded by pointing out that the President regularly makes decrees by Twitter, and that those are him "conducting official business." The DOJ can't just ignore that:

or the last three years and nine months, the President has governed this country by tweet. The President has stipulated that he uses Twitter “to announce, describe, and defend his policies; to promote his Administration's legislative agenda; to announce official decisions; to engage with foreign political leaders; [and] to publicize state visits.” Knight First Amendment Inst. at Columbia Univ. v. Trump, 928 F.3d 226, 231-32 (2d Cir. 2019) (emphasis added). His administration describes the President’s Twitter account as “one of the White House’s main vehicles for conducting official business” and his tweets are “official statements of the President.” Id. at 232. He has even used his tweets to make “official” “legal notice” to Congress. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Jan. 5, 2020, 2:25 PM), available at https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1213919480574812160 (notifying Congress the United States “will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner,” should Iran attack any U.S. target).

It is not at all surprising, therefore, that the President would use Twitter as the means by which he would declassify records and waive FOIA exemptions on behalf of the Executive Branch over which is holds Constitutional authority. Indeed, it would be surprising if he did so by any other means. The Court should reject the Government’s back-pedaling and order DOJ to comply with the President’s clear directive to declassify and remove redactions from the narrative FD-302 forms responsive to Plaintiffs’ FOIA requests. And if the Court requires any clarity beyond the President’s unequivocal tweets, it should direct the Office of White House Counsel to appear at the hearing scheduled for Friday.

The filing further notes that there is no rule that declassification can't come by tweet or has to take a special form. If the President says something is declassified it is declassified.

There is nothing in the Constitution, Executive Order 13,526, or otherwise that prohibits a president from declassifying records in whatever way and through whatever form of communication the president sees fit. Thus, an official presidential tweet stating “I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. . . . No redactions!” is more than sufficient to exercise that Constitutional authority. The government offers nothing indicating that the President did not mean exactly what he said or that he lacked the Constitutional authority to do what he has done. Instead, it claims that Plaintiffs “have pointed to no order declassifying the documents at issue in this case,” ECF No. 107 at 4, which is plainly wrong: the tweet is the order, and it came in an official statement directly from the President himself.

The filing also notes that what the White House counsel thinks doesn't matter. The only one who matters here is the President himself:

The Weinsheimer declaration does not support the government’s position, and in fact supports Plaintiffs’. As the declaration makes clear, the question is whether the tweets were “meant as an order to alter any redactions that have already been taken on any materials in this case and other cases.” .... But the declaration makes clear that neither the DOJ nor the White House Counsel’s Office actually attempted to get an answer to that question from the only person who can definitively answer it: the President. Instead, they sought, apparently without actually asking the President, to determine whether the President issued some further “self-executing declassification order” beyond the tweets and somehow concluded that the President merely “authorized the Attorney General to declassify documents as part of his ongoing review of intelligence activities relating to the 2016 Presidential election and certain related matters.”.... But the President himself has already made clear that this interpretation of his intent is wrong: he clearly stated in an official presidential communication that this same material “was Declassified by me long ago,” but “people have acted very slowly.”

This morning, in a hearing before Judge Reggie Walton (who is not known for being happy when the government plays games in front of him), it appears that Leopold's argument is absolutely winning the day. Walton told the DOJ that Trump's tweets seem pretty clear and he doesn't see how they can argue he didn't declassify stuff. He also seemed perturbed that no one actually asked the President what he meant, and postponed the rest of the hearing to tell the DOJ to go ask the President if he actually meant what he tweeted:

Of course, it now seems likely that the White House lawyers and the DOJ will very carefully explain to the President why they want him to say he didn't mean what he clearly said, potentially allowing him to walk back his fairly unequivocal statements. At the very least, though, that should enable reporters to question the President further on why he falsely claimed to have declassified stuff. At the end of the day, either all of the documents have been declassified or the President will need to admit that he lied about declassifying them.

Filed Under: declassification, doj, donald trump, jason leopold, reggie walton, robert mueller, russia investigation, tweets
Companies: buzzfeed, twitter

Twitter Fixes Its Bad Policy On Blocking 'Hacked' Documents

from the good-to-see dept

As I'm sure you're already aware, there was a lot of focus this week on Twitter's content moderation practices, after it chose to stop people from linking to a sketchy NY Post article that contained some emails taken from a computer that was claimed to have been Hunter Biden's laptop. While many in the Trump orbit were insisting that this was "anti-conservative bias," the company said that the issue was violating its "hacked content" policies, as well as its policies against showing images revealing personal information, such as email addresses.

As we have discussed in the past this policy was already quite controversial, out of fear that it would be used to block reporting on leaked documents.

Late last night, Twitter announced that after hearing those concerns, they were changing the policy. Rather than responding to the controversy, and the nonsense grandstanding by clueless politicians, they were actually responding to the legitimate concerns many of raised about how this policy could block legitimate reporting, journalism organizations, and activist groups:

The new policy is that Twitter may -- instead of blocking such links outright -- begin to add labels and context to such links. In other words (once again) taking a "more speech" approach, rather than a straight up "block" decision. I think this is the right move and, while I wish Twitter had made it earlier, it's good to see the company paying attention and improving.

As the new announcement notes, the policy against linking to private information or manipulated media remain in place -- suggesting that this won't actually change the ability to link to that NY Post article. But it does fix the hamfisted nature of that policy.

Filed Under: content moderation, friction, hacked documents, journalism, labelling, more speech, reporting
Companies: twitter

Facebook & Twitter Try To Limit The Spread Of Sketchy NY Post Story; Leading To Ridiculous Trumpist Meltdown

from the content-moderation-mess dept

Yesterday was certainly an interesting day in the content moderation realm. Early in the morning the NY Post released a story that I won't link to, mainly because it's hot garbage. If you want a concise, non-hyperbolic, and thorough (and non-partisan) analysis of why the story is problematic, I suggest reading Thomas Rid's analysis, which highlights the many questions the story raises, and why it should not be reported on until certain details are confirmed.

The story began to spread on social media, though. There were many people (like Thomas) raising questions, or in some cases debunking various aspects of the story (or just putting it into perspective). However, among supporters of President Trump, the story was (misleadingly) being used to claim there was a "smoking gun" of malfeasance on the part of Joe Biden's son, Hunter. The actual details of the story don't seem to support the claims being made. At the very least, without further confirmation, the story had all the hallmarks of a disinformation campaign.

As the story spread, both Facebook and Twitter decided to take steps to limit the spread, in both cases making use of relatively recently introduced policies. For Facebook, it simply limited the spread while fact checkers could check the story:

The company put that policy in place a year ago after facing widespread complaints that by the time Facebook did a thorough fact check on certain information, that information would have already spread widely. So Facebook put in place a sort of two-step process. If something is going viral, and there are concerns that it is disinformation, the company will first slow the ability to spread the information, allowing the full fact-check to take place, and then making a further decision based on the results of the fact check. This is basically a "let's slow this down while we check it out and then decide what to do" policy.

Twitter's move was a bit stronger and more controversial. It blocked people from sharing the link altogether, though not for the reasons most people thought. Twitter says it blocked the sharing of the link because the article was pointing to "hacked" materials. We've discussed Twitter's policy against hacked material in the past, including over the (controversial) decision to shut down the @DDoSecrets account, which posts newsworthy leaked documents, including the "BlueLeaks" documents of law enforcement leaks.

As seen in shutting down @DDoSecrets, Twitter takes a pretty strict definition of "hacked material" and under that definition, the Post's reporting on emails that were taken from a laptop would qualify. That is, even if you disagree with the specific policy that Twitter has in place, it's silly to claim that the takedown was for political purposes.

That said, this policy remains a silly one, and a dangerous one. As we have noted in the past in discussing it, journalists regularly report on leaked or "hacked" materials. And in many cases they are newsworthy. In this case, if the information is correct, then it is newsworthy.

But, even more to the point, it was not difficult to guess where this decision was going to end up -- which is that the usual crew of Trump sycophants immediately insisted that this was "censorship" on the part of Twitter and Facebook, and an attempt to stifle a story that, if accurate, could be seen by some to paint Joe Biden in a bad light. Indeed, Senator Josh Hawley -- who seems to have found his niche in creating absolutely bullshit panics about this kind of stuff -- quickly got out his pen to send stupid letters. First he sent a nonsense letter to Facebook, claiming that Facebook following the policy it put in place last year was "selective" and "suggests partiality on the part of Facebook."

Seems odd that if that's his concern he hasn't sent such letters to the NY Post or Fox News or Breitbart -- all of whom have made editorial choices that show "partiality" to one candidate. And, of course, the letter fails to acknowledge that this has been Facebook's policy for a year now, or that there may be legitimate reasons to try to slow the spread of possible disinformation. Instead, he tries to cook up a conspiracy.

His letter to Twitter is more of the same. Here, we have a US Senator demanding information regarding a private company's editorial policies. That's a HUGE 1st Amendment problem.

This statement raises questions about the applicability of your policy, especially because such a pre-emptive removal of a news story on such grounds—and the additional scrutiny you have applied—appears to be an unusual intervention that is not universally applied to all content.

I ask that you immediately answer these questions and provide the requisite justifications so that your users can feel confident that you are not seeking to influence the outcome of the presidential election with your content removal decisions.

Politicians should not be able to demand any private company explain their editorial decision making process, especially under the threat of legislation. It's an obvious intimidation tactic, and raises significant 1st Amendment questions.

Finally, Hawley sent an even more ridiculous letter to the Federal Election Commission, claiming that these moderation decisions violate campaign finance law. This is wrong on many, many, many levels. But first I'll note, in passing, that Republicans like Senator Hawley have made sure that the FEC doesn't even have enough members to meet, because the Republican Senate has refused to confirm them.

As for Hawley's claims about campaign finance, they are also hot garbage:

This conduct does not merely censor the core political speech of ordinary Americans, though it certainly does that. Twitter’s and Facebook’s conduct also appears to constitute a clear violation of federal campaign-finance law. Federal law prohibits any corporation from making a contribution to a federal candidate for office. 52 U.S.C. § 30118(a). Twitter and Facebook are both corporations. A “contribution” includes “anything of value . . . for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office.” 52 U.S.C. § 30101(8)(A)(i). Twitter’s and Facebook’s active suppression of public speech about the New York Post article appears to constitute contributions under federal law. There can be no serious doubt that the Biden campaign derives extraordinary value from depriving voters access to information that, if true, would link the former Vice President to corrupt Ukrainian oligarchs. And this censorship manifestly will influence the presidential election.

This is ridiculous. Again, if true, then Fox News, Breitbart, and the NY Post all "violate federal campaign finance law." Hell, under this interpretation, the NY Post "violated campaign finance law" by running this article. So would any newspaper that ran an endorsement. Or any newspaper that (quite reasonably) refused to run this sketchy garbage story from Rudy Giuliani in the first place. This is not how any of this works. And Hawley doesn't want it to work that way either because it would destroy the media companies that prop up his own nonsense.

All that said, I still think that Twitter's decision to block the sharing of the link was hamfisted. Coming just after I praised the company for focusing on friction, rather than suppression, this move seemed more about suppression. And, of course, it was not effective. Lots of people started coming up with ways to get around the block, and at least one account tweeted out every sentence of the article as individual tweets. The Senate Republicans' Twitter account tweeted out a video of the article. And "Streisand Effect" trended on Twitter as Trump supporters noted that the block would likely only serve to draw more attention to the original story.

But it also did something worse. It played right into the bullshit narrative that Twitter is engaging in "anti-conservative bias" in its moderation practices. And it becomes a perfect (if inaccurate) talking point for Republicans like Josh Hawley and Donald Trump whose entire schtick is playing the victim. It also takes away attention from just how sketchy the original story was, and changes the focus to questions about social media companies and their moderation practices. That's not the story here and it shouldn't be. But these decisions made it so.

Filed Under: content moderation, disinformation, misinformation
Companies: facebook, ny post, twitter

Twitter Attempts To Add A Bit Of Friction In Run Up To The Election

from the interesting-experiment dept

Over the last few months, we've seen various internet sites (mainly Twitter and Facebook) experimenting, adjusting policies, and (well, to be honest) scrambling to put in place various policies to deal with the concerns many have about how their sites will be used for mis- and disinformation regarding the election. Most of this has been focused on questions about what content to remove, or what (and how) to "flag" certain content. Last week, Twitter announced some bigger plans to adjust some elements of how the site works at least through the election. It's an interesting experiment, and it will be worth following to see how effective the changes are.

It's ramping up its limitations on sharing content that Twitter deems to be "misleading." This is the content that, as of a few months ago, Twitter is appending a bit more information to, and (sometimes) limiting the ability to reply or retweet. Twitter is now going even further on those tweets, but still short of removing them entirely.

In addition to these prompts, we will now add additional warnings and restrictions on Tweets with a misleading information label from US political figures (including candidates and campaign accounts), US-based accounts with more than 100,000 followers, or that obtain significant engagement. People must tap through a warning to see these Tweets, and then will only be able to Quote Tweet; likes, Retweets and replies will be turned off, and these Tweets won’t be algorithmically recommended by Twitter. We expect this will further reduce the visibility of misleading information, and will encourage people to reconsider if they want to amplify these Tweets.

Twitter recently started popping up a message to some users if you try to retweet a link to a news article without clicking through -- in effect urging you to click and read the article before you actually retweet it. I've seen this idea discussed in the past, and while it adds a bit of friction on retweeting, I doubt it will be particularly effective. Often when I've seen it, it's been on articles I've already read, so the warning is more of a nuisance than anything else, and I'm guessing most people will just click through without hesitating. However, with the new change the company is going even further, encouraging people to add their own commentary:

First, we will encourage people to add their own commentary prior to amplifying content by prompting them to Quote Tweet instead of Retweet. People who go to Retweet will be brought to the Quote Tweet composer where they’ll be encouraged to comment before sending their Tweet. Though this adds some extra friction for those who simply want to Retweet, we hope it will encourage everyone to not only consider why they are amplifying a Tweet, but also increase the likelihood that people add their own thoughts, reactions and perspectives to the conversation. If people don’t add anything on the Quote Tweet composer, it will still appear as a Retweet.

That is going to be very interesting. I have a personal mental model on which things I just retweet and which I add commentary too, and I wonder for me, personally, whether these prompts will change my behavior. I do think that there is some value in encouraging people to add their thoughts, though who the hell knows how it will work in practice. Still, at the very least it strikes me as (again) a free speech supportive change -- encouraging more commentary, rather than focusing on taking down content.

Second, we will prevent “liked by” and “followed by” recommendations from people you don’t follow from showing up in your timeline and won’t send notifications for these Tweets. These recommendations can be a helpful way for people to see relevant conversations from outside of their network, but we are removing them because we don’t believe the “Like” button provides sufficient, thoughtful consideration prior to amplifying Tweets to people who don’t follow the author of the Tweet, or the relevant topic that the Tweet is about. This will likely slow down how quickly Tweets from accounts and topics you don’t follow can reach you, which we believe is a worthwhile sacrifice to encourage more thoughtful and explicit amplification.

Again the focus here is on friction -- though this "feature" (showing tweets liked by people loosely connected to you) has always been somewhat controversial -- especially given that people use "like" to mean very different things. I was among those who thought that Twitter never should have been showing this content in the first place, but having seen a fair amount of it in my feed, will admit that it has been more relevant and interesting than I had expected. I don't know how much friction this will actually add, nor how significant it will be, but it's noteworthy that Twitter decided to at least temporarily kill this particular feature after people had been complaining about it for a while.

Finally, we will only surface Trends in the “For You” tab in the United States that include additional context. That means there will be a description Tweet or article that represents or summarizes why that term is trending. We’ve been adding more context to Trends during the last few months, but this change will ensure that only Trends with added context show up in the “For You” tab in the United States, which is where the vast majority of people discover what’s trending. This will help people more quickly gain an informed understanding of the high volume public conversation in the US and also help reduce the potential for misleading information to spread.

This is also a good move -- and I've definitely been seeing more of this over the last few weeks on Twitter. Many have argued that Twitter should do away with the trends feature altogether, as it's usually hot garbage, and frequently gamed. However, a version that has more context could potentially work better. I'm skeptical, but will be watching it.

Twitter also says that it will not allow anyone to claim victory in an election unless a major news organization has called the election. I'm not sure how they will be able to make this work in practice:

People on Twitter, including candidates for office, may not claim an election win before it is authoritatively called. To determine the results of an election in the US, we require either an announcement from state election officials, or a public projection from at least two authoritative, national news outlets that make independent election calls. Tweets which include premature claims will be labeled and direct people to our official US election page

Unless they pre-review tweets from candidates, I don't see how that will work. Indeed, Wired suggested that Twitter should have gone one step further and put Trump's tweets on a time delay to review them before letting them go through:

Why not put Donald Trump’s tweets and his Facebook posts, as well as those of other political elites, on a time delay? (See here for a smart and similar earlier proposal focused on how a delay might strengthen national security.) Twitter and Facebook have extensive and well-documented content rules that prohibit everything from electoral to health disinformation. The platforms have singled out these categories of content in particular because they have significant likelihood of causing real world harm, from voter suppression to undermining the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s public health guidelines. The FBI found that the plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer was, in part, organized in a Facebook group.

To date, the enforcement of these policies has been spotty at best. Twitter has labeled some of the president’s tweets as “potentially misleading” to readers about mail-in ballots. The platform hid a Trump tweet stating “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” for “glorifying violence,” and it recently hid another tweet equating Covid-19 to the flu, claiming that the president was “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information” when he wrote that “we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!" Facebook has taken similar actions, providing links to reliable voter and health information and removing posts that it deems violate its policies.

But these actions often take hours to put in place while this content racks up thousands of engagements and shares. In those hours, as recent research from Harvard shows, Trump is a one-man source of disinformation that travels quickly and broadly across Twitter and Facebook. And we know that the mainstream media often picks up on and amplifies Trump’s posts before platforms moderate them. Journalists report on platforms’ treatments of Trump’s tweets, making that and them the story, and giving life to false claims.

I shudder to think about the ways in which some would argue this removes Section 230 for such content (even though there are cases ruling that pre-reviewing content doesn't take away 230). However, it does seem like a potentially interesting move as well.

All in all, Twitter did seem to focus not on holding back speech, but on putting in a little friction, in an attempt to at least slow down the possibility for misinformation and disinformation to spread. I don't know if it will work, but it's at least a more thoughtful approach than the way that many just call for more aggressive pulling down of information. Still, I find the Trump campaign's response to these changes quite telling:

Yet according to Samantha Zager, deputy national press secretary for the Trump campaign, Twitter’s changes are “extremely dangerous for our democracy” by “attempting to influence this election in favor of their preferred ticket by silencing the President and his supporters.”

Except that the changes do no such thing. The only thing it does is seek to slow down the pace at which you could spread mis- and disinformation. So, unless the Trump campaign is flat out admitting that it needs mis- and disinformation to win its campaign, then that statement is bizarre. But, of course, that does seem to be the stance of Trumpworld these days. It needs misinformation to win. That it's so quick to admit that, though, should still be somewhat shocking.

Filed Under: content moderation, disinformation, election, friction
Companies: twitter

Court Says Twitter Must Unmask User Whose Bogus Document Jumpstarted Seth Rich Conspiracy Theory

from the anonymous-speech-is-still-worth-protecting,-judge dept

Lawsuits related to false reports about the murder of Seth Rich -- a DNC staffer conspiracy theorists have continually tried to link to the leak of DNC emails to DCLeaks and WikiLeaks back in 2016 -- continue to make their way through the court system. Seth Rich's brother, Aaron, has been pursuing a defamation suit against several parties (including conspiracy theorist/Fox New commentator [but I repeat myself…] Ed Butowsky, who has engaged in some litigation of his own).

Currently, the lawsuit is at somewhat of a standstill. Aaron Rich has been seeking information about a Twitter account that allegedly "leaked" a forged FBI document to the sued parties, resulting in some actual fake news that "linked" Seth Rich to the DNC hack.

After several subpoenas and rounds of discovery, Aaron Rich has gotten no closer to unmasking the person behind the @whyspertech account that supplied the document that appeared to give credence to the fevered rantings of conspiracy theorists around the nation.

As NPR reports (cautiously, I assume, since it's being sued for defamation itself by Butowsky), a federal judge has decided there's enough in Rich's lawsuit to justify the unmasking of the user behind @whyspertech.

A federal judge in California has ordered that Twitter reveal the identity of an anonymous user who allegedly fabricated an FBI document to spread a conspiracy theory about the killing of Seth Rich, the Democratic National Committee staffer who died in 2016.

[...]

While Twitter fought to keep the user's identity secret, U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu in Oakland, Calif., ordered on Tuesday that the tech company must turn over the information to attorneys representing Rich's family in a defamation suit by Oct. 20.

The ruling [PDF] cautiously sides with Rich, rejecting Twitter's challenge of the subpoena demanding identifying info. The court says this subpoena is narrowly-crafted, seeking only what's needed to determine whether the person behind the account could have credibly had access to actual FBI documents.

Here, unlike in 2TheMart.com where the subpoena was “extremely broad,” the Subpoena is narrowly tailored to exclude any personal communications made by the Account user. Additionally, Rich has shown that Defendants will likely rely on the affirmative defense of truth with regard to the FBI Report, which weighs in favor of a finding of good faith.

That's the defense the alleged defamers will use: that they had no reason to believe the document handed to them by this account was bogus. Unfortunately for the defendants, that's not going to be an easy sale. Previous discovery uncovered messages between a Butowsky associate and a [cough] "reporter" for InfoWars indicating they felt the document was highly questionable, as was its source.

The court moves past Twitter's assertions that releasing this information about an anonymous user (and their anonymous speech) will result in damage to the First Amendment by stating that a protective order forbidding the public release of the account user's info will mitigate potential Constitutional injuries.

[T]he Protective Order is sufficient to prevent the harm contemplated by Twitter. The Protective Order allows any producing party to designate discovery materials as “Highly Confidential.” Under this designation, disclosure is limited to individuals involved in the case and the information cannot be used for any other purpose other than the action. Thus, the Protective Order provides adequate safeguards against Rich’s ability to publicize the user information for inappropriate reasons.

The court follows a four-point checklist erected by the Ninth Circuit ruling cited by Twitter to come to this conclusion: because the core claim of Rich's lawsuit is defamation and Rich expects the defendants to claim they acted in good faith by relying on an FBI document handed to them by a Twitter account they honestly believed was a credible source, Twitter should be forced to turn over information on this anonymous account.

There's some chill to be felt here. The Twitter account is not a party to this lawsuit. While its input may prove to be of value to the plaintiff (or the defendants), at this point it's only the origin point of a questionable document others referenced while publicly entertaining their conspiracy theories. Forcing Twitter to unmask a non-party to allow a lawsuit to proceed against other defendants doesn't do much for the First Amendment as Twitter pointed out in its objection. The damage here may end up being minimal but a ruling like this will encourage litigants operating in far worse faith to pursue the unmasking of anonymous internet users only tangentially related to the case at hand.

Filed Under: aaron rich, anonymity, conspiracy, defamation, ed butowsky, identity, seth rich, unmasking
Companies: twitter