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Notes -
An update on the Twitter Censorship saga.
The original thread contained the following exchange:
Now, as much as I sympathize with the response, I have to admit it's rather high on copium. As we all know from our Internet Atheist days, the burden of proof is on the one making the claim, and how would confirming that the federal government did not contact Twitter directly to censor stories look like anyway? An Email saying "we totally were not asked to delete this by the federal government"? That would seem even more suspicious. No, I believe that it's unreasonable to expect your opponents to prove a negative, and sometimes you just have to admit when your theory comes up short on evidence.
Anyway, onto the update:
In it's own right this is also an interesting follow up to a thread from the old place about ex-CIA people getting new jobs at Facebook moderation, and how "extremely inflammatory and uncharitable" it was to claim they might care more about CIA than Facebook interests.
In this case the response is correct, but that's mainly because the person they are responding to make such an absurdly strong claim. I think it's fair to say "it doesn't appear that the FBI contacted Twitter asking them to suppress the laptop story". It's another thing to say "he confirmed that the federal government, FBI, CIA, etc., did at no time, for any purpose, contact Twitter directly regarding the laptop story".
I also am really having a hard time understanding why this Baker guy was fired. He was fired for vetting the files without knowledge of new management? But new management is the one who is keen on disseminating these files. Why on earth would they fire him for advancing their goals? It makes no sense.
Because he wasn't supposed to be vetting them. Somehow he managed to insert himself into the process, against the wishes of Elon, and began slow walking and obfuscating access to the documents Elon wanted the journalist to have.
Elon called him in to explain his actions, and in Elon's own words, he found the explanations "unconvincing".
It also seems incredibly likely, given Jim Baker's placement in Russiagate, that he was one of the backdoor channels political operatives used to have Twitter censor things. So him "vetting" the information that gets released to journalist covering that connection is highly suspect. Doubly so when he inserts himself into that process completely unbidden.
The very presence of Baker makes me assume that the FBI would have a role in being able to determine what Twitter censors. He may well be bright enough to not send emails that say "YEAH THE FBI SAID TO DELETE THIS", but having a former FBI guy around to set policy will tend to lead to the FBI having a say in policy.
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