Trauma_Hawks t1_j9lnrkg wrote on February 22, 2023 at 9:37 PM

Reply to comment by Maineguy58 in Sen. Angus King caught up in ‘Twitter Files’ controversy - Lewiston S… by yzfmike

In your own words, what do you think the scandal is here? What do you think Angus King is guilty of?

Maineguy58 t1_j9m0av6 wrote on February 22, 2023 at 10:57 PM

It’s not a matter of guilt. It’s a political organization using its power to influence what was supposed to be an open forum to try to minimize the opposing view. Not sure why it’s a hard concept. The article was pretty straight forward. It’s politics.

Trauma_Hawks t1_j9mplq2 wrote on February 23, 2023 at 1:58 AM

So Twitter, as a private hosting platform, is the sole arbiter of what remains on its platform. Everyone using it signs, and must abide by, the same terms of service. This is a fact.

Angus King abides by the same TOS as Eric Brakley. According to the story King's team, not even King himself, reported Eric's account for a possible doctored video.

Posting doctored videos like what was alleged is against Twitter policy and TOS. This is also a fact.

So King's team, not King himself, reported the video. This act of reporting does nothing. This is not a magic genie lamp granting wishes, it's not a gun to some poor IT worker's head. It's not a threat, a bribe, a cajole, an extortion, or anything at all like that. It's literally a "Hey, sup?". It is now Twitter's job to investigate the matter and hold it to their totally legal, enforceable, and reasonable TOS. If Twitter decides it needs to be removed, or an account banned, it will decide that and make it happen.

So once again, where's the scandal when someone's team decides to, what they feel is, reasonably report something that possibly goes against a voluntary TOS to a private company? Where are they involved in the process of a private company making a decision to remove it and acting upon it? What's the difference between a politician using a feature as intended and a private citizen doing so, with the same results?

Maineguy58 t1_j9mrqgd wrote on February 23, 2023 at 2:14 AM

Way too much thought going into this observation. And btw twitter was a public company at the time. Moving on.

Trauma_Hawks t1_j9mto0f wrote on February 23, 2023 at 2:28 AM

What is a homophone...

A company being privately-held or publicly traded has no bearing on whether or not an organization is privately run or publicly ran. Publicly ran things are the government. Privately ran things are, literally, anything else.