No surprises here. He is a politician, always has been.

> “Compiling black lists of dissidents for censorship – these are tactics of kingpins and mob bosses, not public servants,” Brakey said in a written statement Tuesday. “If we still lived in a just society that valued the Bill of Rights, Angus King would be too ashamed to file for re-election after these revelations of political thuggery.”

It's not like the King campaign called any of these people out publicly for being bots. They just reported them to the websites responsible to investigate, and it looks like some of them did end up suspended, so.... who cares?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vS1PbfNEqDCKX7YFNEvXmm7Lil3Z5unKivX5SA5avFE9tF95kgkbDVJpeRhX4lCig/pubhtml#

Here's the linked doc. It doesn't look that different than what redditors do when tracking bot chains.

Not seeing where King personally flagged anything. And it seems more material was provided upon request rather than just an unsolicited data dump.

As for Lance Dutson, who cares? His embrace of anti-democratic policy positions should relegate him to the dustbin, even if his behind-the-curtains skullduggery against Strimling and leadershit of pro-putin Heritage did not.

Great comment. So accurate and insightful /s

Angus what a disappointment finding this out and now he is part of the problem - this isn’t the kind of person maine wants - this is disgraceful imo /

For reporting bots on twitter?

This is such a non-story. Every politician and corporation tries to game the PR system. Elon Musk dribbles out BS “files” on anyone he wants to tarnish. It’s embarrassing that Maine newspapers are regurgitating his propaganda.

What controversy?? His staff flagged suspicious accounts for review on the social media platforms. That's 100% normal and uncontroversial.

These ginned-up right-wing "controversies" are bloody exhausting.

I would have said the same regardless of party but your bias is clear. A leader is responsible for setting the course and culture. Can’t fall back on the excuse “it was my team not me”.

Bud, from a fellow blue lad; there are assholes on both sides of the isle. Angus King is clearly one of them.

I have so little fucks to give with anything related to twitter.

The reporter says Twitter files show "behind-the-scenes efforts by the U.S. intelligence community and politicians to ferret out the kind of fake accounts and misinformation that can easily spread on social media."

Not even remotely true.

Well said. Agreed.

What I personally love: Ask right wingers to explain, in their own words, why [whatever totally organic issue they're screaming about this week] is a problem, and what are the causes, and what should be done about it.

9 times out of 10 you'll get some permutation of the following:

"Yeah typical NPC just gobbling up what you see on CNN"

>!as if it's not hilariously ironic that ALL OF THEM WITHOUT FAIL use that "NPC" line... like an actual NPC would.!<

So his time working with Pine Tree Legal was political?

“It’s very, very abnormal,” Dutson said of King’s social media list. “And I would have to say, unfortunately, (it’s) kind of a pattern with Angus King and his political career.”

Dutson led Republican Charlie Summers’ campaign against King in 2012 and recalled how King paid interns to post positive comments under fake names in response to online news stories and blogs about the campaign.

“If that’s not disinformation, I don’t know what is,” he said. “His sudden concern with disinformation as a principled thing seems kind of out of place. What does seem in place is a pattern of using dirty digital tricks to advance his political campaigns.”

Wait, wait, wait. Do you mean someone used the built-in reporting function as intended? The horror! How will democracy ever survive this vicious attack on it's very foundations.

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

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.

Bud, Angus King is and always has been a registered independent. He's not either side of the aisle.

Calling people assholes for flagging suspicious social media accounts during a time we KNOW there are rampant bot farms is just dumb. And this is absolutely a non-story.

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?

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

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.

His team reported bots/nasty comments on Twitter and we are supposed to get all upset about that?

This is a conspiracy for those with room temperature iqs.

I was so happy when Brakey moved out of state. Such a shame he came back.

Any reporter that treats the Twitter 'files' as legitimate should be considered and treated like a hack thats less legitimate than the national equirer.

It’s projection all the way down.

The right wing narrative here is not something I agree with. But to be clear King is a wanker, he had staff write fake comments about him in 2012. He's really a bit silly to say Russian bots are like 9/11. Isn't it rich Angus "Isn't a Democrat" but a major issue for him is the "fake news" talking point and "Russian bots", both issues are blown way up by Dems. Twitter files is odd ass shit from Musk to change the topic from the company's other issues and the right claiming this is about "the 1st amendment" is wrong and silly.