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Comment by jsheard

1 year ago

Regarding takedown demands, Twitter used to publish transparency reports on who was making them, but they stopped after Musk took over.

https://transparency.x.com/en/reports/removal-requests

In the final report 97% of all takedowns were made by Japan, Russia, South Korea, Turkey, and India (from most to least). They also broke down the number of takedowns against verified journalists and news outlets, which was led by India (114 takedowns), Turkey (78), Russia (55), and Pakistan (48), and Brazil was down the list with 8. It would be nice to have a more recent version of this report to see which way the tides have shifted.

Didn’t they just move that stuff here?

https://x.com/globalaffairs/status/1824819053061669244?s=46&...

  • Do they post aggregate stats about takedowns there? It seems like they just post ad-hoc information, which leaves a lot of room for editorialization. For example going into great detail about the Brazil situation, while on the other hand posting this extremely vague statement in response to Pakistan blocking X and then never following up with any further context about what's going on there.

    https://x.com/GlobalAffairs/status/1780676243538452680

    Have they ramped up censorship in Pakistan to appease the government? Who knows, they're not telling.

The Brazilian courts specifically asks that the takedowns must be done in secret. I believe we can assume they are not being accounted for in these statistics.

In the context here, a takedown request would be preferred. It would indicate the judge being willing to accept a takedown in lieu of putting the poster in prison.

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  • Having hate speech laws doesn't equate to the state giving takedown notices. More likely the individual will be prosecuted as has happened in the past few weeks of social unrest.

    • But that is my argument! In UK takedown notices are given by some non-profit organization (not state), or are covered by TOS violation. But it is just censorship!

      > in the past few weeks of social unrest.

      Compare how social media handled recent UK protests, and "summer of love" riots in 2020!

  • > and number of people imprisoned or punished is far greater than Russia or other countries.

    Clearly not according to their source. Do you have any data to back up your claim?

  • > UK has hate speech laws, and number of people imprisoned or punished is far greater than Russia or other countries.

    I call counter-bullshit. Provide some source with numbers.

This might be misleading. If old Twitter was preemptively taking down posts that certain American or European organizations wanted taken down, this wouldn't show in the transparency reports at all. If you used the platform before and now, it's very obvious that that was the case.

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    • And the thousands of documents that the Democrats, their administration, and US intelligence deemed "nothingburger" until they even became annoyed at repeating it over and over again nonsensically. What's the Brazilian government's term for "nothingburger?" Are they using the same terms that fascist Brazil (aided by successive Democratic administrations and US intelligence) used about disappearances and torture?

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