Twitter Rejects Claims It Snoops on Private User Data Including Direct Messages

[MacRumors]

Twitter has rebuffed claims by a conservative media outlet that its staff monitor users' private data, including direct messages sent over the social network (via TechCrunch).

Earlier this week, Project Veritas, which hosts sting operation-style videos produced by self-proclaimed "guerrilla journalist" James O'Keefe, posted footage that appears to show Twitter engineers admitting that teams of employees access users' data.

In one brief clip, a senior network security engineer appears to say that the social media company would be able hand over President Donald Trump's data, including deleted tweets and direct messages, to the Department of Justice, subject to a subpoena.

Last week, Twitter criticized Project Veritas in a public statement for its "deceptive" and "selectively edited" report.

We deplore the deceptive and underhanded tactics by which this footage was obtained and selectively edited to fit a pre-determined narrative. Twitter only responds to valid legal requests and does not share any user information with law enforcement without such a request.

Referencing its privacy policies and terms of service which explain how it holds and stores information that users choose to share, Twitter said it is "committed to enforcing our rules without bias and empowering every voice on our platform, in accordance with the Twitter Rules".

Project Veritas has been criticized in the past for using underhand and deceitful methods in its investigations. In November last year, one of its undercover employees was caught trying to bait reporters at The Washington Post by falsely claiming to be a sexual assault victim of Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore. 

Twitter regularly reveals the number of legal requests it receives and responds to in its biannual transparency report. The company received 2,111 government information requests in the U.S. and produced at least some information for 77 percent of them during the period between January 1 and June 30, 2017.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Twitter Rejects Claims It Snoops on Private User Data Including Direct Messages

 

[HMFIC03]

No denial here that deleted, unfinished and direct messages are not private. 77% sharing rate is pretty darn high, and those are requested ones, not monetary or incentive bribes for info.

 

[H2SO4]

No denial here that deleted, unfinished and direct messages are not private. 77% sharing rate is pretty darn high, and those are requested ones, not monetary or incentive bribes for info.

They probably just wanted to snoop on President Chump before they realised he'd be a prolific poster anyway.

 

[gatearray]

Like Facebook, Twitter is probably an arm of the NSA, that's why Apple inexplicably baked both of these services into iOS back in 2012.

In this way, Apple is technically correct when they say they don't spy on their users, they just allow FB and Twitter to do the dirty work for them.

 

[Adam Warlock]

Referencing its privacy policies and terms of service which explain how it holds and stores information that users choose to share, Twitter said it is "committed to enforcing our rules without bias and empowering every voice on our platform, in accordance with the Twitter Rules".

Heh. The same "Twitter Rules" that can be changed on a whim to suit the company's needs and that are designed specifically for the company's benefit and not the consumer's legal rights. Do terms & conditions even have any real legal weight?

That aside, this article seems more a hit piece on this Project Veritas than any attempt at investigating whether or not Twitter actually snoops on customers.

 

[T Coma]

Way to report the whole story MR!

What the undercover reporting here shows is Twitter employees describing "shadow banning" or deceptively silencing users who have political views that don't fall in line with leftist Jack Dorsey and Silicon Valley in general. In addition, these twitter folk reveal the clearly uneven application of outright banning, based on political leaning or affiliation and the bots used to seek out "rednecks" (their term.)

But as is the trend, Twitter protests against the method by which they were exposed, and can do nothing to refute the findings.

Okeefe and his people have been doing a thorough and transparent job for years, exposing this dangerous kind of hypocrisy. They publish all the info and evidence; this isn't the typical selective, super-edited, out-of-context style "evidence" you see in a standard media agenda-driven "expose'."

Watch the videos and listen to the audio yourself and then make your own conclusions. I see the interwebs are already in panic mode trying to spin this story.

 

[CaTOAGU]

Way to report the whole story MR!

What the undercover reporting here shows is Twitter employees describing "shadow banning" or deceptively silencing users who have political views that don't fall in line with leftist Jack Dorsey and Silicon Valley in general. In addition, these twitter folk reveal the clearly uneven application of outright banning, based on political leaning or affiliation and the bots used to seek out "rednecks" (their term.)

But as is the trend, Twitter protests against the method by which they were exposed, and can do nothing to refute the findings.

Okeefe and his people have been doing a thorough and transparent job for years, exposing this dangerous kind of hypocrisy. They publish all the info and evidence; this isn't the typical selective, super-edited, out-of-context style "evidence" you see in a standard media agenda-driven "expose'."

Watch the videos and listen to the audio yourself and then make your own conclusions. I see the interwebs are already in panic mode trying to spin this story.

If the majority of harassment comes from rightwing users, that's hardly Twitters fault.

 

[5105973]

Way to report the whole story MR!

What the undercover reporting here shows is Twitter employees describing "shadow banning" or deceptively silencing users who have political views that don't fall in line with leftist Jack Dorsey and Silicon Valley in general. In addition, these twitter folk reveal the clearly uneven application of outright banning, based on political leaning or affiliation and the bots used to seek out "rednecks" (their term.)

But as is the trend, Twitter protests against the method by which they were exposed, and can do nothing to refute the findings.

Okeefe and his people have been doing a thorough and transparent job for years, exposing this dangerous kind of hypocrisy. They publish all the info and evidence; this isn't the typical selective, super-edited, out-of-context style "evidence" you see in a standard media agenda-driven "expose'."

Watch the videos and listen to the audio yourself and then make your own conclusions. I see the interwebs are already in panic mode trying to spin this story.

I’m pretty much dead center politically so I’m open to all points of view that aren’t incoherent rants and angry diatribes, though I’ll make an exception for Cher’s tweets because nobody can make incoherent rants as entertaining as she can.

And for a long time now I’ve heard of people saying their conservative leaning posts or comments disappear frequently on Twitter. Sometimes on FB, but not as much. Twitter is the one most often accused of biased censorship.

Whatever. Politics gives moderates like me a migraine these days. I’m mostly there to see what Emo Kylo Ren is up to.

 

[SarcasticJoe]

If the majority of harassment comes from rightwing users, that's hardly Twitters fault.

The majority of bans for "harassment" do go to conservatives, but the left isn't any better behaved on Twitter. There's dozens of people like Randi Harper who do exactly what Milio Yiannopolis got banned for on a regular basis without as much as a slap on the wrist. There's a number of cases where conservatives have seen left wingers post questionable stuff, flagged it for review, seen twitter say there's nothing wrong with it, post it themselves verbatim (so no changing white to black or men to women) and then been swiftly banned for it.

Mind you, if was I eligible to vote in the last U.S elections I would have voted for Bernie in the primaries and Hillary in the actual election, but I'm not blind enough to not see how Twitter is letting their personal ideology cloud their judgement.

More on topic: A simple rule for services like Twitter and Facebook where you don't pay anything up front and are thus funded trough alternative means like selling your data is that if you don't want someone to masturbate to what you're uploading or sending trough the service, then just don't upload that to the service!

 

[Gutwrench]

Way to report the whole story MR!

What the undercover reporting here shows is Twitter employees describing "shadow banning" or deceptively silencing users who have political views that don't fall in line with leftist Jack Dorsey and Silicon Valley in general. In addition, these twitter folk reveal the clearly uneven application of outright banning, based on political leaning or affiliation and the bots used to seek out "rednecks" (their term.)

But as is the trend, Twitter protests against the method by which they were exposed, and can do nothing to refute the findings.

Okeefe and his people have been doing a thorough and transparent job for years, exposing this dangerous kind of hypocrisy. They publish all the info and evidence; this isn't the typical selective, super-edited, out-of-context style "evidence" you see in a standard media agenda-driven "expose'."

Watch the videos and listen to the audio yourself and then make your own conclusions. I see the interwebs are already in panic mode trying to spin this story.

Very well said.

Project Veritas has been criticized in the past for using underhand and deceitful methods in its investigations.

I guess Mike Wallace and 60 Minutes, and Chris Hanson used “underhand [sic] and deceitful methods in its investigations” too.

 

[JM]

The majority of bans for "harassment" do go to conservatives, but the left isn't any better behaved on Twitter. There's dozens of people like Randi Harper who do exactly what Milio Yiannopolis got banned for on a regular basis without as much as a slap on the wrist. There's a number of cases where conservatives have seen left wingers post questionable stuff, flagged it for review, seen twitter say there's nothing wrong with it, post it themselves verbatim (so no changing white to black or men to women) and then been swiftly banned for it.

Mind you, if was I eligible to vote in the last U.S elections I would have voted for Bernie in the primaries and Hillary in the actual election, but I'm not blind enough to not see how Twitter is letting their personal ideology cloud their judgement.

More on topic: A simple rule for services like Twitter and Facebook where you don't pay anything up front and are thus funded trough alternative means like selling your data is that if you don't want someone to masturbate to what you're uploading or sending trough the service, then just don't upload that to the service!

... way to end your post with a bang.

 

[TonyC28]

I don’t want to get into a whole thing about Project Veritas or how the videos were produced. In fact, there is already a thread on that end of it. However, I will say that those videos appear to show some pretty specific detailing of how Twitter is doing these things as told by their own engineers. Twitter’s response is essentially “no we don’t” so I guess we’re supposed to shrug and move on.

 

[Tapiture]

Project Veritas is a joke. They tried to bait the Washington Post and when WAPO confronted them they ran like puppies. I hope someone gives them a taste of their own medicine and reveal their real political motivations.

 

[thisisnotmyname]

Project Veritas is a joke. They tried to bait the Washington Post and when WAPO confronted them they ran like puppies. I hope someone gives them a taste of their own medicine and reveal their real political motivations.

Do you think their political motivations are a secret?

 

[definitive]

If the majority of harassment comes from rightwing users, that's hardly Twitters fault.

This got me a bit curious. Is there an article to back up the claim that most of harassment on Twitter comes from the right?

 

[Jimmy Bubbles]

If the majority of harassment comes from rightwing users, that's hardly Twitters fault.

“If”…but does it REALLY??
[doublepost=1516115523][/doublepost]I guess these videos are as real as what President Trump supposedly said from a meeting last week.

 

[thadoggfather]

I simply do not believe them

They aggressively censor non liberal views. Shadowbanning is real.

Jack Dorsey is another disgusting tech CEO. Haven’t we learned, repeatedly, male feminists shouldn’t be trusted?

They are the most depraved on average

 

[grad]

@gatearray, @OldSchoolMacGuy
Still, there are too many conspiracists who think that everything goes well in this world and it is just Russian generals, Chinese hackers, communists, anarchists, enemies of the system, aliens, etc that try to confuse citizens (or should I say patriots? ) into believing that something is wrong.

 

[Mascots]

I don’t want to get into a whole thing about Project Veritas or how the videos were produced. In fact, there is already a thread on that end of it. However, I will say that those videos appear to show some pretty specific detailing of how Twitter is doing these things as told by their own engineers. Twitter’s response is essentially “no we don’t” so I guess we’re supposed to shrug and move on.

Just like the videos were supposed to show the WP giving biases against Roy Moore by shifting naarrative to a predetermined track for selective editing and injecting falsehoods into the response of the accused. A video produced by someone with a history of faking them, each time with some explosive discovery that somehow happens to push their own agenda, means nothing in 2018.

I am wasting absolutely no time - and hope our debted government doesn't - on PV unless they show actual factual and legitimate evidence and sources: you'd think if this was something they knew was going on and if there are so many people involved, they could have at least gotten a single anonynous quote (with willing source) on their side for an interview to back up anything said, some form of documentation on an open practice, or even any other detail to back up the claim into such practices... but no. Of course none of that exists. Had Fox News, or another conservative journal with at least a little integrity, originally reported on this, we'd be having a much different conversation because that information would be there.

 

[Eduardo1971]

Way to report the whole story MR...Watch the videos and listen to the audio yourself and then make your own conclusions. I see the interwebs are already in panic mode trying to spin this story.

Please stop with your right wing claims.
Project Veritas is not biased and has a right wing agenda.

They are not balanced to reality-just to their myopic agenda.

 

[nick42983]

Just like the videos were supposed to show the WP giving biases against Roy Moore by shifting naarrative to a predetermined track for selective editing and injecting falsehoods into the response of the accused. A video produced by someone with a history of faking them, each time with some explosive discovery that somehow happens to push their own agenda, means nothing in 2018.

I am wasting absolutely no time - and hope our debted government doesn't - on PV unless they show actual factual and legitimate evidence and sources: you'd think if this was something they knew was going on and if there are so many people involved, they could have at least gotten a single anonynous quote (with willing source) on their side for an interview to back up anything said, some form of documentation on an open practice, or even any other detail to back up the claim into such practices... but no. Of course none of that exists.

Thanks for demonstrating that smoking gun evidence is worthless to leftists, 1984 is a wet dream fantasy for control freak progressives. Social Justice Warriors at Twitter (fake/paperwork "Americans" to boot) make a strong case for both breaking up social media monopolies and mass deportations of parasite H1-B invaders.

 

[Mascots]

Thanks for demonstrating that smoking gun evidence is worthless to leftists, 1984 is a wet dream fantasy for control freak progressives.

I am a midline conservative, just so you know! That insult falls flat every time!
I just prefer not to have the phonies undermine what's left of the rational thinking that is required to make effective decisions in a group of people that seems to be more-and-more convinced by themselves, starting with horrid people like O'Keefe, that everyone is out to get them and that our world is in shambles like a fictional tale.

 

[thadoggfather]

Please stop with your right wing claims.
Project Veritas is not biased and has a right wing agenda.

They are not balanced to reality-just to their myopic agenda.

You're hearing inside info from Twitter engineers, who cares what their bias is? How much more direct would you like it? You want an official PR statement from Twitter saying "Yeah we do messed up crap" -- not gonna happen.

I assert you're being biased by not examining the facts, and what was said, and who said it, simply because you don't like Project Veritas

 

[LizKat]

This got me a bit curious. Is there an article to back up the claim that most of harassment on Twitter comes from the right?

You'll never know unless you follow a few mainstream media reporters or columnists for a few days, and read the replies to their retweets. It's enlightening. And can be sickening even if you turn on filters.

 

[thadoggfather]

You'll never know unless you follow a few mainstream media reporters or columnists for a few days, and read the replies to their retweets. It's enlightening. And can be sickening even if you turn on filters.

Sorry, but this sounds like some sentiment from Oprah at the Golden Globes, met with a standing ovation from liberal Hollywood elite: "the press is under siege"

Give me a break. They've been lying to us nonstop since before the election, claiming HRC has a 99% chance of winning (no, simply no), gaslighting us,

They deserve criticism when on a public forum and opening themselves up to the public, spouting lies to serve their agenda. In my view, its just an agenda that resonates well with you.

hashtag fake news replies isn't harassment