[HN Gopher] X (Twitter) blocks links to hacked JD Vance dossier
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X (Twitter) blocks links to hacked JD Vance dossier
Author : jeromegv
Score : 158 points
Date : 2024-09-26 20:09 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| jonathanyc wrote:
| On the one hand, Musk has already retracted his claim[1] that
| he's a "free speech absolutist"[2], so I don't think it's fair to
| come after him for that: In last month's
| interview with the BBC, Musk said, "the rules in India for what
| can appear on social media are quite strict, and we can't go
| beyond the laws of a country ... If we have a choice of either
| our people go to prison or we comply with the laws, we will
| comply with the laws." At another point in the interview, Musk
| said: "If people of a given country are against a certain type of
| speech, they should talk to their elected representatives and
| pass a law to prevent it."
|
| But blocking links to hacked documents regarding JD Vance seems a
| little suspect considering that, as the article mentions, he was
| opposed to blocking links to hacked documents about Hunter Biden:
| Twitter, before it was bought by Elon Musk, had a policy
| regarding hacked materials -- but the page is no longer
| available. A pre-Musk version of the policy, dated 2019, stated
| that posting or linking to hacked content is prohibited. Under
| this policy, links to a story by The New York Post about Hunter
| Biden, the current president's son, were banned. But in October
| 2020, Twitter changed its policy to say that it would no longer
| block hacked materials, after an outcry about how the company had
| handled the Post story. "Straight blocking of URLs was wrong, and
| we updated our policy and enforcement to fix," wrote then-CEO
| Jack Dorsey. Musk was one of the people who was unhappy
| with the decision to ban links to the Post's story. "Suspending
| the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a
| truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate," Musk
| wrote of the decision on the story in April 2022. He even invited
| former Rolling Stone pundit Matt Taibbi to examine internal
| documents showing how Twitter handled the decision. (In the
| course of tweeting his conclusions, Taibbi exposed the email
| addresses of Dorsey and Representative Ro Khanna.)
|
| [1]: https://www.cato.org/commentary/elon-musk-sues-critics-
| silen...
|
| [2]: https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/29/tech/elon-musk-twitter-
| govern...
| neaden wrote:
| At a certain point, if Musk consistently blocks things favoring
| one party and not another does X risk losing its Common Carrier
| status and start opening itself up to more liability?
| philipkglass wrote:
| If you're referring to US law, Twitter was never a
| telecommunications common carrier. So it can't lose that
| status through any sort of moderation decisions.
| krapp wrote:
| Twitter (I still refuse to call it X) doesn't have "Common
| Carrier" status, no website or platform does. Section 230 of
| the Communications Decency Act of 1996 protects platforms
| from liability for user content even if they display bias
| towards that content.
| tptacek wrote:
| No. This is not a thing.
| ursuscamp wrote:
| >But blocking links to hacked documents regarding JD Vance
| seems a little suspect considering that, as the article
| mentions, he was opposed to blocking links to hacked documents
| about Hunter Biden
|
| Per X, the links were blocked because they included un-redacted
| personal information such as address and SSN.
| orochimaaru wrote:
| If that's true I would say blocking is credible. I'd rather
| err on the side of caution on exposing potential privacy
| information.
|
| If there was no private info - obviously the block is b.s.
| But considering they've mentioned privacy details in the doc
| I'm prepared to give them the benefit of doubt for a few days
| or ask the initial poster to send a redacted version.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I'm not gonna spend an hour poring over the thing for an
| SSN, but it does have his unredacted home addresses in both
| Ohio and DC.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _it does have his unredacted home addresses in both Ohio
| and DC._
|
| In the United States, the addresses of politicians are
| public records.
|
| It's how journalists and the general public verify that
| they live in the districts they are elected to represent.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| The policies of the United States government really have
| nothing to do with the policies a social media website
| can or should enact. I'm honestly not sure what I think
| of this precise situation, but it's not crazy to think
| that nothing good will come from running around posting
| the home addresses of unpopular politicians.
| slantedview wrote:
| His address is public info, available on dozens of state and
| local election sites.
|
| For comparison, Elon previously leaked "the Twitter files" to
| reporter Matt Taibbi, who posted the address of prior Twitter
| executives. Needless to say, Taibbi was not banned.
| blitzar wrote:
| Per Elon, photos of Hunter Bidens penis was a public interest
| story.
| FergusArgyll wrote:
| I couldn't find an SSN but my regex is mid
| Veserv wrote:
| It is absolutely fair to continue to point out his ongoing
| hypocrisy.
|
| "If we have a choice of either our people go to prison or we
| comply with the laws, we will comply with the laws." in 2023.
|
| Here he is on Brazil just a few months ago [1]:
|
| "We are lifting all restrictions. This judge has applied
| massive fines, threatened to arrest our employees and cut off
| access to in Brazil.
|
| As a result, we will probably lose all revenue in Brazil and
| have to shut down our office there.
|
| But principles matter more than profit."
|
| If we have to risk employees going to jail, then we will follow
| the law.
|
| We risk employees going to jail, so we will ignore the law on
| principle.
|
| Literal opposites. He is just a free speech opportunist who
| realized that you can say "free speech" to get people to
| overlook your selfish goals and get the benefit of the doubt
| when you deserve strict scrutiny.
|
| [1] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1776739518240170254
| SmartJerry wrote:
| You must realize this document doxxes JD Vance. Including
| birthdate, phone number, most of SSN, his home address,
| criminal history, etc. The dude will have to move now.
| foldr wrote:
| >Musk has already retracted his claim[1] that he's a "free
| speech absolutist
|
| The article you link shows that his subsequent actions are
| inconsistent with that claim, but not that he's 'retracted' it.
|
| Musk has repeatedly said that Twitter will allow 'all legal
| speech'. There's nothing illegal about sharing links to this
| document in most jurisdictions (certainly not in the US).
| mmooss wrote:
| > "If people of a given country are against a certain type of
| speech, they should talk to their elected representatives and
| pass a law to prevent it."
|
| Yet Brazil's speech laws he publicly flouted and attacked.
|
| As a theory worth exploring: Is it because India's government
| matches Musk's far-right politics (or do they have any direct
| relationship), and Brazil's does not? Are there other data
| points we can use?
| klyrs wrote:
| Wow, good job Elon. I've downloaded the dossier and I'm telling
| my friends. Send Barbara Streisand my regards!
| grahamj wrote:
| Yep, I only found out about it because of this news
| rideontime wrote:
| The block is very amateurishly implemented, and can be
| circumvented by appending any query param to the URL, like so:
| https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/read-the-jd-vance-dossier?...
|
| Update: I guess someone at Twitter reads Hacker News, because
| they finally forced me to delete the posts containing those
| links, a few hours later.
| ysofunny wrote:
| wow, I suppose this is the quality you get when you fire all
| the workforce
|
| "it's just code after all"
| talldayo wrote:
| Imagine being an original Twitter employee that's still stuck
| around. You could ask for a 7-figure salary, and your
| toughest job would be implementing a regex filter for the JD
| Vance leak.
| alsetmusic wrote:
| I thought everyone was going to work hardcore to offset that.
| Oh well.
| netsharc wrote:
| I hope it's some developer implementing Elmo's order of
| "Block this exact url" with malicious compliance, knowing
| about the possible workarounds.
|
| (Could you replace e.g. an "a" with %61 and keep the URL
| working?)
| dlivingston wrote:
| "Elmo"? Why the nickname?
| phatfish wrote:
| Because Elon likes nicknames. Remember "pedo guy"?
| thih9 wrote:
| Traces back to 2022:
| https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-insiders-users-
| calli...
|
| > It began as a joke, one of the people said, given the
| close spelling of the Muppet's name to Musk's own and the
| irony of Musk's temperamental personality in contrast to
| that of the kind and curious "Sesame Street" character.
|
| > However, use of Elmo to discuss Musk has become more
| commonplace in recent weeks, as Musk has turned Twitter
| into "a dictatorship," one former employee said. There
| are potentially fewer repercussions from criticizing your
| billionaire boss if you can argue you were discussing a
| puppet, not the CEO.
|
| > Elmo is also gaining traction as a nickname for Musk on
| Twitter itself. Thousands of recent Tweets and comments
| clearly discussing Musk only mention the Muppet by name.
| Discussing Musk under his new nickname keeps the CEO from
| trending and it keeps critics out of his mentions.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Yup what a total muppet. Guy seems to have a problem with
| names. What makes me laugh is he just can't make "X"
| stick. Every time I see it written X (formerly Twitter)
| am thinking it's less characters to just type Twitter.
| Everyone still calls it Twitter. Only journalists
| swallowed the X thing, and they're tiring of it now. Fuck
| it, just change the name back to Twitter and admit
| defeat. Using X in any sentence looks ridiculous and
| ambiguous, If people used to tweet what do they do now?
| Send kisses?
|
| "The president XXxed (formerly tweeted) yesterday on X
| (formerly Twitter)..." sigh
| SimianSci wrote:
| It has been widely speculated that Elon, or someone close
| to him, has operated a large bot farm for the past decade
| focused on influence operations around his persona.
| References online to 'Elon' show a marked difference in
| bot activity than those that refer to him as 'Elmo.'
| Language ambiguity is a good tool to employ against
| influence operations.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I've long speculated that fixing the "bot problem" means
| the problem of his bots being removed.
| klyrs wrote:
| Musk would have identified the bug if only the programmer had
| printed their code.
| 12_throw_away wrote:
| That's hilarious because their filters _are_ sophisticated
| enough to block archive.is links to the same URL ... but can
| still be defeated with a query param. Seems like one of these
| was implemented at Twitter 1.0, and the other at Twitter 2.0.
| 12_throw_away wrote:
| Well, looks like they finally figured it out - but it's a
| hacky fix, they're _still_ not using a proper URL parser.
| Here are some of the ways you can trick badly implemented URL
| parsers (haven 't tested all of them on twitter specifically,
| but at least a couple do indeed work):
| authority: https://user:pass@host/[..] anchors:
| https://[...]/path#anchor path params:
| https://host/path;param/[...]` port:
| http://host:80/[...]`
| throwawayk7h wrote:
| I'm quite sure they're reading this thread. Fully expecting
| you to post again in 20 minutes haha.
| millzlane wrote:
| I'm sure Uncle Musk is scrolling through this thread
| yelling at his people asking "Why aren't we doing this!?
| Can we do this?"
| abraxas wrote:
| Elmo's "radical free speech" on full display.
| listenallyall wrote:
| Documents obtained via hacks don't qualify under "free speech"
| and should be blocked, just like you'd block a list of people's
| social security numbers obtained via hacking, or secretly-
| recorded nude/pornographic material (without the subject's
| knowledge or consent).
| chgs wrote:
| Yet more definitions of free speech that some agree with and
| some disagree with.
|
| That's fine, block whatever you want. Just don't whine that
| others have a different view on what "free speech" means.
| listenallyall wrote:
| Well, numerous jurisdictions have passed laws against
| "revenge porn", so they seem to agree with my suggestion. I
| will agree that information gathered via hacking can be
| seen both ways (much of Wikileaks was gathered somewhat
| nefariously) but the idea of blocking should not
| automatically be considered a suppression of free speech.
| ToValueFunfetti wrote:
| "Whining about other people having different views"
| accounts for pretty much all political speech, and I don't
| understand why you're saying it shouldn't happen on this
| topic.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| If you believe 1st Amendment protections extend to
| prevent censorship from private parties, as Elon et al
| _claim to_ , then banning this material is unambiguously
| a violation of free speech.
|
| If you don't believe that's what free speech is, then
| that's fine too (and you're right), but then stop using
| that as a cultural cudgel.
| listenallyall wrote:
| The First Amendment most certainly does not apply to
| private parties.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Correct. Which is why the right wing moaning about free
| speech with regard to content moderation is juvenile and,
| as OP illustrates, completely hypocritical.
| ToValueFunfetti wrote:
| I do agree that this is unambiguously a violation of free
| speech, though the first amendment doesn't enter into it.
| What I don't get is the last bit, which you've only
| restated- why shouldn't people be allowed to invoke free
| speech on the basis of their opinions on what it means?
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Because at least in America "free speech" refers to 1st
| Amendment protections, which this does not violate.
|
| "Free speech" does not mean "carte blanche protection
| from any repercussions from anything I say, everyone is
| still obligated to like me and be nice to me and do
| business with me."
| ToValueFunfetti wrote:
| So when the first amendment says congress shall make no
| law abridging freedom of speech, that's self-referential,
| and does not refer to an underlying basic human right? Or
| are you saying that Americans just don't care about why
| the bill of rights exists anymore, because the
| constitution is now their sole source of morality?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Ridiculous. He's a VP candidate so these things are
| definitely in the public's interest and reporters report on
| ill-gotten documents all the damn time.
|
| https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/read-the-jd-vance-dossier
| jeromegv wrote:
| So why did Elon complained when Twitter censored the Laptop
| Biden leak? This was the same policy, documents obtained via
| hacks.
| paulgb wrote:
| That's what I'm wondering, isn't his behavior now pretty
| much exactly what the whole Twitter Files thing was about?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files
| and0 wrote:
| Yeah, he updated the ToS when he took over to allow the
| Hunter Biden material.
| wormius wrote:
| It's almost as if he's not a good faith actor.
| listenallyall wrote:
| Are you talking about Hunter Biden's laptop? It wasn't
| hacked, he left it at a computer shop and never picked it
| up.
| cogman10 wrote:
| You don't get to rummage through someone's computer just
| because it's in your possession. That's not how the law
| or property works in the US. The shop owner made an
| illegal copy of Hunter's hard drive and then went forward
| and shared it with a bunch of people.
| jpadkins wrote:
| He tried to get Hunter to pay for the repairs several
| times, and then took possession of the laptop as payment
| for services after a year or more. That is legal in the
| US.
|
| Given how public this story was, if what he did was
| illegal, local DA would have prosecuted him.
|
| Hunter Biden abandoned the laptop. The Intel agencies and
| the corp media tried to cover it up.
| nemothekid wrote:
| Him "leaving" it a computer shop was never credibly,
| regardless what a bizarre line in the sand.
| cdchn wrote:
| Except the indisputable public interest in having information
| about the person sitting on deck for the most powerful
| position in the world, as opposed to the prurient interests
| in seeing leaked nudes.
| SmartJerry wrote:
| How is the vice presidential candidates social security
| number, phone number, and home address in the public
| interest?
| cogman10 wrote:
| You mean like the nude photos of hunter biden, stolen from
| his personal laptop, and shared across twitter without any
| changes? That sort of free speech?
| SmartJerry wrote:
| Doxing someone is not free speech. Documents aren't just
| 'hacked documents' when they include private information.
| danillonunes wrote:
| The thing about free speech is that everyone has their own
| criteria of what should or should not be included into it.
|
| When someone talks about "free speech absolutist", one
| expects they will include everything. No exceptions. After
| all, that's what the "absolutist" is supposed to be doing
| here.
|
| If you want to add exceptions to free speech, then you're not
| an absolutist. You just have the same lame relativist free
| speech definition as everyone else. Except your criteria is
| different than the others. Which, I mean, no problem, but at
| least be honest.
| hiddencost wrote:
| https://youtu.be/1sbZLhuaZIY
|
| Duck Sauce - Barbara Streisand
|
| (It's just a really catchy song. And I suspect this block will
| backfire.)
| Hizonner wrote:
| What could possibly in there that would be more damaging than
| what you can get for free by waiting for Vance to open his mouth
| in public?
| malshe wrote:
| Someone on Bluesky said something to the effect that nine out
| of ten times the shooting around Trump is just JD Vance
| shooting himself in the foot
| bdjsiqoocwk wrote:
| And the tenth time they miss.
| arctics wrote:
| I scrolled over the dossier and there nothing significant there,
| most of it is bunch of things he said, his investments, property,
| donations, tickets, taxes and so on.
|
| Most of the information can be found online, this is just
| complied into one PDF file.
| tptacek wrote:
| This is why no major media outlet ran this story when the
| hackers offered the documents a month or two ago: there's
| literally nothing in it. It's a standard opposition research
| report. The Harris campaign has a document just like it on
| their own Google Drive. It isn't even directionally
| interesting; it records every line of attack the GOP could
| imagine Vance facing (they missed "childless cat ladies",
| though!), and so calls out places where Vance is in line with
| Trump as well as places he isn't.
|
| All the real stories about this piece are going to be from
| people like Klippenstein and Musk beclowning themselves over
| it.
| rideontime wrote:
| Is Klippenstein self-beclowning? He readily admits in the
| piece that it's pretty much a nothingburger.
| spamizbad wrote:
| The omission of the "Childless Cat Ladies" comment is
| arguably pretty newsworthy since it has a bunch of
| implications, most notably being its the attack line that
| likely drew blood so to speak (the other a potential campaign
| blind-spot for how to communicate with female voters, a
| demographic the Trump campaign has struggled with)
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| It's just so stacked in conditionals, and the document
| doesn't even prove whether they didn't consider it a
| problem or just didn't know about it. I'm not saying it's
| some tragedy that this document got published, but it makes
| perfect sense to me that big newsrooms didn't think there
| was anything in here worth becoming a mouthpiece for some
| anonymous "Robert" guy. Independent journalists have more
| flexibility in this kind of thing because they don't have
| to develop and enforce editorial policies.
|
| Presumably newspapers will have more to say about the
| dossier now that it's already public.
| ajross wrote:
| Right, the argument being that the Trump campaign oppo
| folks are redpilled and unable to apply a cynical eye to
| arguments made from outside their echo chamber.
|
| And I guess that's possible, but I think the simpler
| explanation is just that they're lazy. Trump himself was
| going to pick whoever he wanted, everyone knew it. There's
| no point in going the extra mile to support a process you
| know is going to be ignored. So check the boxes you need to
| and move on.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Streisand effect.
|
| The dossier doesn't matter. The fact they are blocking it
| does.
| jeffbee wrote:
| What PDF reader would you trust to open and run a document
| reportedly produced by Iranian intelligence?
| phatfish wrote:
| I used Firefox.
| Psillisp wrote:
| My Nintendo Switch
| jimjimjim wrote:
| Any reader that has only bothered to implement pdf object
| processing and page rendering. Or just any pdf reader that
| doesn't have pdf javascript implemented
| mayneack wrote:
| Yeah, the only novel info in this story is the twitter
| suspension. Very counter productive if Elon was trying to
| suppress this.
| sys32768 wrote:
| X (Twitter) policy on sharing private information:
| https://help.x.com/en/rules-and-policies/personal-informatio...
|
| Among others it prohibits sharing:
|
| >home address or physical location information, such as street
| addresses, GPS coordinates, or other identifying information
| related to locations that are considered private
| srid wrote:
| As it applies to JD Vance,
|
| > X suspended Ken Klippenstein after he shared the Iranian-
| hacked dossier on J.D. Vance, which doxed his home addresses,
| phone numbers, emails, and social security number.
|
| https://x.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1839382777223164033
|
| Official message from X Safety,
|
| > Ken Klippenstein was temporarily suspended for violating our
| rules on posting unredacted private personal information,
| specifically Sen. Vance's physical addresses and the majority
| of his Social Security number.
|
| https://x.com/Safety/status/1839392663864549688
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| So much free speech!
| rllearneratwork wrote:
| Majority of Elon's net worth is tied to Tesla. Tesla has a
| massive presence in and therefore dependence on China. How can we
| accept Twitter as a free-speech platform? Just because he says
| so?
| turingfeel wrote:
| Much of the dossier reads like it was written by ChatGPT. Similar
| style and structure of paragraphs. I think a Trump campaign
| staffer got a little lazy.
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