I get that there are good and important libertarian arguments against the tech companies’ Trumper ban. But here’s a thread in its defense … 1/14

It’s a thread on why conservatives and liberals (as opposed to insurrectionists who would topple American democracy if they could) should favor banning speech that encouraged or cheered on Wednesday’s obscene events. 2/14
They should favor the ban because the lunatic agitator ranting on the street corner has no *right* to be given a megaphone that enables him to be heard by every potential lunatic follower of his cause in the country. 3/14
This isn’t a goddamn game. It’s not a reality show. And neither is it an Oxford debating society event. 4/14
This week the virtual world of combat many of us marinade in online burst into the real world. 5/14
If that drawbridge between virtual and actual insurrection isn’t withdrawn, we will find ourselves in a country quite literally tearing itself apart in the streets and in the halls of government around the nation. 6/14
(THE under-covered story of the week is that the insurrection on Capitol Hill was mirrored in state houses and legislatures across the country.) 7/14
Is our baseline for freedom now that every radical, anti-liberal right- and left-wing asshole must be given free access to the most powerful facilitator of political organization ever devised? 8/14
I submit that this is an insane thing to think — and that many of us think it only because we have slowly evolved into this being a new normal, … 9/14
… like the frog who thinks the nearly boiling water that’s about to kill him is just a bracing few minutes in a jacuzzi. 10/14
This is a new normal that could well bring the end of democratic self-government in the United States-- or, more likely, plunge us into civil war. 11/14
Which means that the tech company moves aren't an overreaction at all. Wednesday’s events could have been far, far worse —

https://t.co/lx9PAMuBGE 12/14
… and they are likely to be far, far worse in the future if we don’t inject a little moral content into these until-now mostly neutral platforms that are being used by fascists and anarchists to tear down the institutions that keep us free — 13/14
… with freedom defined in its original, political sense: the freedom to be citizens who share in rule through institutions of self-government. 14/14

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The entire discussion around Facebook’s disclosures of what happened in 2016 is very frustrating. No exec stopped any investigations, but there were a lot of heated discussions about what to publish and when.


In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.

In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.

This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.

In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.