I quit Twitter with all my accumulated thousands of followers after it became clear to me that the platform was a progressive propaganda organ that censored users and tweets it didn’t like, notably President Trump. I returned (here) as a show of support for Elon Musk, who bought the platform and (largely) eliminated its tendency to content-based censorship. This Ethics Quiz has special interest for me.
X, as Twitter is now called ( I miss the little birdie logo) suspended left- “journalist” Ken Klippenstein when he linked to an article of his that contained a hacked document with negative, private and otherwise provocative information about Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance. Klippenstein used to write for the crypto-Communist The Nation, and was a senior investigative reporter for the far-Left online news program “The Young Turks.” Needless to say, he has an agenda.
The 271-page dossier on Vance has been traced to a hack by Iran. Most media outlets refused to publish it, but Klippenstein, who has a substack to sell, grabbed the opportunity. Musk took to his own platform to decry the document as “one of the most egregious, evil doxxing actions we’ve ever seen.” He went on, “Presidential candidates are not speculatively in danger – there have already been two attempts on @realDonaldTrump’s life. Moreover, the doxxing included detailed information on the addresses of their children.” X explained that Klippenstein violated its policy against posting “unredacted private personal information,” including Vance’s physical addresses and part of his social security number.
And yet…Musk’s action walked predictably into an attack by the Axis, which is crying hypocrisy after the (justified) outcry over Twitter, Facebook and most of the mainstream media banning the Hunter Biden laptop news until Joe Biden was safely elected. Even if the comparison is unfair and misleading, it is important for X to be seen and trusted as neutral and objective. Banning Klippenstein, even for aiding and abetting a foreign attempt at election interference, has the appearance of impropriety.
Your Ethics Alarms last gasp of September Ethics Quiz is…
Ethics Alarms 
That the general expectation is bias, does not mean it is a wrong action to enforce stated policy.
Heh. I see that my comment to his post about this was “liked” and quoted by “Elon Musk”: “Tough Call.” Or not. I don’t care: anyone who agrees with me gets Brownie points….
Jack: I hate to break it to you but you might want to put “Elon Musk” in quotes.
The best part of Twitter: Community Notes;
The worst: all the bots. I think I have a dozen “Elon Musk” accounts following me.
Sounds scary!
James! You just posted the 380,001st EA Comment! Congratulations!
Hooray! When will I receive my trophy?
Yea that’s not really Elon. Come on!
DD
Either way, “he’s” right. It is a tough call.
I see nothing wrong here. The only way to impugn this is to show that (A) this enforcement action is not, in fact, enforcing an existing policy, or (B) that the policy is ill-advised in some way and should not be a policy in the first place.
Starting with the latter, I completely agree that a policy banning the publishing of personal information of others without their express consent should indeed be policy. This sort of “doxxing” has already caused untold harm and puts peoples’ lives and safety at risk (as well as, secondarily, their property). The information can always be published in a redacted way to feature what needs to be featured without including specific identifiable details.
Nevertheless, even if you disagree with a particular moderation policy, that doesn’t change the fact that it exists. Since it exists, you still need to abide by it or face enforcement action.
That just leaves the former, and while I have not read the entire post (and, on principle, I shouldn’t), I’ll default to a benefit-of-the-doubt stance. If someone can show that this “journalist” [Note: I like this. I’m going to use it too!] did not, in fact, disclose any sort of personal identifiable information in violation of the policy, then I’ll agree that the ban was improper.
As far as the Biden Laptop is concerned, there’s a big difference between holding back information because “In our esteemed opinion, this is disinformation” and enforcement action which violates a perfectly sound and reasonable policy which was in effect at the time of the post. (This is still true even without our retrospective knowledge that the laptop was genuine.)
–Dwayne
I talked this out with my husband and we came to our opinion on the quiz. It was responsible for Twitter/X to ban Klippenstein.
The reason we believe that this is fair is that unlike being sent to Facebook Jail or being banned from Facebook, X gave specific, detailed reasons for the ban. If you violate community standards, and those standards are being upheld for everyone, then it is absolutely fair to be banned, just like it is fair for you to ban commenters who violate your site’s standards.
In this case, Elon Musk specifically stated what Klippenstein did wrong. Most Facebook bans are for vague, unspecified reasons that you have to track down over weeks or months, usually with no success, and if you actually manage to talk to a person, you MAY be reinstated with an “oops, the bot did it accidentally.” In addition, this is almost invariably a ban on the conservative side, such as my aunt who got a small sentence in Facebook Jail for posting a picture of a bald eagle and an American flag with a quotation from a founding father on it.
I currently believe (but am willing to be proven wrong) that Musk would have banned Ann Coulter (or Glen Greenwald for that matter) who published similar information on Tim Walz’s children. Therefore, while this is unfortunately on the progressive side and so people will complain, it is much like your own site. Most progressives don’t stand much of a chance here, because they seem to violate standards at a much higher rate than the conservatives. That isn’t to say that you are banning due to ideological bias, but due to violation of standards, much like Musk did.
That being said, if it was shown that someone did to Walz what was done to Vance and was not banned, I retract this entire comment, and am disappointed in Musk and X, which would now be just a right wing propaganda site, in that case.
Sooooo, do you think we could get Ann to do so? Who’s going to miss her?
Seriously, I agree with all you’ve said and for similar reasons. This is materially different than the laptop story. It was suppressed because the social media bosses didn’t like the content of the story. And I would be willing to bet it didn’t have Hunter’s address or social security number or those of his kids (or parents for that matter).
A couple other things: As Chris said below, was this a repeated violation of the rules or a first offense. For something like this, does it matter? Is it signature significance? I think it would be hard to argue that there is an innocent explanation.
Second, I personally wonder just who publicized the ban — X or Klippenstein? It might not matter, but my suspicious mind wonders if K might have been trolling X to see if he could get banned so he could smear Musk with it. If so, well, has Musk actually been smeared or is it just K?
“Moreover, the doxxing included detailed information on the addresses of their children.” X explained that Klippenstein violated its policy against posting “unredacted private personal information,” including Vance’s physical addresses and part of his social security number.”
Exactly how is detailed information about the addresses of the children newsworthy Mr. Klippentein?
The DOJ can and has prosecuted businesses for what is termed Conscious Parallel Actions under anti-trust law. I could see that doxxing of the children is similar in that it is designed with a reasonably foreseeable outcome that would be an attack on the children without a direct conspiracy to effectuate an attack. Conscious Parallel Action works the same way. Multiple parties do not have to physically meet or communicate verbally or in writing to act in a manner jointly to restrain trade or attempt to monopolize.
The comparison to Hunter Biden’s laptop would only be appropriate if the only information contained in the leaked hacked material painted Vance as someone who might be a security risk or has been compromised by foreign powers and was suppressed to keep damaging information about the candidate from the public. Including the children or even partial social security numbers can only be of interest to someone inclined to harm Vance financially or through his children.
Musk’s explanation is sufficient assuming the violations of the policies on doxxing are accurate. I would say that the post in question could have been taken down by X and Klippenstein given a reason and a warning. We do not know if the suspension or expulsion was due to a singular post or continued violations after warnings.
To the best of my knowledge Iranian hackers are not granted the constitutional rights of American citizens. K does have those rights But I question his judgment in posting such a hacked document.
Klippenstein claims to be a journalist. As such, I feel he should face MORE scrutiny in a case like this than your average person. Why didn’t he redact that sensitive information? Does he not own a sharpie? Can he not download GIMP for free to black that out? He knows better. It isn’t that he should know better, it is that he DOES know better. So, the most reasonable explanation is that he wanted to hurt and endanger Vance. That is bannabe right there. You could excuse a teenager who posted it as clueless, but Klippenstein has no such excuses.