Paul GrahamVerified account

There are two separate things happening here: shutting down their Twitter account, and flagging links to their site as dangerous. The former is arguably a justifiable punishment for giving the researcher's phone number. But how does this (mild) doxxing make the site dangerous?

"If it turns out that the coronavirus did escape from a lab in Wuhan, Twitter is going to owe ZeroHedge an apology" - I'm pointing out that the ToS violation had nothing to do with Twitter 'arbitrating truth' and getting it wrong, as the tweet implied & most of the replies echo'd

It's fine to ban an account for violating the ToS, but when Twitter flags any link to the site that anyone else posts on Twitter, especially using the language that they do, they're implying that the site is dangerous to users, not merely that its owners broke Twitter's rules.

Imagine if when HN banned a user, they also banned links to their site. That would either be a ridiculously draconian punishment, or would imply that there was something wrong with the site. If we assume Twitter is not ridiculously draconian, they're implying the site is bad.

(In the case of spammers, HN mods often do simultaneously ban a user and their site. But in that case they do mean to imply there is something wrong with the site.)

Right and in that case the ban is behavioral; they wouldn’t owe an apology just because the spammer’s claims that their product reduced belly fat turned out to be true.

HN mods ban spammers' sites because they're offtopic. It doesn't matter whether their claims are true or not.