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Adventures in Twitter Censorship [pdf]

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Re: Adventures in Twitter Censorship [pdf]

#61

Post by krapp »

itistoday2 wrote: post #44
krapp wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't downvote you, but I'm not aware of any "network" (by which I assume you mean website or application) that matches the requirements you set. Open source websites simply don't exist - as it's impossible to actually validate that the code running on a server matches whatever source code a company might distribute, and every site and application attempts to limit or control access to your data in some way. Hacke…

There are plenty of networks that fit this requirement! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10408968

Fair enough, but the entire web doesn't, which makes jsprogrammer's imperative practically impossible if taken at face value, unless one wants to avoid most of modern technological society altogether.

Re: Adventures in Twitter Censorship [pdf]

#62

Post by sroerick »

SFLemonade wrote: post #35
ogig wrote: post #2

One of my main concerns with mainstream social networks is this kind of subtle censorship/filtering. Some people think their Facebook stream is an accurate representation of their friends and surrounding reality, they are ignorant of the algoritms that decide what they will see and what not.

This so true and a major concern. The next wave of highly effective propaganda and thought control could very easily manifest itself through this. Today, people know better than to blindly believe the news media. If information is coming from a single entity, it could be pushing an agenda, so take it with a grain of salt. We all know that. But when it appears to come from a community, that's entirely different. It se…

It's already happening.

This is what the US internet looks like, post-Arab Spring.

Re: Adventures in Twitter Censorship [pdf]

#63

Post by epeus »

netik wrote: post #56

All of you are misinterpreting Twitter's "features" here. Most likely the root cause of this is an internal feature at Twitter called "per-country takedown." If someone from Germany asked (and had a valid court order) that the Tweet be taken down for German users, then Twitter has the ability to disable the Tweet for people coming from German IPs. I don't agree with this, I lobbied heavily against it while I worked t…

when that was announced they said it would show that the tweets had been withheld: https://blog.twitter.com/2012/tweets-still-must-flow ”Q: What will people see if content is withheld? A: If people are located in a country where a Tweet or account has been withheld and they try to view it, they will see a alert box that says “Tweet withheld” or “@Username withheld” in place of the affected Tweet or account.”

Did that policy change?

Re: Adventures in Twitter Censorship [pdf]

#64

Post by sroerick »

itistoday2 wrote: post #38
ogig wrote: post #2

One of my main concerns with mainstream social networks is this kind of subtle censorship/filtering. Some people think their Facebook stream is an accurate representation of their friends and surrounding reality, they are ignorant of the algoritms that decide what they will see and what not.

I've documented evidence of Twitter censorship; what likely amounts to millions of tweet-replies. This seems to be used to shape perceptions and opinions on twitter in at mass-scale: https://twitter.com/taoeffect/status/651215054235242497 I've now registered my username on Kloak as @greg, and am recommending to all my friends to move off of Twitter to similar networks. Here are some networks to ditch twitter for: - S…

GNU Social is a great alternative.

Re: Adventures in Twitter Censorship [pdf]

#65

Post by sroerick »

krapp wrote: post #40
jsprogrammer wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't use networks that don't share their code. Don't use networks that hold your data and don't give you raw access to it. Share directly with your friends instead of a large corporation. Edit: Instead of downmods, please post reasons why you should use networks run with secret codes and which suck your data into their proprietary databases.

I didn't downvote you, but I'm not aware of any "network" (by which I assume you mean website or application) that matches the requirements you set. Open source websites simply don't exist - as it's impossible to actually validate that the code running on a server matches whatever source code a company might distribute, and every site and application attempts to limit or control access to your data in some way. Hacke…

GNU Social is Open Source and federated.

Your criticism is still valid, obviously there is no way to validate that a GNU Social instance is not running modified code.

But the federation itself mitigates this to some extent. If you don't trust one instance, you can always fire up your own.

Re: Adventures in Twitter Censorship [pdf]

#66

Post by PavlovsCat »

teddyh wrote: post #59
DasIch wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany does not intend to silence anti-refugee posts. Germany wants to stop illegal incitement of hatred. Such as promoting or even threatening to burn down asylum centers, to hurt or even kill refugees and those that help them. Those are not just words, asylum centers are being burned to the ground, refugees are attacked, just recently some were killed on the border the EU, just yesterday someone tried and almost s…

“ The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all. ” — Widely attributed to H. L. Mencken

Would HN be better if personal insults and death threats were allowed, would it improve the exchange of ideas and the expression of opinions?

Re: Adventures in Twitter Censorship [pdf]

#67

Post by logic »

netik wrote: post #56

All of you are misinterpreting Twitter's "features" here. Most likely the root cause of this is an internal feature at Twitter called "per-country takedown." If someone from Germany asked (and had a valid court order) that the Tweet be taken down for German users, then Twitter has the ability to disable the Tweet for people coming from German IPs. I don't agree with this, I lobbied heavily against it while I worked t…

epeus is right; I'm not at Twitter anymore either, but the last time I looked at this, per-country takedowns were clearly labeled as such (ie. you hit the tweet from the blocked country, you get clear "this isn't visible to you" messaging).

My honest guess? Cache coherency is hard, man.

Re: Adventures in Twitter Censorship [pdf]

#68

Post by logic »

logic wrote: post #67
netik wrote: post #56

All of you are misinterpreting Twitter's "features" here. Most likely the root cause of this is an internal feature at Twitter called "per-country takedown." If someone from Germany asked (and had a valid court order) that the Tweet be taken down for German users, then Twitter has the ability to disable the Tweet for people coming from German IPs. I don't agree with this, I lobbied heavily against it while I worked t…

epeus is right; I'm not at Twitter anymore either, but the last time I looked at this, per-country takedowns were clearly labeled as such (ie. you hit the tweet from the blocked country, you get clear "this isn't visible to you" messaging). My honest guess? Cache coherency is hard, man.

Amusing side-conversation we're having right now: apparently my reply above didn't show up immediately for some folks.

Obviously, Hacker News is censoring me.

Re: Adventures in Twitter Censorship [pdf]

#69

Post by voltagex_ »

itistoday2 wrote: post #38
ogig wrote: post #2

One of my main concerns with mainstream social networks is this kind of subtle censorship/filtering. Some people think their Facebook stream is an accurate representation of their friends and surrounding reality, they are ignorant of the algoritms that decide what they will see and what not.

I've documented evidence of Twitter censorship; what likely amounts to millions of tweet-replies. This seems to be used to shape perceptions and opinions on twitter in at mass-scale: https://twitter.com/taoeffect/status/651215054235242497 I've now registered my username on Kloak as @greg, and am recommending to all my friends to move off of Twitter to similar networks. Here are some networks to ditch twitter for: - S…

>Register for an invite to the private beta (iOS only)

Sigh.

Re: Adventures in Twitter Censorship [pdf]

#70

Post by SFLemonade »

swang wrote: post #43
SFLemonade wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the problem that I see, is that in modern America, everyone is a victim. Anything can be considered offensive. And when that happens, we find it acceptable to utterly destroy people's lives over 140 characters...in the name of "social justice". It's ok to call Justine Sacco a fucking bitch and wish brutal rape upon her, so long as you do so in defense of social justice, right? It's ok to shame her, cause her…

I agree there is a lot of mob mentality going on. But I feel like you are only viewing this when you perceive it to be started by the "left". Mob mentality is not a left or right problem. "Progressives" are not the one's doing this. Mob mentality is a human thing. Is your reasoning that only people attacking Justine Sacco were "progressives" and "liberals?" Does that mean everybody, to put for a lack of a better term…

Good point. I shouldn't make this into a left vs. right issue. It is absolutely a human issue (and I would argue that it's especially cultural in this sense).

That said, I do think that the reasoning behind these shamings does come back quite often to progressive thought. That's not to say that regular liberals or conservatives deliberately didn't engage. I'm sure that many of them did. And it's also not to say that liberal or conservative thought would somehow be inherently better just by way of the fact that it doesn't participate in shamings. However, from my view, the rationale behind the engagements seems to overlap a lot with progressivism. The reason I point that out is because I want to highlight how dangerous it is for any philosophy to assert that it is so right - so just - that those who disagree with it are bigots whom need to be silenced. Progressive thought does this. So that's why I call it out.

But indeed, I do agree that this is also a general mob mentality issue. We should just be weary of philosophies (or political movements) that are unwilling to listen to, engage, compromise, and respectfully disagree with their opposition.

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