Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views • Hacker News Board

Re: Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

#201

Post by AlexandrB » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 5:24 PM UTC

allthenews wrote: post #180

Declanomous wrote: post #127

I can't stand the fact that organizations hide behind "algorithms" as an excuse for every unintended side-effect. It's no surprise that algorithms create an information bubble for us. I like to use music as an example: the best music recommendations I've ever received have been from friends. I'll describe music I'm listening to and like, and they'll recommend something for me. I'd say 50% of the time I find it unobje…

>We've positioned machine learning as a replacement to curation, but what it really does is put forth the least objectionable content. I don't think the problem is with ML. You could easily train a net to make boulder selections with an appropriate data set. I believe what you are seeing is an accommodation for the average person. Most people aren't adventurous, and it makes business sense to get algos working for th…

>> We've positioned machine learning as a replacement to curation, but what it really does is put forth the least objectionable content.

> I don't think the problem is with ML. You could easily train a net to make boulder selections with an appropriate data set. I believe what you are seeing is an accommodation for the average person. Most people aren't adventurous, and it makes business sense to get algos working for the middle majority than to cater to tail ends.

You literally just said the same thing the GP did while ostensibly disagreeing with him: ML curated content caters to the lowest common denominator - i.e. the content that most people would be okay with.

Re: Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

#202

Post by wybiral » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 5:26 PM UTC

dingo_bat wrote: post #196

s73v3r_ wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that the case instead of, say, Twitter not wanting to turn custom emoji into attack ads?

> Twitter not wanting to turn custom emoji into attack ads? Maybe it is. It is still censorship. And it is based on the political opinion of the CEO.

How is it based on the political opinion rather than a choice to keep negative attack ads off of their platform.

If they apply the same approach to different political campaigns it doesn't seem politically motivated to me.

Re: Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

#203

Post by greglindahl » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 5:26 PM UTC

soundwave106 wrote: post #139

josteink wrote: post #27

I can fully believe that. Try for instance to have a discussion here on hacker news about the less fortunate sides of diversity initiatives. Then see how many minutes it takes before your entire thread is flagged and effectively censored.

There's two angles to this: general crowd psychology, and how social media tailors the news feed in response to it. In the old Internet (forums and Usenet), sure, there was crowd psychology too. There always is. However, these social media designs were far less prone to hiding unpopular opinions. As a general rule, unless you had an overtly strict moderator or something, you could read posts with unpopular opinions,…

Usenet's classic problem was that it amplified the most extreme voices in any conversation. Extreme voices and unpopular opinions are different things. You can be extremely polite in expressing an unpopular opinion, and get upvoted on HN.

Re: Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

#204

Post by AlexandrB » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 5:29 PM UTC

pmarreck wrote: post #128

Lack of trust is a bullshit argument. It's basically the Conspiracy Fallacy: https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla... Is there any evidence to support this assertion and that Facebook isn't merely showing you information that is palatable to you? (Note that this greatly expands the use of this fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_repugnance ) I think we all have to answer these ques…

> Is there any evidence to support this assertion and that Facebook isn't merely showing you information that is palatable to you?

I'm not sure why intent matters. The point is I can't turn it off and see all the information if I wanted to. My access to information is being artificially restricted.

> 2) If so, do you wish to impose this expectation on everyone else?

This is completely unnecessary. Just need an option in preferences: Use algorithmic feed [Yes] [No].

Edit: Like privacy, this is another case where the ad-driven business model is in conflict with the best interests of the user. Ad-supported algorithmic feeds optimize not for truth, educational value, or even user happiness, but for engagement. This often means eliciting a strong emotional reaction - positive or negative. In effect algorithmic feeds create the informational equivalent of how grocery stores put high-margin junk and processed foods in the high traffic areas. They want you to buy this stuff - your health be damned.

Re: Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

#205

Post by wybiral » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 5:30 PM UTC

dingo_bat wrote: post #198

geofft wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, your point was, "It is if you allow the other side to do exactly the same, as noted in the linked article." The other side is not doing exactly the same. The other side never intended to do exactly the same, and for good measure, the CEO promised that if they did, they would be prevented from doing so, too. You are now making the claim that, if side X exhibits behavior A, and opposing side Y exhibits behavior B,…

> The other side is not doing exactly the same. The other side wanted a custom icon. They got it. The content of the icon is irrelevant to the question "did twitter censor political views not shared by the CEO?" The answer is "yes", regardless of the content of the icon granted to the other side.

The content is important though because it's precisely why they weren't allowed the hashtag.

They were allowed other hashtags that didn't have the same negative "attack ad" approach so it doesn't look like politically motivated bias so much as them just not wanting to promote negative attack ads on their platform.

You can call it censorship. That's fair. But it's unfair to call it bias or politically motivated censorship.

Re: Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

#206

Post by nascar_is_bad » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

Mikhail_Edoshin wrote: post #161

nascar_is_bad wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://stackoverflow.com/users/478521/mikhail-edoshin From Russia eh?

Yep.

All I need to know :) thanks. Execute the gays amirite?

Re: Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

#207

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

dingo_bat wrote: post #198

geofft wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, your point was, "It is if you allow the other side to do exactly the same, as noted in the linked article." The other side is not doing exactly the same. The other side never intended to do exactly the same, and for good measure, the CEO promised that if they did, they would be prevented from doing so, too. You are now making the claim that, if side X exhibits behavior A, and opposing side Y exhibits behavior B,…

> The other side is not doing exactly the same. The other side wanted a custom icon. They got it. The content of the icon is irrelevant to the question "did twitter censor political views not shared by the CEO?" The answer is "yes", regardless of the content of the icon granted to the other side.

[deleted]

Re: Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

#208

Post by ceejayoz » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 5:35 PM UTC

dingo_bat wrote: post #195

ceejayoz wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's zero evidence of that here. "No attack ads" isn't the same thing as "no anti-Hillary attack ads". If you can cite the Hillary campaign getting a custom emoji for an anti-Trump hashtag, do so.

> "No attack ads" isn't the same thing as "no anti-Hillary attack ads". Irrelevant. Twitter denied them a custom icon whereas allowed their opposition to have one. The content of the icon has no bearing on the matter. It's censorship. That is twitter's choice but it is still censorship, based on the CEO's politics.

> Twitter denied them a custom icon whereas allowed their opposition to have one.

This is NOT TRUE.

Click the article. Look at the screenshot. It clearly shows the Republican National Convention was afforded a custom emoji.

You've fallen for some propaganda.

Re: Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

#209

Post by Declanomous » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 5:46 PM UTC

allthenews wrote: post #180

Declanomous wrote: post #127

I can't stand the fact that organizations hide behind "algorithms" as an excuse for every unintended side-effect. It's no surprise that algorithms create an information bubble for us. I like to use music as an example: the best music recommendations I've ever received have been from friends. I'll describe music I'm listening to and like, and they'll recommend something for me. I'd say 50% of the time I find it unobje…

>We've positioned machine learning as a replacement to curation, but what it really does is put forth the least objectionable content. I don't think the problem is with ML. You could easily train a net to make boulder selections with an appropriate data set. I believe what you are seeing is an accommodation for the average person. Most people aren't adventurous, and it makes business sense to get algos working for th…

> boulder selections

Would that mean more rock and less bluegrass? (I'm kidding, of course)

In all seriousness though, the problem probably is the data set to a certain extent. I am pretty adventurous, true, but at the same time I think the problem is that regardless of what data we collect, we only have the ability to determine if something is inoffensive.

All you need to do is look at a site that aggregates reviews like Yelp or Amazon, and read some reviews. 95% of reviews are either 1 star or 5 stars, and it's obvious from reading the text that the rating is meaningless. "I ordered the wrong item by mistake, 1 star" "Food is overpriced, but the bathrooms are clean and wait staff is attractive, 5 stars."

I find star ratings most useful because people who rate things 2-4 stars generally have the most nuanced and productive things to say about the product, and actually rate things what they think they should be rated, rather than using the rating system as a vote for "rate this higher/lower."

I don't think it's possible to actually come up with good recommendations based on user-reported like/dislike rating. It's not wrong for a user to dislike a song because it reminds them of an ex, but using that as a basis for a recommendation to someone else is entirely useless.

Systems like Rotten Tomatoes works really well in this regard, but almost has the opposite problem, which is that it tends to underrate movies with broad appeal, but that's generally not a problem since users will be exposed to those movies anyways.

Re: Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

#210

Post by s73v3r_ » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 5:48 PM UTC

dingo_bat wrote: post #196

s73v3r_ wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that the case instead of, say, Twitter not wanting to turn custom emoji into attack ads?

> Twitter not wanting to turn custom emoji into attack ads? Maybe it is. It is still censorship. And it is based on the political opinion of the CEO.

You're going to have to explain far, far better than just saying, "censorship" over and over again. Especially when the RNC was able to get several custom emoji, and they didn't give out any negative or attack emoji.