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Defining Public Interest on Twitter

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Re: Defining Public Interest on Twitter

#51

Post by sdinsn »

creaghpatr wrote: post #39
driverdan wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tech monoliths like facebook, google, and twitter are starting to show very obvious political biases. How is this policy political bias? If one political group makes more calls to violence or for discrimination than another perhaps the problem is with the group, not Twitter.

Because political advocacy groups consult Twitter on what constitutes violations: https://about.twitter.com/en_us/safety/safety-partners.html

If not political advocacy groups, who would be a better consultant choice? Isn't the entire purpose of advocacy groups to encourage the safety of certain groups?

Re: Defining Public Interest on Twitter

#52

Post by TheHypnotist »

djrogers wrote: post #46
TheHypnotist wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand: If your political stance violates the TOS that is enforced on non-public offical users, is it really "political bias"? Maybe you should rethink your politics if bullying, inciting violence, and inciting hate speech is part of your position.

The problem will arise when twitter selectively enforces these rules on people with only one political stance. Hypocrisy is a common human trait, and one that should be accounted for in such a process - it's hard to look at Twitter's past actions and assume they'll do this one perfectly.

Maybe, maybe not. In this case time will tell and considering the effect of their action seems relatively trivial, is this really worse than inaction?

Re: Defining Public Interest on Twitter

#53

Post by sterkekoffie »

creaghpatr wrote: post #5

>When a Tweet has this notice placed on it, it will feature less prominently on Twitter, and not appear in: >Safe search >Timeline when switched to Top Tweets >Live events pages >Recommended Tweet push notifications >Notifications tab >Explore Getting out in front of the 2020 election, I see. Better conform to Twitter's code of conduct if you want to maximize reach! Edit: Good time to get to know who will be making t…

I think your comment that politicians "better conform to Twitter's code of conduct!" if they want to use Twitter is a perfect summary of the underlying philosophy here. A system where you have bored teens posting alongside the POTUS, desirability aside, is very difficult to regulate. All this move amounts to is a statement that if you can't make your point without breaking the Twitter rules, it belongs somewhere other than Twitter.

In my own opinion, it is hugely irresponsible for a business like Twitter to give politicians a platform in the first place. If this is a move away (*s/toward/away) from that, by hindering usefulness of Twitter as a campaign tool, I'm completely in favor of that.

ps: TASC don't have any influence on which posts are considered rule-breaking, only on which are considered noteworthy enough to stay up. So they have no influence on "throttling" any tweets, only on saving ones which would otherwise be deleted.

Re: Defining Public Interest on Twitter

#54

Post by malvosenior »

slg wrote: post #19
malvosenior wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that they're inappropriate, it's that they will be enforced selectively.

So what is the alternative here? Allow everything from copyright infringement to threats of violence to child porn? That is what I don't get about the complaints of these companies censoring users. Every mature government has already agreed that completely unlimited free speech is not a good thing as speech can infringe on the rights of others. We are just debating about where exactly the line is now. You are free to…

The alternative is to not selectively enforce the rules. I didn't even mention anything about censorship.

Re: Defining Public Interest on Twitter

#55

Post by slg »

djrogers wrote: post #50
slg wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Threatening violence is against Twitter's rules and yet world leaders have threatened war on Twitter. Those tweets deserve to stay up because they have public value, but Twitter needs some concrete policy on why a world leader saying they will "obliterate Iran" is different than a random person saying they will assault another random person. I am not sure this policy is a good answer to that, but they needed to do so…

> a world leader saying they will "obliterate Iran" It's also worth noting that saying they would "obliterate Iran" under a specific set of circumstances is completely different from saying they will "obliterate Iran". One is an (admittedly blunt) form of diplomatic and political threat, the other is a statement deliberately taken out of context to make someone look worse than they already do.

I disagree. One of the primary aspects of many threats is defining the specific criteria that would lead to violence. The point of a threat is usually not to actually inflict the violence but instead to use that possibility of violence as a motivation for changing behavior. It is roughly equivalent to preemptive terrorism. I therefore don't see how putting qualifications on the threat of violence should be enough to circumvent the rules. I would still expect to get in trouble for saying "I will kill you if you ever state that political opinion again" even though the threatened party could easily avoid any fear of violence by simply refraining from stating that opinion.

Re: Defining Public Interest on Twitter

#56

Post by mc32 »

sdinsn wrote: post #51
creaghpatr wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because political advocacy groups consult Twitter on what constitutes violations: https://about.twitter.com/en_us/safety/safety-partners.html

If not political advocacy groups, who would be a better consultant choice? Isn't the entire purpose of advocacy groups to encourage the safety of certain groups?

I think an apolitical philosophical framework would be better than _biased_ (however good their intentions) groups who have the mostly the well being of their interest group in mind. An advocacy group isn't a group which will take a balanced approach. Naturally, if they are advocates, they would represent their position _fully_ and uncompromised.

An apolitical (not advocating anything outside a framework) would be better and more neutral way to manage these differing opinions.

Re: Defining Public Interest on Twitter

#57

Post by mfatica »

TheHypnotist wrote: post #35
6cd6beb wrote: post #22

>We're not going to delete it but we're going to algorithmically prevent discovery Tech monoliths like facebook, google, and twitter are starting to show very obvious political biases. If we push them to be equitable to differing opinions, they basically get to continue enforcing their own political biases because we can only ever do blackbox testing. God knows what the backend is doing. If we push them to own their…

On the other hand: If your political stance violates the TOS that is enforced on non-public offical users, is it really "political bias"? Maybe you should rethink your politics if bullying, inciting violence, and inciting hate speech is part of your position.

I've seen far more on the left calling for bullying, inciting violence, and inciting hate than the right.

Re: Defining Public Interest on Twitter

#58

Post by taborj »

mfatica wrote: post #57
TheHypnotist wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand: If your political stance violates the TOS that is enforced on non-public offical users, is it really "political bias"? Maybe you should rethink your politics if bullying, inciting violence, and inciting hate speech is part of your position.

I've seen far more on the left calling for bullying, inciting violence, and inciting hate than the right.

Oh good, I'm not alone in seeing this trend. The left seems to have a more "if you're not with us you're against us" stance.

Re: Defining Public Interest on Twitter

#59

Post by taborj »

creaghpatr wrote: post #44
simion314 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a better solution? I am honestly thinking on how would I solve the problem where I own a popular social network or forum/subreddit, I want to prevent it to become a shit place, so I would like to put some rules like HN and other communities have , how can I prevent the situation where people will call me as censoring them on my own community? My only solution would be to ban political discussion completel…

I actually think it's a great compromise, but I do wish users could see which Trust and Safety partner determined each violation on a tweet by tweet basis. I.e. Twitter in partnership with [GLAAD; ADL; etc] determined this tweet contained [violation]. Then we could quantify, drill down and get some great insights.

That's an excellent idea, actually. Transparency is key in these situations.

Re: Defining Public Interest on Twitter

#60

Post by anigbrowl »

djrogers wrote: post #46
TheHypnotist wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand: If your political stance violates the TOS that is enforced on non-public offical users, is it really "political bias"? Maybe you should rethink your politics if bullying, inciting violence, and inciting hate speech is part of your position.

The problem will arise when twitter selectively enforces these rules on people with only one political stance. Hypocrisy is a common human trait, and one that should be accounted for in such a process - it's hard to look at Twitter's past actions and assume they'll do this one perfectly.

You seem to be assuming your conclusion as your premise.
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