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Additional steps we're taking ahead of the 2020 US Election

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Re: Additional steps we're taking ahead of the 2020 US Election

#31

Post by helen___keller »

rabuse wrote: post #7
joshfraser wrote: post #3

Free speech has taken quite a beating in recent days. It's weird watching many of my friends and people I respect cheering while it happens. I honestly don't know what we do to fix our current situation where lies so easily go viral, but making Twitter arbiters of truth doesn't seem like the best solution.

I have this gut instinct we're veering towards the way China censors their internet. The great U.S. firewall, to secure our citizens from "disinformation"!

As far as "great firewall style" American censorship (i.e. state removal of content on a categorical level) the only proposals I'm aware of have been to block TikTok and WeChat on the grounds of "national security".

Re: Additional steps we're taking ahead of the 2020 US Election

#32

Post by jdofaz »

notatoad wrote: post #8

>Second, we will prevent “liked by” and “followed by” recommendations from people you don’t follow from showing up in your timeline and won’t send notifications for these Tweets. These recommendations can be a helpful way for people to see relevant conversations from outside of their network, but we are removing them because we don’t believe the “Like” button provides sufficient, thoughtful consideration prior to amp…

I really disliked that "feature", I usually use the chronological mode to avoid seeing them.

If I wanted to see that content I would follow it, and if I wasn't and the content was good someone I follow might retweet it. And if I follow someone who retweets annoying things I can disable retweets on that person.

Re: Additional steps we're taking ahead of the 2020 US Election

#35

Post by TheSionnach »

km3r wrote: post #17
joshfraser wrote: post #3

Free speech has taken quite a beating in recent days. It's weird watching many of my friends and people I respect cheering while it happens. I honestly don't know what we do to fix our current situation where lies so easily go viral, but making Twitter arbiters of truth doesn't seem like the best solution.

Any platform ought to have the right to prevent falsehoods from being spread on the platform. A platform also should have to right to choose what topic, otherwise a car forum could be overrun by motorcycle enthusiasts. As long as a platform applies its rules in a just and fair way, i see no issue with preventing lies or keeping the topic on track.

But who gets to decide what is truth and lies? If twitter was bi-partisan, sure, but the people in charge clearly have a heavily bias.

Re: Additional steps we're taking ahead of the 2020 US Election

#36

Post by helen___keller »

_qulr wrote: post #29
iamdbtoo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is a community and all communities require some level of moderation. There's never a situation where you let people say whatever they want, whenever they want without any moderation at all and everything goes well. You have to set some of sort of standard. We already do this as a society, so why shouldn't that extend to Twitter?

> Twitter is a community Twitter has 330 million monthly active users and 145 million daily active users. Is that a community? It seems more like an unruly mob. :-) I agree with the point that all online forums should have moderation, but for me the question is, should something like Twitter even exist? A centralized world discussion forum is not necessarily a good and healthy thing. Can humanity handle having Twitte…

> Can humanity handle having Twitter?

Even if the answer is no, pandora's box is opened. If twitter disappeared, 5 copycat sites/apps would emerge from the ashes overnight.

Re: Additional steps we're taking ahead of the 2020 US Election

#37

Post by krapp »

joshfraser wrote: post #9
krapp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is making Twitter an arbiter of truth. If you don't like the way Twitter does business, there are other platforms that will cater to your alternative truth needs.

I'm not seeking alternative truth. Everyone cheers for Twitter because they think they are going to censor people in a way they agree with. But what about the day that changes? What about the day they decide to censor you instead? On one hand, I agree that businesses should be free to operate as they like & you can vote with your feet if you don't like the rules. However, we also have to be realistic about the fact t…

>But what about the day that changes? What about the day they decide to censor you instead?

What about it? People get banned from Twitter all the time - literally every hosted platform and service moderates and bans content as they see fit. The terms of service you agreed to when using that platform likely includes phrases like "for any reason" and "in perpetuity throughout the universe."

So I guess I make another account? Or go somewhere else? That's not exactly the boot of fascism stomping on your face forever.

>However, we also have to be realistic about the fact that the largest tech corporations are now more powerful than most countries.

No they aren't. Countries have armies and the monopoly on violence. Countries can arrest you, torture you, confiscate your possessions, make your beliefs illegal, and murder you. The only thing Twitter can possibly do to me is delete my account or ban me. They only control their one platform, they don't control the internet or the entirety of media. They're not going to send me to the gulag or throw me into the ovens. They're not going to erase me like Stalin.

To say that any social media platform is more powerful than most countries is ridiculous.

Re: Additional steps we're taking ahead of the 2020 US Election

#38

Post by tpmx »

googthrowaway42 wrote: post #24

Reading these headlines is like living in a dystopian waking nightmare. This is not remotely at all the role that Twitter or any other Silicon Valley tech company should play in society.

This is what the outsized tolerance for internal political activism inside SV companies has resulted in.

(European observer)

Re: Additional steps we're taking ahead of the 2020 US Election

#39

Post by rdxm »

OMG....lmao.....can you say: "5 years to late, and a bazillion dollars short"?????

It is unfathomable to me how people can justify working at places like twitter and FB knowing the mind-blowing level of damage they do to the country, our culture and our species.

The single biggest thing we could to do start righting the ship on this place (US or planet, take your pick), is to burn FB, Twitter IG, etc TO THE GROUND.

It's that simple.

Re: Additional steps we're taking ahead of the 2020 US Election

#40

Post by jariel »

joshfraser wrote: post #3

Free speech has taken quite a beating in recent days. It's weird watching many of my friends and people I respect cheering while it happens. I honestly don't know what we do to fix our current situation where lies so easily go viral, but making Twitter arbiters of truth doesn't seem like the best solution.

a) You have no right to free-speech on Twitter or any other platform.

b) When people spread false information at scale, it risks the very foundations of civilization.

Anyone with an actively managed platform has to try to ensure some kind of intelligent fealty - the trick is to do it without bias or and kind of ideological orientation.

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