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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

#71

Post by core-questions »

yamrzou wrote: post #58
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…

Their recommendation engine is not harmful in all cases. I used to use Twitter to follow some machine learning/programming profiles and remember the recommendations being quite good.

This is the amazing duality of social networking: as soon as it becomes topic specific, the quality of discussion improves in direct corellation to how technical the topic gets. The moment the conversation is just general babble, anonymous / pseudonymous people will find things to argue about.

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

#72

Post by nullc »

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…

> but i don't see how they can square

"This makes us money but harms the world as a side effect, but if we harm it too much the retaliation will cost us money. As a result we're going to only use it as much as we think we can get away with."

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

#74

Post by JPKab »

tpmx wrote: post #38
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)

It's really become a religion at this point, with Capitalization of certain Sacred Words and canonical texts that are required reading to even engage in critical discussion of overwrought, overly broad claims.

The worst part is that the people in these companies rarely have any experience with traditional religion, let alone extreme/fundamentalist religion, and therefore don't see the obvious patterns used by these extreme activists. I grew up as a dissenter in a fundamentalist Christian family, and the reactions I got when I stood my ground and said that I believed in evolution and a billions year-old earth are incredibly similar to what I see when trying to argue with these extreme activists. Also similar to my fundamentalist upbringing are the subgroup (minority) of people who obviously derive immense satisfaction from their piety, and won't hesitate to condemn others in the in-group for not demonstrating their full dedication to The Mission. These enforcers fit a personality profile that is identical to what I encounter at my overly woke workplace. Recently one of these enforcers told a guy (he was raised by Polish immigrants in a poor, inner-city neighborhood of Philadelphia) that he was wrong when he committed the horrible atrocity of celebrating the purchase of his first car, and saying how he "deserved it" after all these years. She was quick to spoil the happy hour at the outdoor bar by forcing him to acknowledge his privilege.

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

#75

Post by ogre_codes »

JPKab wrote: post #52
roughly wrote: post #47

I'm fascinated by the comments here, which seem to be assuming that Twitter is operating in an environment in which the predominate source of trending information is well-meaning individuals and not motivated state-level actors intent on disrupting an election.

"predominate source of trending information is well-meaning individuals and not motivated state-level actors intent on disrupting an election." What evidence do you have that the predominant source of trending information is motivated state-level actors? That is an incredibly bold statement, and the framing you chose is such that there needs to evidence to the contrary, rather than evidence to support such a claim. E…

> What evidence do you have that the predominant source of trending information is motivated state-level actors?

I didn't make that post. But the fact that state level actors have manipulated Twitter topics with bots, astroturfing, and other artificial means is pretty well established. I'm not sure I'd agree it's the "Predominant" source of trending information, that there has been state-level influence from foreign actors has been well documented.

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

#76

Post by ping_pong »

Honestly, if one of the billionaires bought Twitter, used patents and the legal system to litigate ruthlessly over any new startups that tried to emulate it, and kept any similar system off the internet for 10-20 years, I honestly think humanity will be better off.

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

#77

Post by staplers »

JPKab wrote: post #52
roughly wrote: post #47

I'm fascinated by the comments here, which seem to be assuming that Twitter is operating in an environment in which the predominate source of trending information is well-meaning individuals and not motivated state-level actors intent on disrupting an election.

"predominate source of trending information is well-meaning individuals and not motivated state-level actors intent on disrupting an election." What evidence do you have that the predominant source of trending information is motivated state-level actors? That is an incredibly bold statement, and the framing you chose is such that there needs to evidence to the contrary, rather than evidence to support such a claim. E…

You could simply google "twitter bots state level actors" and find plenty of reading.

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

#78

Post by googthrowaway42 »

tpmx wrote: post #38
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)

I completely agree with you and I used to work at Google and see this kind of activism first hand. It's not just activism though, the C-suites of these companies believe in this kind of thing.

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

#79

Post by greenie_beans »

I think that I support actions like this, though I fear that the people who share fake news will also be the people to complain about Twitter and Facebook being a part of the mythical "deep state" once they start seeing these tags on their posts.

I think about my uncle or cousin who has been posting fake news since before it was a phrase, and how they'll react. It's probably not gonna be a positive reaction.

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

#80

Post by leot »

When will Twitter provide all users with the ability to easily verify their identity?

One of its biggest issues is troll armies — this would quickly vanish if we could filter by whether someone had validated who they were and where they were located.

If Bumble can do it, Twitter can.

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