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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

#211

Post by ValentineC »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #198
ValentineC wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> >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. I don't know if a Twitter PM will read this, but showing Likes in my feed — and not having an option to turn it off in the official mobile app client — is one big reason I stopped consuming tweets. It's a shame that the only way to opt out…

You can tap the sparkly icon on the feed and change to "Latest Tweets".

Wow, thanks, this seems to work for now.

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

#212

Post by waheoo »

bredren wrote: post #202
gotodengo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"we're gonna turn it back on in four weeks" This is my recurring issue when I see most "changes we're making for the election" posts. Sure this seems like a good step for this election. Fake news and the destabilization it can bring isn't just an American phenomenon though. Are they going to apply these precautions to elections in Brazil, or Myanmar?

Many people will stop watering their lawns during a drought. But they usually start up again after it passes.

So?

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

#214

Post by waheoo »

bamboozled wrote: post #175
entropicdrifter wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not nearly as accountable to those countries' governments

Why not ? They sell a product in those countries which is harmful to the democratic process and society overall.

'Cause 'murica, fuck yea'

You can hate me for saying it but we all know it's whats going on here.

I see the same garbage approach to politics at work too.

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

#215

Post by konjin »

jon37 wrote: post #101
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.

By growing as large as they have, and by building automated systems to amplify content to mass audiences, they have acquired that role. It is unfortunate that their control over their responsibility is unilateral and undemocratic. But at their scale, if they chose not to try and assess the accuracy of information, but instead to blindly amplify it based on engagement metrics, that is also a political choice.

>But at their scale, if they chose not to try and assess the accuracy of information, but instead to blindly amplify it based on engagement metrics, that is also a political choice.

No that's an apolitical choice.

The political choice was not doing this in 2012 when it was Obama benefiting from it.

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

#216

Post by meheleventyone »

core-questions wrote: post #178
meheleventyone wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sadly don’t find this to be true. The caustic subjects in all disciplines get talked about more and recommended more. I made the mistake of watching some flight videos and now get recommended crash montages all the time. I watched the C++ con talk on “OO considered harmful” and now have an inordinate amount of bullshit in my feed. It feels kind of crazy that my YouTube recommendations took such a downturn suddenly.

I will clarify: I don't mean that _feeds_ are doing well with this. I just mean, when you dig down to a place where Real Discussion is happening, like a web1.0 message board or group or whatever, there's still tons of good, good-faith discussion happening. It's just not the stuff that percolates up to the top. Relying on your feed recommendations for your content is like living off of nothing but McDonalds, it's not…

Ahh sorry, I really read that wrong!

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

#217

Post by StanislavPetrov »

simias wrote: post #147
tpmx wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That makes no sense to me. Do you think social networks would be less toxic and less abused if all the devs at Facebook or Twitter were apolitical? How would that work? It's the quest for "engagement" and getting always more users and ad views that generates this situation. What can be used to sell you shoes and earphones can also be used to sell you political ideas. When the algorithm wants to show you some inflamma…

>Do you think social networks would be less toxic and less abused if all the devs at Facebook or Twitter were apolitical?

It isn't possible to be completely "apolitical" but you can be non-partisan. For me this isn't a left vs right or Republican vs Democrat issue, its an establishment vs everyone else issue. If this policy was in effect in 2002 and 2003 people would be getting censored and banned for disputing "the fact" that Iraq had WMD. Just a few days ago NATO members blocked the former OPCW chief from giving testimony on the (very much disputed) narratives regarding the alleged chemical attacks in Syria. You can be sure the people being blocked and censored by Twitter won't be those pushing the official US government narrative. The argument Twitter is making that, "people are too dumb to figure out what is true, so we will tell them what is true" is very dangerous when Twitter doesn't have a monopoly on the truth, and is run by people with a vested interest and belief in "establishment" narratives - no matter how questionable (or provably false) those narratives are.

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

#218

Post by konjin »

isk517 wrote: post #69
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.

Welcome to the future, where we must chose between either drowning in a sea of misinformation or sustaining ourselves on a puddle of information that a "benevolent" third-party has deemed safe.

[flagged]

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

#219

Post by konjin »

tpmx wrote: post #189
simias wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes no sense to me. Do you think social networks would be less toxic and less abused if all the devs at Facebook or Twitter were apolitical? How would that work? It's the quest for "engagement" and getting always more users and ad views that generates this situation. What can be used to sell you shoes and earphones can also be used to sell you political ideas. When the algorithm wants to show you some inflamma…

Well, Paul Graham, YC founder seems to agree with me: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1310583298666696705 Edit: To clarify, he is saying the right way ahead for companies is to be apolitical, or, "mission-founded". Coinbase offered employees not comfortable with the non-political mission-founded way exit packages: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24636899

Those thoughts aren't welcome on HN any more.

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

#220

Post by konjin »

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.

I'm curious, have you lived outside of a 100k US city in the last 10 years?
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