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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

#231

Post by XargonEnder »

dudul wrote: post #208
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…

> This American election can't be over soon enough, everybody seems to be losing their marbles. Brace yourself then, because this election will not end on November 3rd. And the craziness we see today will be nothing compared to whats coming next. Regardless of which side "wins".

This is my biggest fear

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

#232

Post by konjin »

sangnoir wrote: post #230
konjin wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Your first sentence seems at odds with the second one.

You seem to suffer from kettle pot syndrome.

Just because one side is wrong doesn't mean the other is right. Viz. the Eastern Front in WWII.

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

#233

Post by deanCommie »

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)

This is literally the opposite of the conclusion you should be coming to.

This is what a lack of will to clamp down on misinformation, and lies from the President on their platform, out of fear of being of subsequently being politically repressed has resulted in.

Twitter is twisting and contorting itself in a million knots to avoid simply banning the president's account for the damage it is causing to society, the economy, and literally human life.

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

#234

Post by SoSoRoCoCo »

Fellshard wrote: post #100

1. 'Misleading Information' is a targeted category, specified only by manual intervention, leaving the door wide open for selective enforcement and biased enforcement. 2. The 'context' they put in the 'Trending' section is often highly editorialized and skewed. An example from yesterday: > Celebrities · Trending > Mel Gibson > People are expressing disappointment that Mel Gibson has been cast in a new film. > 18.2K T…

> 1. 'Misleading Information' is a targeted category, specified only by manual intervention, leaving the door wide open for selective enforcement and biased enforcement.

The "slippery slope" should definitely be on everyone's mind as this enforcement is rolled out, but it should not stop the enforcement. Otherwise your statement becomes the "if we can't fix everything we should fix nothing" fallacy.

I agree that the enforcement needs to be monitored, and also that the enforcement needs to be done. Not mutually-exclusive. There are absolutely agreed-upon lies today: there isn't a deep state of vampire child rapists running the country. Fight me. ;-)

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

#235

Post by simias »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #217
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…

>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…

I'm not denying this at all, but again this is not the point I'm discussing. All companies have a political agenda one way or the other, even if it's just driven by profit.

As a thought experiment: imagine if Twitter did the same thing as Coinbase did, got rid of all the politicized people. Problem solved? Of course not. The problem is that Twitter has this incredible influence. Asking them not to do anything is also not neutral and not a solution, you'll end up with 4chan or gab.

Take WhatsApp in Brazil. It's been instrumental to Bolsonaro's election due to the astroturfing and dissemination of fake news by pro-Bolsonaro supporters. Do you think it's due to Facebook's employee being pro-Bolsonaro? Or Facebook itself espousing a pro-Bolsonaro stance? Of course not.

It's really missing the forest for the trees IMO.

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

#236

Post by deanCommie »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #217
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…

>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…

> people would be getting censored and banned for disputing "the fact" that Iraq had WMD

Literally nobody was buying that Iraq had WMD. It was clear that the politicians were riling themselves up in a patriotic furvor.

The evidence was weak from day one and it was clear a propaganda machine was in play.

> Twitter doesn't have a monopoly on the truth,

I am so sick of statements like this that ultimately lead to inaction and apathy.

SOME THINGS ARE JUST TRUE AND SOME ARE NOT. There is no "two sides" to them. There is objective truth and objective lies.

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

#237

Post by nemothekid »

konjin wrote: post #213

Sounding more and more like a moral panic. Can people in the big cities not accept people in rural areas reject everything they think is good? It's not a foreign plot, it's a fundamental disagreement about values.

I don't see it that way at all, I think it's becoming more and more clear that there are actually conservative voices in these organizations (if not fully conservative, but at least economically conservative).

As social media gets larger and larger, these companies need to (1) at least pretend to be impartial and (2) show they are doing something about the "problem", or else the loser will blame big tech and slap them with regulation. Trump hasn't even lost and he's already talking about repealing Section 230, and Facebook (I think rightfully) is getting a lot of attention that could lead them to get broken up.

No one wants a target on their back when some research firm uncovers that "bad guy X" spent a couple million dollars astroturfing and/or abusing the platform or skirting election advertising regulation. It doesn't matter if that bad guy is Russia or some American Super PAC

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

#238

Post by daodedickinson »

dane-pgp wrote: post #205
daodedickinson wrote: post #187

We have zero ability to verify election integrity and now we're not allowed to talk about it. Slavery.

If the only thing stopping one party from ripping up ballots for their opponents is that someone might be able to tweet about this happening, then the election has already lost its integrity. It's also worth thinking about which is more likely to happen: Twitter suppressing a true claim about election integrity being violated, or Twitter suppressing a false claim. Bear in mind that anyone can make a false claim.

https://mobile.twitter.com/RichardGrenell/status/13146954946...

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

#239

Post by shadowgovt »

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 get the strong sense that a lot of commenters on HN don't have any understanding of either espionage propaganda operations or their efficacy, and it shows.

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

#240

Post by Lammy »

ValentineC wrote: post #176
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…

> >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…

Try adding some of these to your account-wide “Muted words” list:

suggest_recap

suggest_who_to_follow

suggest_activity

suggest_activity_tweet

suggest_recycled_tweet_inline

suggest_recycled_tweet

suggest_grouped_tweet_hashtag

suggest_sc_tweet

suggest_pyle_tweet

suggest_ranked_timeline_tweet

suggest_ranked_organic_tweet

generic_activity_highlights

generic_activity_momentsbreaking

ActivityTweet

RankedOrganicTweet

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