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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

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, thanks, this seems to work for now.

You are right to say "for now" - the app will periodically force you back to "Home" view (after a seemingly random period) and then you have to manually switch back - I'm guessing Home view has better "engagement" metrics for the Twitter suits.

I installed a browser extension which keeps it set to latest

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

#282
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a citizen of the world with several passports including a US one: this happens every 10 years. The last time was conservatives doing it so people are shocked that liberals are just as insular. The 90s PC culture wars are a thing that went in the memory hole really fast when Clinton needed the women who were accusing him to be sluts and harlots again. On the bright side social media is becoming so unbearable that w…

And hard to get people to show up when you run your own forum.

The majority of people are not worth talking to.

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

#283
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.

Stop that apologist crap. I grew up in a rural area and I know these people quite well. People in rural areas reject science, general knowledge and social norms of the "big cities" because they are frightened and ignorant, not because of some equally valid world view. Their response to climate science is stubborn ignorance. Their response to different cultures, races and religion is bigotry. Their response to democra…

[flagged]

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

#284
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…

being able to hide the “liked by” (and "replied to") tweets is the only reason I'm still using Twitter at all

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

#285

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.

It's just capitalism; there's nothing special about money having power. What's weird is that they're trying to diminish their power. It seems likely that while doing this, they're still selling more influence or making choices about what people see to benefit their shareholders

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

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seen out front of a hotel in Santa Fe recently: "2020 has been longer than a CVS receipt"

For anyone else confused: CVS seems to be a chemist/pharmacy shop in the USA; this is unrelated to CVS (Concurrent Versions System) the software.

For anyone else still confused: CVS is an American retailer that typically issues receipts with additional advertising, bad low-value coupons with paragraphs of exclusions, on the bottom of a receipt. This makes a single-item purchase result in a receipt exceed 2m in length.

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

#287
post #152

I feel like Twitter thinks it's way more important than it really is, with respect to elections at least.

All pro media are on Twitter and that's why it's the favorite battleground for influence campaigns.

True, but a lot of, if not most, people don't trust the media either. I mean, just look what happened to the debate moderator today.

My personal take is that Twitter is mostly a big soapbox of fringe groups, mostly left, and half of that are bots. It's just a bunch of people screaming over each other and posting reaction GIFs, I don't see how any adult can find it engaging.

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

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 inacti…

How do you not get that this is the exact point? “Experts” in the US government and the “intelligence agencies” declared forcefully that it was true. You—-not an “expert” and not a member of “authoritative” US intelligence agency—-claiming that it was just “propagandistic patriotic fervor” would be “misinformation” stated “without evidence”. Stopping people from questioning the narrative is fundamentally against free speech and having a small group of people presume to be the final arbiters of truth with the power to suppress contrary speech is dystopian to the max. You want free speech when you agree with it and suppression when you disagree with it. That’s deeply unprincipled.

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

#289
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…

Do you also find it hard to square the statement "large gatherings are dangerous enough for spreading diseases that we need to ban them for public safety" with "we're gonna have them again when the pandemic is over"?

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

#290
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.

Probably more the idea of "it's better to have 10 guilty men walk free than to jail an innocent man". A tweeter may be a propaganda account, or it may simply be a guy with a strong opinion on something.
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