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Twitter sued for allegedly refusing to remove child porn

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Re: Twitter sued for allegedly refusing to remove child porn

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understood the point. My point is that propoganda and it's distribution channels have existed for as long as human speech has. A new distribution channel isn't the problem, it's a society that cannot think for themselves and distinguish between what is real and what is not. Blaming the platform is scapegoating the real problem.

I suppose my point and probably the point of the other commenter above is that social media companies utilizing content recommendation systems are not merely distribution channels, by virtue of recommending content. Those recommendations go beyond distribution. And to be clear, I am blaming corporations for creating these platforms, not blaming the platforms themselves.

I hear you. I agree that there's the incentive for platforms to serve content you want to see and will engage with but is it Facebook's responsibility to stop you from becoming more extreme? How do you even define extreme? There's obvious answers but I'm sure there's a lot less obvious ones too that are impossible to police.

Re: Twitter sued for allegedly refusing to remove child porn

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the individual users who create the posts, but it's the social media companies using software to select posts to display to others. 'Sow' means to spread or disperse seeds, or when used figuratively, to spread around or propagate something in general. Automated recommendation systems seem to fit the word. They're not creating these seeds, but they sure are sowing them far and wide. (S e wing is what you do with…

I understood the point. My point is that propoganda and it's distribution channels have existed for as long as human speech has. A new distribution channel isn't the problem, it's a society that cannot think for themselves and distinguish between what is real and what is not. Blaming the platform is scapegoating the real problem.

Moderating the platform seems like a more tractable problem than changing what are effectively hard-wired aspects of human neurology. It’s not about blame, it’s about engineering a cost efficient solution.

Re: Twitter sued for allegedly refusing to remove child porn

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This honestly just reads like paranoia. Social media isn’t sowing anything. It’s the people on the platform and the recommendation algorithms behind the platform. edit: sew/sow

Social media is absolutely seeding these behaviors by leaving content discovery to engagement algorithms that push individuals further down a specific ideology without considering any ethical factors. For example, I consider myself a centrist and yet whenever I log into YouTube account all I see are far right recommendations. I don’t have a Facebook or Twitter account, but I remember they behaved the same with their…

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Re: Twitter sued for allegedly refusing to remove child porn

#164

ah, maybe it's time we deplatform Twitter no? maybe it's tongue in cheek but in all honesty, I find it extremely hypocritical that the Ayatollah of Iran, dis-information news organizations (esp those based in China) and now CP are fine on Twitter but god forbid some people on the right wing use the "#notmypresident" or "#learntocode" hashtags - both of which were extensively used by the left in 2016 without any reper…

I just checked: there are thousands of tweets with the #notmypresident hashtag. Not sure why you're not seeing them. Care to elaborate?

Re: Twitter sued for allegedly refusing to remove child porn

#165
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's the headline that is misleading you, or it's a symptom of our times. In any case: it should be blatantly obvious that the Twitter representative did not know or agree that the person in the video was a minor. The insinuation that it's Twitter policy to distribute child pornography is laughable. They have absolutely nothing to gain from it. As to liability: Section 230 is about exactly that situation: tryin…

> In any case: it should be blatantly obvious that the Twitter representative did not know or agree that the person in the video was a minor. The lawsuit alleges precisely that Twitter had ample evidence to know that he was a minor. How about we let the case play out instead of assuming innocence?

We don't assume guilt until proven innocent

Re: Twitter sued for allegedly refusing to remove child porn

#166
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social media is absolutely seeding these behaviors by leaving content discovery to engagement algorithms that push individuals further down a specific ideology without considering any ethical factors. For example, I consider myself a centrist and yet whenever I log into YouTube account all I see are far right recommendations. I don’t have a Facebook or Twitter account, but I remember they behaved the same with their…

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I don’t agree with you, but you sound like a textbook example of the modern left.

Re: Twitter sued for allegedly refusing to remove child porn

#167
NYPost didn't bother linking to the complaint or vetting any of the details of the case.

Complaint: https://endsexualexploitation.org/wp-content/uploads/Doe-v-T...

Case history: https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/37985226/Doe_v_Twit...

The parties bringing the suit include The National Center on Sexual Exploitation. They are (unsurprisingly) an anti-porn org, formerly known as Morality in Media. ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Center_on_Sexual_Expl...

Re: Twitter sued for allegedly refusing to remove child porn

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This honestly just reads like paranoia. Social media isn’t sowing anything. It’s the people on the platform and the recommendation algorithms behind the platform. edit: sew/sow

Social media is absolutely seeding these behaviors by leaving content discovery to engagement algorithms that push individuals further down a specific ideology without considering any ethical factors. For example, I consider myself a centrist and yet whenever I log into YouTube account all I see are far right recommendations. I don’t have a Facebook or Twitter account, but I remember they behaved the same with their…

I understand what you're saying, in that platforms need to hone their algorithms to serve actually relevant and useful content to it's users but there is also the other side, where the consumers of content need to understand what they're ultimately consuming. I can't help but bring up the countless studies that violent video games do not make kids more violent. Can the same be said for content consumed on social media? At what point is content "extreme" and at what point is it just content? Whose to draw that distinction? There are very obvious examples of extreme content but there are, I'm assuming, many more subtle ones that are possibly impossible to police.

Re: Twitter sued for allegedly refusing to remove child porn

#169
post #113

Moderation seems to be a very slippery slope. IMHO there's no way to truly win; policies eventually trend toward either absolute free speech or blatant censorship. This is the critical flaw in social media, as either trend is problematic. "The only way to win the game is not to play."

Moderation of this sort of content is so far away from any slope, it may as well be Flatland.

Re: Twitter sued for allegedly refusing to remove child porn

#170

This all sounds reasonable to me. Seems like the victim's first recourse should be through the Law not Twitter. >but the tech giant failed to do anything about it until a federal law enforcement officer got involved, the suit states. >A support agent followed up and asked for a copy of Doe’s ID so they could prove it was him and after the teen complied, there was no response for a week, the family claims. >Only after…

I am confused. What part of "We’ve reviewed the content, and didn’t find a violation of our policies, so no action will be taken at this time" seems reasonable? Personally this kind of content moderation seems to be the most important and it is absurd that Twitter should wait to remove this content until they are contacted by law enforcement. Certainly the best thing might have been a "both/and" approach where the vi…

The full response is:

"Thanks for reaching out. We’ve reviewed the content, and didn’t find a violation of our policies, so no action will be taken at this time. If you believe there’s a potential copyright infringement, please start a new report. If the content is hosted on a third-party website, you’ll need to contact that website’s support team to report it. Your safety is the most important thing, and if you believe you are in danger, we encourage you to contact your local authorities."

Pretty clearly an automated response.

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