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Tweeting “Memphis” autolocks your Twitter account

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Re: Tweeting “Memphis” autolocks your Twitter account

#141
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Tell people there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure."

That's simply not true, evangelization is hard and requires connection to personal experience much more the convincing people of wet paint does, and it requires connecting it to personal experience for which people haven’t already accepted a better explanation, which is a lot harder than with “the paint is wet”. You don't just tell people “God exists” and they're like “Oh, sure, thanks.” (Well, except perhaps sarcast…

Yup. Getting someone to switch their religion is just changing a final link in the long, long chain of beliefs, most of which was created thousands of years ago, and which almost everyone internalizes in their formative years.

The belief in "invisible men in the sky" is older than human civilization. Even getting an atheist to convert to a religion is just a matter of convincing them about a bunch of details about a particular invisible man in the sky, and that they should pay attention to them. The majority of the work - convincing them that the very idea of an invisible man in the sky is something one can believe in - was already done by that person's family, all of whom had it done to them by their families, all the way back to neolithic.

Re: Tweeting “Memphis” autolocks your Twitter account

#142
post #55

In general it seems like moderating platforms with millions/billions of users is a fool's errand, but is required to be attempted due to the level of centralization we've ended up with. Regardless of how much of it is automated away via blackbox ML algorithms lacking transparency or via outsourcing to cheap labor that spends their days looking at terribly offensive and shocking content, the end result is going to hav…

> the end result is going to have countless false positives

I suspect the real measured false positive rate is remarkably low. Cases like this make great headlines but still impact only tiny fraction of Twitters hundreds of millions of users and happen rarely compared to the message volume.

Re: Tweeting “Memphis” autolocks your Twitter account

#144
post #29

I love the sheer number of hacker news commenters saying “Well I tried it, seems to work”. At what level do you guys go “I’m just going to assume those 10 other guys aren’t lying”

> At what level do you guys go “I’m just going to assume those 10 other guys aren’t lying” For something easily testable? Never. Edit: Account just got locked, lol.

Me too. Also I decided to repeal the ban with the comment "Memphis" just for giggles. I visit Twitter maybe once a month(when an interesting link pops up here), so it's not like I absolutely need that account.

Re: Tweeting “Memphis” autolocks your Twitter account

#145
This is pretty much the issues we are seeing more and more with centralized systems relying on automated systems for moderation with no method of appeal.

I'd bet 90% of google accounts banned fall under something like this. And since there is no appeal, that means if you end up banned/peanlized/etc and you aren't rich/influential then you are screwed by a kafkaesque hell.

Re: Tweeting “Memphis” autolocks your Twitter account

#146
post #55

In general it seems like moderating platforms with millions/billions of users is a fool's errand, but is required to be attempted due to the level of centralization we've ended up with. Regardless of how much of it is automated away via blackbox ML algorithms lacking transparency or via outsourcing to cheap labor that spends their days looking at terribly offensive and shocking content, the end result is going to hav…

Why not have user curated and shareable blocklists? So if I never want to see anything from Alex Jones or Milo Yiannopoulos and the like, I just subscribe to a blocklist that eliminates far right commentators. You could even create networks of trusted users where anyone they block, is blocked for everyone in the network. Or have shareable rulesets, like "block anyone who uses this word", or "block anyone who follows…

Why isn’t it sufficient to not follow Alex Jones? I’ve never seen a tweet by him. Twitter is one of the least pushy platforms in algorithmically pushing content. Just follow people you want to see content from, and unfollow if they tweet things you don’t want to see.

Re: Tweeting “Memphis” autolocks your Twitter account

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not have user curated and shareable blocklists? So if I never want to see anything from Alex Jones or Milo Yiannopoulos and the like, I just subscribe to a blocklist that eliminates far right commentators. You could even create networks of trusted users where anyone they block, is blocked for everyone in the network. Or have shareable rulesets, like "block anyone who uses this word", or "block anyone who follows…

I think this is a pretty good solution to the social media algorithmic problems. In a post-S230 world, it'd be pretty neat to see platforms implement decentralized moderation schemes.

In a post-S230 world there are no platforms.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...

Re: Tweeting “Memphis” autolocks your Twitter account

#149
post #135
post #22

Ugh...I have a HN Twitter bot that just tried to post this and it got locked. https://www.twitter.com/hackernewstop10

The reason for the ban is “revealing private information”. It seems to be related to a Dutch soccer player Memphis Depay. https://twitter.com/OL_English/status/1371121328649076744

Oh! When I first read the headline, I thought of Windows 98 (codename: Memphis), and got excited this is gonna be something retro about an elite UX design.

Re: Tweeting “Memphis” autolocks your Twitter account

#150
post #29

I love the sheer number of hacker news commenters saying “Well I tried it, seems to work”. At what level do you guys go “I’m just going to assume those 10 other guys aren’t lying”

That big block of ice -- don't lick it or your tongue will stick to it ...
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