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“Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted and demonetized”

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Re: “Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted and demonetized”

#371

Post by watwut »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #22

I'm certainly not a fan of how Musk has handled the Twitter takeover, but this sentiment, "New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach", seems highly reasonable to me, no? That is, what I find so awful about most social media (and places like YouTube) is how they focus on some of the most anger-inducing content for "engagement". That is, I think the problem is much more their algorithms than wha…

It is literally shadowbaning. It is literally what he was originallt supposed to stop per his fans.

Re: “Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted and demonetized”

#372

Post by watwut »

minimaxir wrote: post #7

Note that this is the dictionary definition of shadowbanning, which is the primary thing the free speech advocates on Twitter were hoping Elon would stop Twitter from doing.

Can we stop using free speech advicate as euphemism for "full of grievance right wing trolls"?

Re: “Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted and demonetized”

#373

Post by erik_seaberg »

hsn915 wrote: post #369
camdat wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He is good at making engineers a "high status class" From what I've seen, Elon's companies pay below-market for most roles. Levels.fyi indicates that, on average, engs take a 10-15% pay cut by deciding to work for Tesla. I'm sure there are a handful of engineers that exist that could save Twitter single-handedly, but none that would do it for the pay he's offering.

High status != high pay This is the relevant part of the "Fork in the road" email: > Design and product management will still be very important and report to me, but those writing great code will constitute the majority of our team and have the greatest sway. Most companies put engineers _below_ design and product management: the designers and product people make decisions, and programmers just implement. Once you're…

An extra $900/month on DTI adds $140K to a mortgage you can qualify for. You might be choosing between say over someone else’s product, or a house.

Re: “Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted and demonetized”

#374

Post by Jordrok »

altacc wrote: post #296
phphphphp wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s how Twitter works already — that’s how the “filter bubble” concept is able to exist, you’re only exposed to things in your self-selected bubble. What Elon is describing (as I understand it based on the limited information provided) is restricting reach within your network, i.e: you tweet something bad, the tweet won’t show up on your followers feed.

Basically shadow banning, which a lot of the “anti-woke” brigade have been complaining about for years and thought Musk would stop. Unsurprisingly, it turns out it’s more complicated to run a social media site than some people might think.

This, exactly. Although I'm still convinced that at least 90% of cases where people complain about shadowbanning are nothing more than them being unable to handle the idea that others just aren't all that interested in what they have to say.

Re: “Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted and demonetized”

#375

Post by proc0 »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #39

So free speech absolutist is starting to adapt rules which are roughly similar to Twitter's current rules. And those rules are existing for a reason, rules don't popup from a thin air. What a surprise... Now he will figure out that the bloat of microservices and employees was there also for a reason.

There is an inherent contradiction calling censorship = free speech. Censorship of any form is already a violation of free speech, and therefore cannot be free speech itself. That said, no platform can be absolutist or it would devolve into a porn site, however there is a "spirit" of free speech, that is meant to uphold the principle and allow for ANY subject matter to be discussed.

This doesn't mean say anything you want, but for any given subject matter, there is absolutely a way to discuss it respectfully. This is the type of censorship that is common online right now. Platforms aren't just following guidelines, they are actively deciding which things can be discussed and which things cannot. In the case of Twitter, it seems this censorship is controlled by the stakeholder advertisers. Personally I would like to live in a world where society is not controlled by powerful capitalist interests.

Re: “Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted and demonetized”

#376

Post by techdragon »

Jordrok wrote: post #374
altacc wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically shadow banning, which a lot of the “anti-woke” brigade have been complaining about for years and thought Musk would stop. Unsurprisingly, it turns out it’s more complicated to run a social media site than some people might think.

This, exactly. Although I'm still convinced that at least 90% of cases where people complain about shadowbanning are nothing more than them being unable to handle the idea that others just aren't all that interested in what they have to say.

The problem is there’s fundamentally no difference for the user posting such things. They both result in low engagement, and the tools deliberately and necessarily don’t differentiate, after all you kind of can’t tell the banned individual. So they just can’t tell and it exacerbates their view it’s stacked against them.

Re: “Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted and demonetized”

#377

Post by faeriechangling »

slg wrote: post #243
phphphphp wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That analogy doesn’t really fit with the model of Twitter. If we are using the town/time square example, what Elon is describing is the digital version of putting a noise-cancelling box around the people saying “bad” things so that nobody can hear them. A message spreads on Twitter because individuals on Twitter amplify it (with engagement, retweets etc.) which is itself a form of speech: if you say something bad, an…

>So you’re probably right to say this isn’t a sudden 180 on his thoughts, but it still highlights how faulty his framing of free speech is. I still don't understand what his logic is. What is the philosophical value of free speech if no one is able to hear that speech? Is his viewpoint that free speech is just about babbling on into an empty void? What is the value in protecting that? How does one argue that shadowba…

He’s not making it so many people can’t read a tweet, or making it so certain tweets can’t become popular, he’s making it so twitter won’t promote said tweet.

It can be regarded a positive thing insofar that it constitutes a limit on twitters ability to censor.

Re: “Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted and demonetized”

#378

Post by faeriechangling »

bane wrote: post #216
boole1854 wrote: post #105

Many commentators seem to think this is a sudden, recent backpedaling from a previous absolutist view on free speech. However, Musk has been promoting the "freedom of speech" vs "freedom of reach" distinction for a while, at least months before his takeover, including describing how such a policy should be implemented at Twitter. Here's one example quote from June, 2022: “I think there’s this big difference between f…

There's also the possibility that once he got inside and saw some of the truly incredibly toxic shit that exists in the twitterspace he realized that he can't own the pipeline that spews that garbage all over the world completely unmolested.

Yeah I think anybody who has ever moderated might understand how true this is. There’s a bit of a irony to being a mod where the more effectively one does their job the less people understand why what you’re doing is necessary in the first place.

Some people who get banned on social media are banned for a reason. You’re not going to ever get mainstream advertisers moderating twitter like it’s 4chan.

Re: “Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted and demonetized”

#379

Post by faeriechangling »

shapefrog wrote: post #166
aaomidi wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sooooo shadow bans.

I thought shadow bans were bad ... its all very confusing.

Shadowbans are fundamentally anti-transparency, but they are useful, I wouldn’t hesitate to automatically shadowban suspected spammers.

Re: “Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted and demonetized”

#380

Post by pannSun »

rchaud wrote: post #175
pannSun wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertisers sure have a lot of influence in what gets published. Perhaps it's time to look critically at that. They're certainly the last group of people I'd trust with... anything. Their job is literally to manipulate people, yet somehow they became the arbiters of morality and permissibility.

> Perhaps it's time to look critically at that. What is there to look at? If you want other people's money, chances are it'll come with strings attached.

For example, we've put severe restrictions on what kind of strings employers are permitted to attach. We also look very carefully at concentration of capital and collusion.

Note that this is not necessarily a call for legislation, but certainly people should be aware of who shapes and filters their communications, and how, just as they should be aware that e.g. 90% of US media are owned by 6 companies (in 2011, down from 50 in 1983) [1].

There are entire university departments dedicated to analyzing the influence and cross-ownership of media and capital, even though one could just as easily dismiss that with "What is there to look at? It's just free markets at work."

[1] https://infographicjournal.com/media-consolidation-the-illus...

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