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The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

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Re: The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

#211

Post by _a9 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #80

Love to see non-employees of Twitter having access to my DMs. I don't think that's consistent with the user agreement or the privacy laws in the state of California.

I don't think they even have access to the dashboard. I assumed they were given the prepared data. An earlier tweet by Musk or a journalist mentioned lawyers would deliver the data to them direct from Twitter.

Even if they did it's clear that whoever made the screenshot in the libsoftiktok screen doesn't even have access to see their email. Like all other tech admin panels, there are access controls. Just because the 'delete website' button is visible to you doesn't mean your account has permission to use it.

Re: The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

#212

Post by aidenn0 »

forgingahead wrote: post #113
chucky123 wrote: post #83

Incredible, how openly twitter gas-lights users when it comes to policy enforcement.

Not to mention the commenters here as well: "There's no evidence people and tweets are being suppressed" "This is old news, nothing new here." Is there a mailing list where these things are coordinated? I remember there was JournoList in the late 2000s, so is there a new one for internet commenters of a certain political persuasion? How do they get the talking points memo?

Are you sure those are the same people? It's not like HN is a hivemind...

Re: The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

#213

Post by agar »

jdminhbg wrote: post #130
michaelgrosner2 wrote: post #21

"New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach. Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter. You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet." How is this any different than Elon's stated goals from 3 weeks ago?

> How is this any different than Elon's stated goals from 3 weeks ago? It is different because Elon's goals are at the level of tweets , and the screenshots here depict action at the level of users .

Like Kanye West?

Re: The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

#214

Post by aidenn0 »

nkozyra wrote: post #156
forgingahead wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the commenters here as well: "There's no evidence people and tweets are being suppressed" "This is old news, nothing new here." Is there a mailing list where these things are coordinated? I remember there was JournoList in the late 2000s, so is there a new one for internet commenters of a certain political persuasion? How do they get the talking points memo?

> "There's no evidence people and tweets are being suppressed" Wait, where is this one? I'm sorry, but it doesn't take coordination to know that shadowbans exist. It's spoken openly on Twitter, there are tools to test accounts, etc. It's not surprising because it's open knowledge. No political persuasion necessary to be in the know here.

I bet a large fraction of HN didn't know anything about Twitter's moderation; this is normal. I also bet a large fraction of HN did know.

Re: The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

#215

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #210
quadrifoliate wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Colloquially, I think many information suppression tactics get lumped under the term "shadow-ban" and that your definition is very narrow. It reinforces your position so I understand why you're defining it as such but it's not very convincing to anyone who doesn't share your position. Of course, that's assuming you're genuinely interested in persuasion instead of yelling into the echo chamber. Reasonable criticism.…

It's not reasonable criticism, because Twitter provided their definition of "shadow-ban" at the time, and it's unambiguously not what Weiss is talking about. You can disagree with the definition Twitter chose, but you can't retcon your own definition onto Twitter's policy statements.

[deleted]

Re: The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

#216

Post by [deleted] »

afavour wrote: post #119
foolinaround wrote: post #38

Discrimination as alleged by conservatives but pooh-poohed as others as merely delusional is now clearly proved. How can tech self-regulate itself, or should there be external agencies who would watch the growing power of tech companies? and who would watch them? Decentralization never seems to take off, so we seem to be left with these existing players like twitter, meta, google ...who are de-facto monopolies....

To me the evidence seems to point to the opposite, like the screenshot of LibsOfTikTok: that account was being shielded from moderation action by a warning note saying not to act without speaking to a superior first. Sounds like the account was at benefit, not detriment.

[deleted]

Re: The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

#217

Post by stale2002 »

etchalon wrote: post #96
sergiotapia wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of that is irrelevant. Twitter had a secret blacklist. Gross behavior from a gross company.

EVERY social network has a "secret" blacklist. Every. single. one.

So then the problem is worse than people thought.

I am glad that you agree that this is such a huge problem, and it is a good thing that now more people are away of how extensive it is.

Re: The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

#218

Post by mandmandam »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #125

I have been responsible a bit of content moderation myself, and interacted with mods on various forums. It's possible that this is responsible for some of my views, summarized here. - The "secret" aspect of all this can be largely ignored. Twitter is under no obligation to tell its users exactly how their Tweets are moderated. I am sure most moderation tools are secret, including whatever Twitter (or for that matter,…

> Overall, I don't really see too much that would cause me to gasp with horror.

I didn't "gasp", but, silently blocking an esteemed scientist is indeed horrible.

He, and who knows how many others, presented sensible analyses against extended lockdowns in schools. This dissenting view, like with the lableak theory, was systematically blocked from ever reaching journalists eyes, and thus from reaching parents minds.

The harm done to an entire generation of children is very real. The opportunity cost from wasting vaccinations in children is very real. The discussion was warped, and the narrative was rammed down people's brains. There are second-order effects with that kind of brain power-washing at mass scale.

This wasn't an isolated incident either. Literally millions of posts were removed and shadowbanned to various degrees. No one at any of these companies has suffered any semblance of accountability in any form.

Re: The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

#219

Post by YeBanKo »

VF happens at google and other big tech as well, probably even at a larger scale. And they have a right to do so, but once a complexity reaches a certain level, they should be considered publishers and be fully responsible for content, just like a newspaper editors are.

Re: The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

#220

Post by belltaco »

bavell wrote: post #207
godelski wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is anyone surprised that the major/globally operating social media companies have extensive internal systems for controlling the content that appears via their platforms? No one is. These Twitter Files are just building on a right wing prior of them being shadow banned. But they have yet to demonstrate that right wingers are specifically targeted. They don't show why these accounts got flagged (the crux of the…

If this[0] is accurate, then 99.7% of political contributions made by Twitter employees went to Democrats in 2022. Is it unreasonable to suspect people on the right are targeted more often than the people on the left? Wouldn't that be the default assumption and the opposite position would need evidence to prove otherwise? [0] https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598829996264390656?s=20&...

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