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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

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

> 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.

I'm sure this is true. But the claim is that there's some politically-inclined motivation to it all.

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

#242
post #120

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? Irrespective of whether or not you agree with individual decisions, the fact that such systems exist should not be a surprise. These companies operate within legal frameworks across multiple jurisdictions that have endless variations of restrict…

They surreptitiously colluded with congressmen and FBI spooks to suppress political speech before an election. I think you’re missing the bigger story here.

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

#243
post #24

Twitter calls it "visibility filtering" [1] Facebook gives mods a "Hide comment" button [2] TikTok calls it "visible to self" [3] [4] Truth Social does it [5] [6] [7] Reddit shows all removed comments to authors as if they're publicly visible [8] Open source tools are built to do it [9] [10] Textbooks advocate "disguise a gag or ban" [11] I call it Shadow Moderation [12]. The system intentionally does not show users…

> .win domain lol, you had me going for a moment there.

Did you really just judge a blog you didn’t read on their TLD? That’s petty.

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

#244

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?

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What are the political leanings of random Twitter employees...?

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

#245
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll be frank - I couldn't give a rat's ass about Weiss or Taibii. I'm not familiar with them and they're obviously trying to squeeze as much juice out of this story as they can. However, I see a lot of people here dismissing the wider and (imo) more valid complaints about veiled moderation tactics by beating up these two and calling it a day, case closed. I don't care what specific narrow definition twitter chose on…

The thread is about the false claims Weiss is making, not about your own opinions on moderation. What you should do, if you want to share those, is start a new top-level thread on this story. I'm sure what you have to say is germane to the story. It's just not germane to the thread you're commenting on.

OP made many points and I responded to one in particular with my opinion. Seems germane to me, although point taken about starting a top-level thread for better visibility/discussion.

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

#246

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,…

> I don't think Weiss understands what "shadow ban" means. She very well may understand, but is assuming (correctly) that her audience does not.

Who is her audience and why do you think her assumption is correct?

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

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main issue here is not that shadowban exist but fact that twtter officials explicitly denied its existence.

> but fact that twtter officials explicitly denied its existence I haven't seen anything here that indicates that it ever did exist. Limiting reach is different from people not seeing your content at all.

Shadowban is not a total hiding content from everyone, it also implies selective hide[1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banning

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

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Th…

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Yes, that's the one.

Are you implying that he's not esteemed? He is.

He was right about lockdowns on school children having huge potential for harm. And it was very, very wrong to censor such posts.

And again, this was far from an isolated incident. Millions of posts were removed, tens of millions were shadowbanned, delisted, deranked, hidded, supressed, etc.

Views questioning natural origin, official policy, vaccinating children or school lockdowns were smeared as anti-science and sinister... The irony might be funny if it wasn't so harmful.

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

#249

These “Twitter Files” have been so disappointing. I was really expecting to see some crazy stuff, but all I’m seeing is a company that was moderating their content. Even the incident that Weiss points out of someone being doxxed and Twitter doing nothing about it happened under Elon’s rule, and was probably not moderated because of the chaos that Elon created. Even the people that were “shadow banned” makes sense, I’…

Just more outrage theater by the right.

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

#250

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,…

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