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…
Weiss's co-author @abagailshrier commented: 'Our team was given extensive, unfiltered access to Twitter's internal communication and systems.' I'm gonna take this at face value pending clarification. Just because the 'delete website' button is visible to you doesn't mean your account has permission to use it. Well, nothing looks greyed out. Again, I'm going to assume they had access unless there's specific informatio…
Now the head of Trust & Safety is admitting the screenshots were "requested" from her[0]. This was hardly a balanced investigation.
I assumed shadow banning was invented for forums to hide low quality users without giving them a signal to create a new account.
But when they do eventually figure it out, they end up hoping from one newly created account to another. Unless using new accounts are prohibitively expensive, and they usually aren't, then you'll end up just replacing one problem with another. The correct way to moderate is to be civil and treat "low quality" users as human beings. Reserve inhuman bans for inhuman users (bots).
Ban evasion was a thing long before shadow bans. I've seen persistent users disrupt IRC channels for years, maybe decades. You can't reason with or befriend somebody who holds a grudge that long. Moderators will just have to deal with the problem repeatedly. Shadow bans at least minimize recurrence by taking away the immediate feedback.
Yes, the secrecy does matter. I think can immediately think of two big reasons: 1) We should censor for how things are said, instead of what is said. When censorship is carried out secretly it will inevitably trend towards abuse. One of the examples given in these leaks is that @DrJBhattacharya [1] was secretly put on a trends blacklist because of what he was saying. He's a well spoken doctor and Stanford epidemiolog…
You are using phrases like "blacklisting doctors" and "censorship" while discussing (essentially) a message board that is used to sell advertisements. I don't think that's a reasonable position. Twitter is a private company that wants to sell advertisements by enabling people to have happy conversations. Fundamentally, they are going to optimize for that, and not whatever high-minded ideals of censorship that we hold…
Well, as long as you are in fact consistent about the position that it is "(essentially) a message board that is used to sell advertisements", with the presumable implication being that it is unimportant, replaceable and/or not an important venue for political discussion - and therefore in particular it is not a big deal if it is run into the ground or flipped towards the cause of a political group you are opposed to - then your position is sensible enough. However, this whole discussion is happening against the backdrop of a seemingly overwhelming majority of people in this community and the wider political sphere in the US asserting that it is in fact a big deal, which is inconsistent with dismissing allegations of wrongdoing by an argument from fundamental irrelevance. The majority position on the importance of Twitter is surely worth addressing, and if you disagree with that, you'd do better to raise your objection about relevance to that, rather than to a minority opposition arguing against the majority about a different aspect under the shared premise of relevance.
> 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…
> The dissenting view, like with the lableak theory, was systematically blocked from ever reaching journalists eyes, and thus from reaching parents minds. I would hope that journalists conduct their research through better means than solely reading Tweets. That would be an exceptionally lazy standard, one which would merit a failing grade for a high school paper. That being said, "systematically blocked from ever rea…
>Being punished for exerting control over what is publish on your private web site seems to me like massive government overreach to me. I don't think anyone would administer web forums if the government started telling them how they could and could not moderate posting.
Just wait until you realize that corporations at a certain scale become a form of government themselves!
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&...
> Why does big tech, including HN all have the same auth-left wing bias? I think intelligent people are abnormally capable of self-deception.
Everyone is heir to the same inherent flaws that plague humanity but smart people are less likely to practice self deception.
If you find yourself on average on the opposite side of the vast majority of smart people the first thing that is in order is self refection. While being smart doesn't make them correct the last thing that would be useful would be to dismiss the majority of smart folks.
They surreptitiously colluded with congressmen and FBI spooks to suppress political speech before an election. I think you’re missing the bigger story here.
Ok, let's say they did, it's a private company, 1st Amendment doesn't apply in the manner you seem to think. In fact it's the opposite, they as an entity / company have 1st Amendment rights to do as they please with content on their platform. That being said, yes they suppressed propaganda and disinformation that could lead to bodily harm (as on J6). People like Fox News hosts pushing disinformation that could lead t…
What the congressmen did was illegal on their part. What Twitter did was at best unethical, but ironically, severely tampering with our election which the fake left seemed to be so upset about. The tweets weren’t propaganda, some of them were about Joe Biden being involved in illegal deals with eg China. The source information for this, his sons laptop, has been verified as authentic by for example the Washington Post.
There is no way to bend far enough to excuse what happened here.