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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

#331

Post by veec_cas_tant »

HappyTypist wrote: post #315
veec_cas_tant wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That tweet is referencing this[0] blog post. > We do not shadow ban. You are always able to see the tweets from accounts you follow (although you may have to do more work to find them, like go directly to their profile). And we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology. It specifically mentions factoring in user behavior: >What actions you take on Twitter (e.g. who you follow, who you retwe…

Twitter's visibility filtering wasn't based on "Your" User Behavior. It was based on what their moderation team decided to filter or not filter.

Sure, there was human involvement. Seems irrelevant to the comment I was responding to - Twitter did not hide that they were deranking some Tweets and there doesn't seem to be any difference between their current policy 'revealed' in the Twitter Files and what Elon proposed.

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

#332

Post by godelski »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #154
rswail wrote: 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…

It’s not the fact that these systems exist, it’s that Twitter denied that they did for years, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

> Twitter denied that they did for years

You yourself literally posted a link from 4 years ago that demonstrates the opposite of this claim. How is this comment so high? I feel like I'm at a UFO convention and people just want to believe.

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

#333

Post by LAC-Tech »

rhaksw wrote: post #35

Wow this post is #208 on HN: https://i.imgur.com/e4lQko4.png It's only an hour old. The post must've been flagged, which I know has a pretty heavy influence on the ranking here. For those flagging, this conversation is worth having. Whether platforms secretly demote people's content is important to them.

I noticed all the twitter posts disappeared on HN after the trump ban was lifted. Not sure if it's a coincidence or active policy.

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

#334

Post by godelski »

MallocVoidstar wrote: post #204
threeseed wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Limiting reach is not the same as shadow banning which has a specific meaning.

"Limiting reach" is what Twitter users think shadowbanning is. I've seen major accounts declare that, because less people are retweeting them than they think is normal, they must be shadowbanned. Obviously, if they were actually shadowbanned, nobody would be retweeting them.

That's not a good definition. If I have 0 followers I have very limited reach. You need a consistent definition. No one thinks downweighting content is shadowbanning either (unless that weight is 0, but then we're back to the normal definition).

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

#335

Post by telaelit »

Khaine wrote: post #323
telaelit wrote: post #226

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’…

libsoftiktok has not ben actively shutting down children's hospitals. They have been reposting public information from the hospitals that they find objectionable, such as encouraging young children to have life altering surgery, that has been stopped in other countries because of the potential for harm[1]. There readers have also expressed outrage at the objectionable activities and raised concerns with whoever would…

Exactly what I’m saying, Libs of TikTok has been using their followers to direct hate and violence towards the LGBTQ+ community and as a result they’ve put children’s lives in danger by shutting down hospitals. Twitter’s advertisers don’t want to be associated with such hateful conduct. I’m glad we agree.

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

#336

Post by godelski »

Khaine wrote: post #324
djleni wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was done in secret how could you know it was abused to silence criticisms primarily from the right?

Because people can see that their message that used to get x retweets and likes, is now only getting y which is far less. It is very common to see people complain about being shadow banned on twitter, and not knowing for what, or why.

> people can see that their message that used to get x retweets and likes, is now only getting y which is far less.

If we go up to the top comment in this chain we see

> Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter.

- Elon Musk

So... you're in agreement?

(btw, this isn't shadowbanning. Shadow banning would be 0 likes and 0 retweets and 0 views)

> t is very common to see people complain about being shadow banned on twitter, and not knowing for what, or why.

Actually this is my entire complaint with these Twitter Files. They show examples of people getting delisted but do not show the tweets that led to these decisions. That is a CRITICAL element of the story. We can't determine if Twitter was acting in good faith or not without this knowledge. We also have no idea if these examples are selection biased or not. Probably since there's only right leaning stuff and thefp.com is a right wing organization. Maybe Twitter does have a left bias (it probably does) but we sure aren't getting a fair shake.

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

#337

Post by anigbrowl »

rideontime wrote: post #271
anigbrowl wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. [0] https://twitter.com/ellagirwin/status/1601084794288640000

It's a bit of a mess really. Musk fired the deputy general counsel the other day, commenting shortly afterward that he had only learned about the man's previous stint in a similar role at the FBI on Sunday. People quickly pointed out that Musk had actually commented on the tweets about that person and his FBI connections last April.

I feel that what we're seeing is largely investigation theater designed to validate a particular outcome rather than a real inquiry. If you consider this from an information/hybrid warfare point of view and think of Twitter as territory, then it's reminiscent of highly engineered plebiscites that precede or follow invasions to give them an aura of legitimacy.

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

#339

Post by vxNsr »

tptacek wrote: post #227
bavell wrote: 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.

You seem very set on keeping this top level thread on the topic you believe you won the argument on, and are refusing to discuss anything else in a very condescending tone. Just thought you should know your thinly veiled attempts at controlling the conversation to "win" aren't going unnoticed.

I'll also add that you're wrong about the topic of the thread, bavell's point is absolutely on topic and the only reason you're refusing to engage and call his argument a red herring is because you know he's right and don't want to admit it.

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

#340

Post by tyvysexplainer »

rhaksw wrote: post #56
NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TYVYS shadowbanning and silently removing comment is such cowardly behavior. Against spam bots, fine. But against what are obviously real people? It's wrong.

TYVYS?

"Thank You For Your Service", but with a typo on the middle letter.
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