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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

#431

Post by nickthegreek »

oska wrote: post #416
nrki wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come now, this could be verified with evidence. I'm sure these actions exist in a database and email trail. Musk could release the evidence himself, or use an actual journalistic process and have someone impartial review it. But there is none, and so he hides behind his disdain of "the MSM" and posts yes/no answers to leading questions that only serve to rile up his base.

Your comment seems to me to be full of bad faith. > use an actual journalistic process There is a journalistic process being followed - two established journalists have been given comprehensive access to internal files and are documenting what they have found, while putting their discoveries in context. Elon is also promising that these files will be released publicly for other journalists and the interested public t…

>two established journalists have been given comprehensive access to internal files and are documenting what they have found, while putting their discoveries in context.

Ahhh yes, posting tweets on Twitter is "putting their discoveries in context". Normally journalists provide context by writing in depth articles after they have formed all their thoughts.... and maybe even have it reviewed by an editor.

>And who's saying it won't be? This was not Elon volunteering this information himself. This was simply him replying in the affirmative to a question put to him. (And no, it was not a 'leading question'.)

Then say the name. If he knows it happened, then take the .5 second to type out 10 or more characters and name a name. OR say something like "Yes, I'll get a list shortly". But no, he gives a snide 'yes'. Which only furthers to rile up the mouth frothers. It's so immature.

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

#432

Post by etchalon »

yucky wrote: post #425
etchalon wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was data to suggest that. The data that suggested that was linked in the article you posted: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7013e3.htm?s_cid=mm...

From your link "Estimated mRNA vaccine effectiveness for prevention of infection, adjusted for study site, was 90% for full immunization" Does 90% equal 100% now? Her statement was false, even based on the limited data set you're referencing. It's even more false now.

People sometimes speak in hyperbole as a point of emphasis.

Behold, humanity.

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

#433

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

drewbug01 wrote: post #403
godelski wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> people just want to believe Accurate. There’s a strong contingent of folks here that believe “the leftists” are oppressing them and “Twitter silences our voices” is a big part of the conspiracy theory. Musk is throwing fuel on the fire, because he also just wants to believe.

We've had two releases of documentation that prove what you are mockingly-dismissing here, and you pretend that it's still all in people's heads. What am I missing?

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

#434

Post by etchalon »

rhaksw wrote: post #370
adamwk wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that colloquially it's definition can be looser depending on context, but it's in bad faith that Weiss[0] quotes Twitter's then Head of Policy and Trust as saying Twitter doesn't shadow ban people when in the very blog post[1] she's quoting they clearly define shadow banning as, "deliberately making someone’s content undiscoverable to everyone except the person who posted it, unbeknownst to the original poste…

> "deliberately making someone’s content undiscoverable to everyone except the person who posted it, unbeknownst to the original poster." This happened to my tweet here [1]. It doesn't show up under the parent tweet [2]. It appears to be some sort of domain-based shadow filtering. It's probably because of the cheap .win domain I bought for $2. Why would Twitter censor that link? One could speculate it was because pat…

Shadow banning was not built to deal with bots. The practice was popularized in various communities long before bots were a serious problem.

It was built to deal with jerks who, when moderated, would sign up under a new account, or would repost the same content over and over again, or who would invade discussions, distract them with vitriol or out of context nonsense – even if each post as original.

The whole point of the concept was that the jerks would FEEL like they were contributing to the discussion, but maybe being ignored, while maintain a static history or login that made it easier to moderate them.

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

#435

Post by naasking »

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,…

> - 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.

Sure, but maybe they should have some obligation? Maybe the people "gasping in horror" at this information actually did have more expectations around transparency and impartiality than you did, and maybe they're right to have those expectations?

> I don't think Weiss understands what "shadow ban" means. It means that you post Tweets, but no one ever sees them. None of the practices she describes amount to what is usually described as a shadow ban or a hellban. Preventing a post from showing up in trends or searches is not a shadow ban. Google SafeSearch does not "shadow ban" explicit images or links.

You're splitting hairs. Laypeople take shadow banning to be various forms of suppression. This is the same as the hacker/cracker debate of 20+ years ago. Terms are defined by their usage, and once laypeople start using a term in a slightly incompatible way to how you've understood it, you've already lost.

Overall I don't quite get HN sometimes. Lots of people are saying this is no big deal, that every site will have secrete blacklists, that every site does moderation and suppresses things, and so on, so what's the problem?

Isn't it obvious that the way you do things can matter?

For instance, most techy people I've spoken to think that no-fly lists are problematic. Why were you put on a no-fly list? How can you petition for a review of your status if you think your placement was unjust? Who gets to decide who goes on that no-fly list? Is there any periodic review of such decisions to ensure there is no systemic bias or that the no-fly list isn't being abused for personal or political ends? There are many documented examples of people being targeted using the no-fly list for political reasons, for instance.

All of these questions apply to secret suppression lists at social media companies. If Twitter is to become a central place critical to democratic discussion, as Musk has stated is his intent, these questions are then just as relevant as the government deciding who can and cannot fly. The tweets Weiss posted have a number of examples of politically motivated suppression, and you shouldn't so causally dismiss that.

Combined with Taibbi's thread showing the government had some active involvement in moderating content, this is setting up a troubling precedent. This is a conversation that needs to take place.

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

#436

Post by quadrifoliate »

rhaksw wrote: post #364
quadrifoliate wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit and HN are...not Twitter? Guess which one of the three is regularly used by Taylor Swift. The big difference is that Twitter links are routinely used by journalists and such who will notice and specifically call out Tweets as being deleted. A shadow ban / hellban on Twitter would be much more easily noticed by the media. On the other hand, no one in the media to a rounding error cares about shadow bans on Redd…

Ah right, only Taylor Swift and journalists matter. Nevermind where the next Taylor Swift and journalists come from. The platforms will decide for us!

Twitter is not "deciding" anything for you. Platforms like Truth Social and Mastodon exist. The next Taylor Swift and journalists are free to use them.

In fact, many have! It's going to be some Mastodon instance in my case, but not saying it couldn't be Truth Social for you or other folks that think they do a better job at content moderation than Twitter does. This is more productive than holding up Twitter's (admittedly imperfect) content moderation as part of some thought-molding conspiracy.

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

#437

Post by lern_too_spel »

ajvs wrote: post #298
lern_too_spel wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

So instead it's better to stunt children's development with lockdowns and give them early heart attacks with jabs? Regardless of yours or my position however, this debate shouldn't have been censored in the first place.

People had pointed out how stupid his proposal was when he made it, and he ignored them completely. At that point, he was just a crank (https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/jlockdowns/). The debate was never censored: he was allowed to communicate with policy makers if he had any evidence to support his proposal. What was censored (or rather, not promoted to people who weren't his followers) was his wild rants to fellow Christian libertarians who believe the invisible hand of the free market is the gentle hand of the baby Jesus himself, which we should not shackle with regulations.

Slowing some children's development (while drastically accelerating others' because they were tutored by their parents who had to stay at home with them) is not even on the same scale as mass deaths and people dying outside hospitals due to lack of capacity.

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

#438

Post by quadrifoliate »

rhaksw wrote: post #370
adamwk wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that colloquially it's definition can be looser depending on context, but it's in bad faith that Weiss[0] quotes Twitter's then Head of Policy and Trust as saying Twitter doesn't shadow ban people when in the very blog post[1] she's quoting they clearly define shadow banning as, "deliberately making someone’s content undiscoverable to everyone except the person who posted it, unbeknownst to the original poste…

> "deliberately making someone’s content undiscoverable to everyone except the person who posted it, unbeknownst to the original poster." This happened to my tweet here [1]. It doesn't show up under the parent tweet [2]. It appears to be some sort of domain-based shadow filtering. It's probably because of the cheap .win domain I bought for $2. Why would Twitter censor that link? One could speculate it was because pat…

You are vastly stretching the definition of shadowbanning if you're posting a public link that everyone (even people who aren't logged in to Twitter) can see, and then claiming that it's suppressed because it doesn't show up in the replies of a totally different account's Tweet.

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

#439

Post by [deleted] »

ModernMech wrote: post #397
rhaksw wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ther's no obligation to have dialog with others who are actively threatening to kill you. I never said there was. Even free speech law has limits and may punish such speech. What I advocate is for authors of secretly removed content to be able to discover the removal, because even if the comment is vitriolic, the offending author may perceive the lack of a response as tacit approval of their words. > But there is a…

> Left wing extremists are currently saying that words are violence [1]. It’s the Republican, Trump-appointed, FBI director’s assessment that extremist right-wing political violence (read homegrown right-wing terrorism) is far and away a bigger problem than left-wing violence. Jan 6 I hoped would have demonstrated that clearly once and for all. After that day, it has become impossible to “both sides” political violen…

[deleted]

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

#440

Post by dogleash »

bavell wrote: post #179
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,…

> I don't think Weiss understands what "shadow ban" means. It means that you post Tweets, but no one ever sees them. None of the practices she describes amount to what is usually described as a shadow ban or a hellban. Preventing a post from showing up in trends or searches is not a shadow ban. Google SafeSearch does not "shadow ban" explicit images or links. Colloquially, I think many information suppression tactics…

>I'm also slightly concerned over how blase "hackers" here on this site are treating the news

There's a long standing phenomenon where the people working in tech have more visibility (or just insight) to witness business models slowly taking more and more advantage of the end user over the course of years, and don't notice that they've slowly hollowed out the standards they think they still hold.

For example: we all just sorta accept that some of our friends and relations work - or want to work - at places like Facebook and Google. There's so many of them that we wind up treating it like a morally neutral job or are seen as a weirdo.

When a layperson talks about their standards/expectations, they haven't had their barometer worn down over the years. All they hear back from those of us is in the know is some version of the "I'm not touching you" game.

"No we'd never do X, we do a lot of things that are in the same category you place X. Things that bother you for the same reason you don't like X. Things that would make you seethe if the tech wasn't impenetrable to you. But we'd never, ever, X."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_HBmZuJlHs

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