The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists • Hacker News Board

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

#541

Post by NaturalPhallacy » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 3:47 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #533

drummer wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of censorship is nothing normal dang.

This is hardly censorship: The Twitter Files - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33838556 - Dec 2022 (1549 comments) The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33915734 - Dec 2022 (481 comments) ... and it's quite normal. It happens with every sensational or inflammatory story, especially the Major Ongoing Topic kind: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&pr…

This is interesting... I believe you that no one at HN is putting their thumbs on the scale here. But I suspect what's happening is community censorship by "hivemind" like a post on reddit critical of Democrats getting downvoted to 0 in r/politics by the community because many of them are. Or actual nazis getting praise on 4chan...

The media is ignoring or downplaying this story. Reddit is ignoring or downplaying this story. https://www.allsides.com/story/free-speech-second-twitter-fi... shows clear bias in covering the story.

It's kinda hard to argue that there's not a massive bias in big tech: https://i.imgur.com/taGzsZP.jpg

Why is tech overwhelmingly Democrat-donating/leaning? Even more interesting, perhaps.. There are 4-5 companies with a significant Republican presence, but at first glance I can't figure out what they have in common. Oracle? Old company. Intel? Old company. HP? Old company. Uber. WTF? And not Salesforce?! Not even eBay. Neither tech nor company age explain the majority.

There's a sociological phenomenon here I lack the skills/data to figure out, but it is very interesting.

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

#542

Post by MrMan » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 3:59 AM UTC

LAC-Tech wrote: post #333

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.

you should get Musk to organize a brigade of his followers against dang and HN.

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

#543

Post by MrMan » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 4:20 AM UTC

michaelmrose wrote: post #279

taolegal wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

smarter people are deceived by different things but they are no less subject to propaganda. one of the propaganda points that works against all people is "you are in the club of smart people, let me let you in on some things most people either dont know, or dont want to know!"

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

#544

Post by LAC-Tech » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 4:52 AM UTC

MrMan wrote: post #542

LAC-Tech wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

you should get Musk to organize a brigade of his followers against dang and HN.

Great suggestion, I'll call him up now.

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

#545

Post by rhaksw » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 5:09 AM UTC

raydev wrote: post #529

rhaksw wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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…

FYI, I think your tweet must be hidden if the user is logged out. I'm logged in, and can see your tweet in the replies just fine. Still not shadowingbanning.

You're mistaken. I tweeted twice, once with the .win link, once without. The one with the .win link does not appear even when logged in as a different username. It does appear for me when I'm logged in as the same username.

So there is shadow moderation going on. I'm not so bothered about whether it's called a shadow ban or shadow moderation. Also, I can see why some former Twitter employees want this distinction to be understood given the post they previously put out. I just think that's a hard sell for the public who is just coming to understand this issue. Even I didn't know about Twitter's 2018 post.

Finally, there was already substantial dispute over whether or not Twitter's initial claims were accurate. See "Shadowbanning is not a thing": black box gaslighting and the power to independently know and credibly critique algorithms" by Kelley Cotter:

https://kelleycotter.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Shadowba...

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

#546

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 5:31 AM UTC

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #541

dang wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is hardly censorship: The Twitter Files - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33838556 - Dec 2022 (1549 comments) The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33915734 - Dec 2022 (481 comments) ... and it's quite normal. It happens with every sensational or inflammatory story, especially the Major Ongoing Topic kind: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&pr…

This is interesting... I believe you that no one at HN is putting their thumbs on the scale here. But I suspect what's happening is community censorship by "hivemind" like a post on reddit critical of Democrats getting downvoted to 0 in r/politics by the community because many of them are. Or actual nazis getting praise on 4chan... The media is ignoring or downplaying this story. Reddit is ignoring or downplaying thi…

[deleted]

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

#547

Post by rhaksw » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 5:38 AM UTC

etchalon wrote: post #456

rhaksw wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article barely scratches the surface of what's going on. Reddit alone has tons of secretive ways to remove or hide content, some of which I list here [1]. Others I mention in my talk [2]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/reveddit/comments/sxpk15/fyi_my_tho... [2] https://cantsayanything.win/2022-10-transparent-moderation/

I'm talking about the origination and evolution of a specific practice, called, specifically, "shadow banning". Yes, other techniques exist. Sometimes people, being imprecise, ignorant and/or lazy, call those techniques "shadow banning", but that isn't what they are.

> Sometimes people, being imprecise, ignorant and/or lazy, call those techniques "shadow banning", but that isn't what they are.

What umbrella term would you use for moderator actions that are kept secret from the author of the content? "Moderation" on its own can be secret or transparent, so by itself isn't an apt description.

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

#548

Post by user3939382 » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 6:12 AM UTC

michaelmrose wrote: post #518

user3939382 wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They banned political speech they disagreed with, and it sounds like you're happy they did. > your bs I have no dog in the fight. > twitter users don't want to engage with The country, however, is pretty evenly divided along ideological lines so there is no homogeneous "twitter users" group.

You are free to run your own website if you don't like your placement in trending topics or users feeds kind of like you can share your videos on your blog if ABC wont carry it.

> You are free to run your own website

I am, but that doesn’t solve the problem with Twitter manipulating our elections, does it?

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

#549

Post by spfzero » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 6:24 AM UTC

iudqnolq wrote: post #314

mandmandam wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you call Dr. Bhattacharya's warning of the harmful effects on children of lockdowns in schools "COVID misinformation"? How so? ... Did Dr. Bhattacharya promote hydroxychloroquine? I don't think he did. Even searching for those terms, I'm not getting anything.

I don't like the term misinformation. I don't think Twitter should have restricted his tweets. However, it's important to remember Bhattacharya was wrong. In the op-ed posted above he guessed that the predicted death toll of 2-4 million people was off by multiple orders of magnitude. He said that dramatic interventions like lockdowns would be justified to prevent that kind of death toll, but that COVID was nowhere ne…

We can never know how many people Covid killed in America, because the rubric in the US is to count as a Covid "death" any death where the deceased tested positive for covid. In that group might be someone who would have not died had they not had Covid, but it also includes many people who would have died regardless of Covid positivity.

It is also to count as a Covid hospitalization, anyone hospitalized who tests positive for Covid in the hospital.

In both cases, all we can say is that somewhere between none and all of them are actually in that condition because of Covid.

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

#550

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 6:27 AM UTC

rhaksw wrote: post #547

etchalon wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about the origination and evolution of a specific practice, called, specifically, "shadow banning". Yes, other techniques exist. Sometimes people, being imprecise, ignorant and/or lazy, call those techniques "shadow banning", but that isn't what they are.

> Sometimes people, being imprecise, ignorant and/or lazy, call those techniques "shadow banning", but that isn't what they are. What umbrella term would you use for moderator actions that are kept secret from the author of the content? "Moderation" on its own can be secret or transparent, so by itself isn't an apt description.

[deleted]