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How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

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Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#401

Post by andreyk »

twblalock wrote: post #398
andreyk wrote: post #377

OK, so here's the key bit: "Twitter executives did not fully capitulate to the Biden team’s wishes. An extensive review of internal communications at the company revealed that employees often debated moderation cases in great detail, and with more care for free speech than was shown by the government. ... But Twitter did suppress views—and not just those of journalists like Berenson. Many medical and public health pr…

The government shouldn't be doing that. Also, it's important to break down what is meant by "the government" here -- it was the FBI attempting to suppress a news story which later turned out to be true about the son of a candidate for president. That sort of thing should not happen. Secondly, this kind of moderation is counterproductive. It gives all the conspiracy theorists a true conspiracy to point to -- they real…

Nowhere in this piece is the FBI mentioned...

And it's fine to make an argument against moderation in general. But that's not what this article is doing.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#402

Post by WillPostForFood »

jacquesm wrote: post #301
tjpnz wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist either but I do have considerably less respect for the WHO than I did before the pandemic. They seem more interested in playing politics and appeasing authoritarian regimes than putting out concrete policy on things which might actually help. Their back and forth on masking was an utter shambles, their stance on Taiwan a disgrace, their "fact finding" missions to China pointless and thei…

Large institution makes mistakes in face of unprecedented crisis, news at 11. All those standing by the sidelines and criticizing those in the hot seat would no doubt have done a much better job at managing this. I'm all for learning the lessons (such as the link you posted) but I'm categorically against assigning blame against those that worked their asses off to help mitigate this, as long as the lessons stay learn…

>which makes theirs a highwire act somewhere between medicine and politics.

Welp, that's probably not what people thought about the WHO before Covid, and certainly justifies the decline in trust. Maybe they could rebrand as World Health And Politics Organization.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#404

Post by andreyk »

danShumway wrote: post #399
andreyk wrote: post #377

OK, so here's the key bit: "Twitter executives did not fully capitulate to the Biden team’s wishes. An extensive review of internal communications at the company revealed that employees often debated moderation cases in great detail, and with more care for free speech than was shown by the government. ... But Twitter did suppress views—and not just those of journalists like Berenson. Many medical and public health pr…

> But Twitter did suppress views—and not just those of journalists like Berenson. Many medical and public health professionals who expressed perspectives or even cited findings from accredited academic journals that conflicted with official positions were also targeted. ... There were three serious problems with Twitter’s process [bots, contractors, and biased decision making by top level execs]". ---- These debates…

Definitely agree wrt the last point. It's bizarre that one of the one hand as far as I know Twitter is still committed to moderating a wide range of content (hate speech, violent media, etc.) but on the other hand Musk has doubled down on bots and calling the shots in a top down manner (exactly what this article called out).

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#405

Post by twblalock »

andreyk wrote: post #401
twblalock wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government shouldn't be doing that. Also, it's important to break down what is meant by "the government" here -- it was the FBI attempting to suppress a news story which later turned out to be true about the son of a candidate for president. That sort of thing should not happen. Secondly, this kind of moderation is counterproductive. It gives all the conspiracy theorists a true conspiracy to point to -- they real…

Nowhere in this piece is the FBI mentioned... And it's fine to make an argument against moderation in general. But that's not what this article is doing.

The FBI comes up in plenty of the other Twitter censorship stories. Covid is not a one-off, and this article exists in that broader context, or it would not be interesting. It was part of a sustained, illiberal, counterproductive, and overall pretty stupid pattern of behavior from both the government and Twitter.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#406

Post by dang »

giardini wrote: post #285

Original title is "How Twitter Rigged the Covid Debate". Why the change from "Rigged" to "Moderated"?

We changed it to be less linkbaity, as the site guidelines ask: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#407

Post by ofcoursenate »

solarpunk wrote: post #317
mhh__ wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. It should (and I think has) increase distrust in social media and big tech/gov but distrust in pharma? I don't know. I'm still waiting for everyone to drop dead from vaccine related injuries (I've paid this more earnest attention than most people this glib at least) — most people, I think correctly for the most part, regard the nu-antivax thing that came about during covid to basically be the realm of i…

man, skip talking about the vaccines, what about the refusal to simply utilize MASKS ???

In France a government official was explaining (while France had supply shortages) that masks required complex training to wear properly, and she herself did not know how to wear one, and so were useless to most people.

A few weeks later an emergency law was passed and you would receive a fine if not wearing them.

Similar situation in many countries.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#408

Post by dang »

2-718-281-828 wrote: post #380
giardini wrote: post #285

Original title is "How Twitter Rigged the Covid Debate". Why the change from "Rigged" to "Moderated"?

that's not okay. the title should be preserved. it's not hn's job to decide how a text and its title relate to upvotes and discussion. that is really questionable.

Title editing practice on HN is extremely well established and has been for over a decade. When titles are misleading or linkbait, the site guidelines ask for them to be rewritten - see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#409

Post by twblalock »

notacoward wrote: post #235

It sounds a lot less nefarious when you consider that the "suppressed" views were believed at the time - and not without reason - to be both incorrect and harmful. The passage of time and 20/20 hindsight has revealed that some of the mainstream views were themselves incorrect, but if we're counting the hits for alternatives then we have to count the misses as well. Many claims about methods of transmission, dangers o…

> It sounds a lot less nefarious when you consider that the "suppressed" views were believed at the time - and not without reason - to be both incorrect and harmful.

Actually that makes it worse. It means people overreacted because of short-term thinking.

That kind of overreaction and general freaking out has done a lot of damage and it's going to be what our Covid policy is remembered for in the history books.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#410

Post by cryptonector »

tootie wrote: post #215
lmm wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

At least HN doesn't filter COVID disinformation. Your first paragraph is all incorrect. Patent-free treatments were extensively tested and some (notably dexamethasone) were put into treatment regimens for a while but none proven effective. "Corporate" vaccines were very effective and I'm not sure what alternative you're thinking of (artisanal vaccines? Maybe Sinovac?) but either way it's irrelevant. Twitter is just a…

> What if the executive starts censoring politically incompatible thoughts? Trump certainly tried or at least threatened to do so many times but it's nowhere near reality.

Is that a reference to his comments about libel laws?

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