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Twitter may slow down users’ ability to ‘like’ tweets containing misinformation

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Re: Twitter may slow down users’ ability to ‘like’ tweets containing misinformation

#111

Post by kanox »

olladecarne wrote: post #64

"Show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcome." This whole ad driven attention economy is probably as dangerous of an invention as nuclear weapons. We're caught in a state of psychosis and individually none of us can do anything to fight the billions of dollars spent on advertising that tries to make us feel inadequate. Targeted ads and recommendation engines need to be banned. I know some people say they lik…

> Targeted ads and recommendation engines need to be banned.

I don't see how you can "ban ads" without instituting totalitarian dictatorship.

Targeted arguments are a core part of political campaigning and polarization has been increasing in the US for decades, even before the internet.

My pet solution would to switch to a multi-party system that isolates rather than amplifies fringe voices. In germany people can look at what AfD and Die Linke have to say without having to choose between them.

Re: Twitter may slow down users’ ability to ‘like’ tweets containing misinformation

#112

Post by lhnz »

kanox wrote: post #100
lhnz wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would a free-speech "purist" be okay with authorities having special abilities to append emphasized messages below other messages? People that care deeply about free-speech tend to want a level playing ground for every person in a discussion, and to not have platforms that have a centralised bias for or against different messages or identities. It's disingenuous to tell a bunch of people with principles towards d…

> People that care deeply about free-speech tend to want a level playing ground for every person in a discussion, and to not have platforms that have a centralised bias for or against different messages or identities. By that argument free-speech advocates would support the inclusion of intelligent design and flat earth into public schools. You seem to be constructing a strawman. Freedom of speech does not exclude th…

  > Freedom of speech does not exclude the possibility
  > of explicitly labeling certain speech as wrong,
  > and what twitter is doing here is definitely better 
  > than removing tweets outright.
Yes, I agree with this.

I disagreed with how the person I was responding to was formulating free speech, but think that there must be some middle path where we can be clear about why certain messages have disclaimers, and why certain people get banned, and what will get you banned, and how to get your account back if you've done nothing wrong, etc.

I also think that right now people complain about shadow-bans and so on, and I think these things are dangerous because they make people feel that authorities are conspiring against them.

Re: Twitter may slow down users’ ability to ‘like’ tweets containing misinformation

#113

Post by betwixthewires »

drone wrote: post #93
lhnz wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would a free-speech "purist" be okay with authorities having special abilities to append emphasized messages below other messages? People that care deeply about free-speech tend to want a level playing ground for every person in a discussion, and to not have platforms that have a centralised bias for or against different messages or identities. It's disingenuous to tell a bunch of people with principles towards d…

I'm not sure of any free speech "purist" that conflates the government with private parties. Regardless of how much "power" or "authority" the private party has. In fact, by every measure I've ever seen, a free speech "purist" would specifically say that Twitter has the right to amend, change, alter, or provide any opinion they so choose, no matter how much "authority" they may or may not have. Every free speech "pur…

What's with this arbitrary distinction between "government" and "not government" with regard to rights? You never hear this made when talking about how the government is run by an oligarchy of billionaires.

Free speech "purists" (which I think is a stupid term, one only ever used by critics) set the distinction at having power. Power to silence people. The saying is "speak truth to power", not "speak truth to elected bureaucrats."

Re: Twitter may slow down users’ ability to ‘like’ tweets containing misinformation

#114

Post by entropea »

OneGuy123 wrote: post #12
giuliomagnifico wrote: post #9

Sounds good to me. Twitter is not really slowing down the like action, but it will say to you only “hey, this may be a fake news, are you sure you want like it?”. People are stupid, in a perfect world this is useless but we live here...

Ironicaly you missed the most important point: who decides what is fake news? You still don't get it that _NO ONE_ can claim they know what is/is not fake news because everyone has their own incentives.

I agree with this for the most part.

In the early 2000's Americans were lied into the Iraq war, with multiple newspapers practically begging [0] for war, and critics were the ones on the correct side of history. If that happened in 2021, would the critics be silenced, have warnings on all of their tweets, and be told that they're supporting conspiracy theories? Questioning the official narrative of power is becoming wrongthink.

Who's deciding what's wrong and right?

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/02/06/i...

Re: Twitter may slow down users’ ability to ‘like’ tweets containing misinformation

#115

Post by prohobo »

drchopchop wrote: post #98
prohobo wrote: post #8

Regardless of your view on "misinformation", this sounds like a stupid idea that's meant to cover Twitter's butts in the short-term. The goal of any social platform should be healthy engagement. Where is the research that this change will foster that? Twitter isn't really the place to be testing half-baked ideas. Also, misinformation is coming from mainstream media as well as conspiracy theorists. At least conspiracy…

This is not "totalitarianism", it's the reduction of free newsfeed distribution. Twitter, and society, doesn't have a long-term interest in a newsfeed flooded with false/defamatory information (widespread voter fraud, for example) >conspiracy theorists are trying to find the truth Some of the biggest conspiracy theories that flourish on the web are the result of viral, provably false, information. These people are no…

This tacit acceptance of a "newsfeed flooded with false/defamatory information" when it happens to support one obvious partisan side is, frankly, something embarrassing to have to see.

I have no interest in defending the Trump administration except to point out that what you are supporting is, in fact, a hypocrisy. I can think of four examples which I know are hypocrisies that make it through the supposed "fake news" filter.

1) Russiagate, an unsubstantiated hoax promoted in the media for 3 years leading to countless defamatory attacks on Trump, and millions of dollars spent on investigations.

2) Cambridge Analytica, a tactic used by Obama's campaign which was praised in 2011 as being a new progressive way to reach voters, and then miraculously became an act of corruption when Trump did the same thing in 2016.

3) "Mostly peaceful protests", an ongoing gross misrepresentation of what normal people would call riots.

4) "Trump supporters are racist white men", an ongoing smear of the Trump administration and emotional abuse towards the Trump base (or anyone who doesn't buy into the narrative), which has been proven absolutely false by the latest election.

So which is it? You do or you don't want a newsfeed flooded with false/defamatory information? Just allow the stuff you don't personally see as false/defamatory?

This is an extremely dangerous problem, and people need to start waking up to it instead of thinking they got it all figured out, as if Alex Jones yelling at frogs is the reason everything is falling apart.

The fragmentation of reality which we're seeing (Trumpers, leftists, QAnon, flat earth, 5G, etc.) will NOT be solved by slowing down how fast people can "like" something. The entire internet is broken, and the social media platforms need massive rewiring. We need to properly research the ways the current platforms poison discourse, and find remedies that work to dissolve fragmentation and help people communicate better.

Currently, things are rapidly spinning out of control, and the social media platforms have decided to opt for totalitarianism. As they ban and hamstring everyone who doesn't buy in, good or bad, those people will find each other on the decentralized internet. This is creating a powder-keg for narrative chaos and conflict.

Re: Twitter may slow down users’ ability to ‘like’ tweets containing misinformation

#116

Post by Out_of_Characte »

onion2k wrote: post #62
k32 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is precisely why it's important that Twitter calls out when things are stated as fact without evidence. Twitter is a platform for stating things as fact without evidence. 120 (or whatever it is now) character limit is not suitable for having cogent conversations.

For what it's worth the limit is 280 characters. Your entire post, including the quote, would fit with room to spare. Tweets aren't that short. As for posting without space to have a cogent conversation, sure I can accept that. The answer is to not post that thing on Twitter . It isn't to just have the conversation anyway and ignore the fact that you're not providing evidence behind what you're saying. Twitter's 'cen…

"Twitter's 'censorship' of their platform doesn't stop anyone posting on different platforms that allow longer posts."

We're talking within the scopes of twitter as a communicative platform. Wether or not other platforms exist and how much more or less censorship and tokens you get is irrelivant to the discussion on wether it is morally right for twitter to flag tweets it deems 'misinformation' Twitter as a platform has no register of what they can and cannot judge. Twitter does not replicate ANY evidence on what they call misinformation. Twitter does not even provide proof on what they call misinformation. Just the label at the bottom. Twitter also categorises criticism on mainstream 'facts' as the same 'misinformation'

How would you like HN if ITT everyone disagreed with twitter censorship and you would be labelled on every post ITT as 'misinformation'? would you think that constitutes as a usefull HN guideline?

Re: Twitter may slow down users’ ability to ‘like’ tweets containing misinformation

#117

Post by lhnz »

jmull wrote: post #110
lhnz wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyway, just to clear your thinking, Don't you think that this comes across as quite arrogant? I wrote quite clearly that most people interested in free-speech aren't purists and might expect "limits to free speech" in certain circumstances, but that we'd like to discuss what this means with respect to the actual goal of a relatively level playing field for discussion. You tell me that you've not strawmanned anybod…

> This suggests that free speech is merely about being able to speak and that advocates would be happy for their speech to be stymied in other ways I do not suggest that. I am not trying narrowly define speech. My point is: It is free speech for someone to make claims about election fraud. It is also free speech for someone to refute those claims. Why deny Twitter the right to their own editorial position, whatever i…

I agree that Twitter should be able to have an editorial position, even though this might mean that are trending away from how they were originally. As you said, you cannot be "free from contradiction".

On the other hand, there are many ways to stymie speech which don't involve outright supression. Some of the things that Twitter does to stop certain speech are better than other ways -- I think it's good when they can be explicit about what they are doing and why they are doing it. It might be better business for them to be non-partisan as they provide a platform for people across the world but that is also their choice.

However, if for example, I was an admin on HN and had some special ability to put emphasized disclaimers below your comments about how they were mistaken and you were wrong, I think you would be right to feel like I was biasing the discussion and that it was unfair. An advocate for free speech (to the extent that I am, and in the way that I am) might be against this, since it does not create a good environment for discussion (new arguments or new ideas).

As I said, it kind of depends on the particulars and the context, but I kind of think about it like a debate between two people overseen by a moderator. If the moderator is neutral it is preferred by the audience, and if it looks like unfair treatment by the moderator it could easily backfire. Of course, this metaphor is quite specific and not guaranteed to apply to all situations -- but, I think it should be considered, since it's not uncommon for grifters on Twitter to make a fuss about how they are being unfairly targeted, in order to persuade their audience that "the truth" is being hidden from them by an unchecked elite (this is along the lines of my first comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25044396).

Re: Twitter may slow down users’ ability to ‘like’ tweets containing misinformation

#118

Post by drchopchop »

prohobo wrote: post #115
drchopchop wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not "totalitarianism", it's the reduction of free newsfeed distribution. Twitter, and society, doesn't have a long-term interest in a newsfeed flooded with false/defamatory information (widespread voter fraud, for example) >conspiracy theorists are trying to find the truth Some of the biggest conspiracy theories that flourish on the web are the result of viral, provably false, information. These people are no…

This tacit acceptance of a "newsfeed flooded with false/defamatory information" when it happens to support one obvious partisan side is, frankly, something embarrassing to have to see. I have no interest in defending the Trump administration except to point out that what you are supporting is, in fact, a hypocrisy. I can think of four examples which I know are hypocrisies that make it through the supposed "fake news"…

You'd have a better argument if you left out the first half.

>"Mostly peaceful protests", an ongoing gross misrepresentation of what normal people would call riots

That's a partisan, Fox News talking point. Statistically, the BLM protests were overwhelmingly peaceful. The news happens to focus on the small number that were not.

That's also an example of something which could be fairly, scientifically reported on. "Most protests were peaceful, and there were a few riots" is a good headline. "ANTIFA IS BURNING DOWN YOUR CITIES" is not.

If the latter gets better/viral newsfeed distribution than the first, then we have a serious problem.

Re: Twitter may slow down users’ ability to ‘like’ tweets containing misinformation

#119

Post by jmull »

betwixthewires wrote: post #109
dragonwriter wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would a free-speech "purist" be okay with authorities having special abilities to append emphasized messages below other messages? A free-speech purist would recognize that these aren't “aurhorities”, they are actors exercising their free speech, and which people are free to not associate with by not choosing Twitter as a platform for their own (distribution or consumption of) speech.

You forcing your own caveat on what I said before other people get to read it is a good bit different that simply freely speaking, regardless of the fact that you own the medium. Either Twitter is a place for us to speak or it is the blog of the moderation team. It cannot be both. If they want to caveat everything everyone says then you're right, the solution is to not use the site, but it isn't because we don't like…

> Either Twitter is a place for us to speak or it is the blog of the moderation team. It cannot be both.

That’s your opinion, but not one Twitter shares, apparently.

> Twitter is no longer a website designed for people to have discussions with one another

It is already not that. It was never that.

Re: Twitter may slow down users’ ability to ‘like’ tweets containing misinformation

#120

Post by prohobo »

drchopchop wrote: post #118
prohobo wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This tacit acceptance of a "newsfeed flooded with false/defamatory information" when it happens to support one obvious partisan side is, frankly, something embarrassing to have to see. I have no interest in defending the Trump administration except to point out that what you are supporting is, in fact, a hypocrisy. I can think of four examples which I know are hypocrisies that make it through the supposed "fake news"…

You'd have a better argument if you left out the first half. >"Mostly peaceful protests", an ongoing gross misrepresentation of what normal people would call riots That's a partisan, Fox News talking point. Statistically, the BLM protests were overwhelmingly peaceful. The news happens to focus on the small number that were not. That's also an example of something which could be fairly, scientifically reported on. "Mo…

That's exactly what we're talking about, isn't it?

Fragmentation of reality on the internet. There's no way around it because someone will just deny someone else's reality and substitute their own.

With intellectual honesty, the following can't be disputed:

* "A few riots" is actually hundreds of riots over the longest sustained period of civil unrest in American history (besides the civil war). Here's a geographical chart of all protests and riots from May 2020 to August 2020: https://acleddata.com/acleddatanew/wp-content/uploads/2020/0...

* For the people living in Portland, Seattle, New York, and other major cities the rioters were/are a threatening presence. In Minneapolis alone, 1,500 locations were damaged or destroyed by rioters. https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-st-paul-buildings-ar...

How does the information I just showed you present a picture in which "mostly peaceful protests" is the most accurate summary? What kind of information would it take to change your mind? Would that even be possible? Is this cherry picking?

I think on a forum like Hacker News we might actually get to the bottom of this particular point. But that's only because Hacker News isn't social media - it's a community based around tech, and it's heavily moderated. That changes the audience that will see our argument, and the entire dynamic of the dialogue.

I'm not here to argue about the riots or left/right politics. I'm just trying to show you that you are capable of being wrong, so stop trying to argue the politics and try to tackle the problem of how to end fragmentation.

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