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Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

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Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#151

Post by janeroe »

pixelgeek wrote: post #118
paganel wrote: post #12

> user "the account was “artificially” amplifying information". That is newspeak pure and simple.

I don't think you really understand what newspeak[0] is supposed to be. From wikipedia (or a reading of the book) "Newspeak is a controlled language of simplified grammar and restricted vocabulary designed to limit the individual's ability to think and articulate "subversive" concepts such as personal identity, self-expression and free will." What you are reacting to is a technical term that Twitter uses to describe…

> From wikipedia

Your wikipedia links references merriam-webster which says:

> propagandistic language marked by euphemism, circumlocution, and the inversion of customary meanings

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/newspeak

Exactly the definition of "artificially amplifying information".

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#152

Post by aethertron »

mbesto wrote: post #83
MrPatan wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> user "the account was “artificially” amplifying information". Where does it say the information was false in that sentence? The newspeak worked. and to go from "artificially" to bots and fake accounts... OK, maybe. But how do you know? Not because they told you in that sentence, that's for sure.

> newspeak You guys keep using that word, but I don't think you know what it means. Twitter is a private company. Newspeak was a language developed by the government in Orwell's 1984. VERY different contexts here. For the record - what Twitter communicated is not clear and potentially deceptive, but this response wasn't written by some Twitter PR person. Some support person pressed a button and a canned twitter respo…

'Company' and 'government' aren't radically different categories. They overlap.

Company = group of people working together; Government = entity in charge of something

Twitter is a company that governs people's usage of Twitter's platform. If Orwell's concepts are useful for understanding how it operates, we'll use them, and for that Twitter doesn't need to be a state.

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#153

Post by pixelgeek »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #142
pixelgeek wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter didn't suspend the account for not being reputable. They suspended the account for being part of a network that was artificially promoting tweets and content. You're arguing a point that Twitter never made

>"being part of a network that was artificially promoting tweets and content." This is part of the reason why I detest Twitter's leadership. It's the tyranny of selectively enforcing the rules and hiding behind it. If someone tells me the same dozen or so twitter handles that always manage to chime in at the top of just about every trending social topic are authentic, I simply won't believe them. Why aren't these ban…

> It's the tyranny of selectively enforcing the rules and hiding behind it.

Well I can't disagree with that. It is endemic of Google, YouTube, Amazon, Facebook, Apple etc.

When these companies deal with the sheer volume of users they have they hide behind rules that are judged via algorithm and are not able to be evaluated or appealed unless you get enough attention on social media.

It is yet another argument for the elimination of them. If they can't manage themselves then they shouldn't be running.

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#154

Post by tolstoshev »

pixelgeek wrote: post #143
adam_arthur wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty confident that if a suitable case made it to the supreme court, social media like Twitter would be deemed a de facto public square under the US Constitution. Hopefully then people would apply a little more critical thought, rather than just parroting private vs public. It's clear that at a certain scale, a private space becomes de facto public one, similar to anti-trust legislation breaking up perfectly va…

> I'm pretty confident that if a suitable case made it to the supreme court, social media like Twitter would be deemed a de facto public square under the US Constitution. Any case law to that effect?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._R...

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#156

Post by pohl »

lp0_on_fire wrote: post #115
kube-system wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"artificial" is the key word -- it is referring to intentional manipulation rather than legitimate engagement.

Again...is that not the whole point of twitter? Their _entire_ business model is predicated on their algorithm manipulating engagement. There's very little "organic" engagement on social media any more.

Is the point of your home to allow me to live there?

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#158

Post by mokus »

orwin wrote: post #100
paganel wrote: post #12

> user "the account was “artificially” amplifying information". That is newspeak pure and simple.

(diclaimer: i actually agree on your position but.) Newspeak is about destroying words to reduce the thought quality. The theory being somthing like: less precise words mean less precise thoughts. This is the opposite of newspeak, this is creating new words association for new concepts (artificially amplifying information here meaning buying bot comments, retweets and likes). You can agree or disagree, you can find t…

> This really, really angers me. Even with people i kind of agree with.

When lazy or dishonest or weak arguments are used, I get more upset if it’s in support of things I agree with than things I don’t.

It undermines the position and makes it that much harder to discuss it in the future because I now have to disentangle from that on top of actually making a proper argument in favor of the position.

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#159

Post by pixelgeek »

imwillofficial wrote: post #123
ineedasername wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, that's a bit overused and tends to fall into the "slipper slope" fallacy territory a lot of the time it's rolled out. I'm withholding judgement on this one as there seems to be some indication the account was using using sock puppets to make them more popular. If that's true (and it might not be) that would lower the temperature on this ban to a standard TOS violation of a well-known policy.

Slippery Slope isn’t a fallacy. It’s literally how things progress from good to worse. Identifying early signs of Stalin’s rise to power would be called Slippery Slope these days. As for twitter, their focus removing on information that is damaging to people in power is concerning. These days private corps wield as much or more power than governments.

I don't think that there is any in Stalin's rise to power[0] that would fit the definition.

The post you are responding to also refers specifically to the Slippery Slope Fallacy[1] which is a different beast than just calling something a 'Slippery Slope'

[0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin#Consolidation_of... [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

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