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Manufactured consensus on x.com

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Re: Manufactured consensus on x.com

#181

Post by noboostforyou »

kmeisthax wrote: post #159
ceejayoz wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AKA the “Nazi bar” problem. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Nazi_bar

One problem I have with the Nazi Bar framing - or perhaps, how people read it - is that it assumes the behavior is accidental. That is, that the sites that have become Nazi bars did so purely out of a misguided sense of free speech absolutism that has been abused. In practice, most Nazi bars are run by people actively choosing to kick people out: just the ones wearing the trans pride buttons instead of the ones weari…

Very well said. And in relation to your [2] I remember that happening before the boom of "AI" - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/microsoft-shuts-down-ai-chatbot...

Re: Manufactured consensus on x.com

#182

Post by gruez »

jandrese wrote: post #164
stevenAthompson wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to buy a Tesla. My brother had one and I coveted it. They make neat stuff. Then Elon started taking testosterone (or whatever it was that jacked up his aggression), using psychedelics, and became incapable of keeping his mouth shut. To compound it he then got involved in politics. Now I will never buy a Tesla, starlink, or anything else he's involved in because his behavior represents a real risk that any…

Many years ago I was really rooting for Tesla and Elon as they dragged the auto industry kicking and screaming towards electrification. How they focused on the underserved whole home battery market. He even kept his manufacturing domestic unlike most other big companies. Some cracks started to form in this when he made a reckless wall street bet that he could make a million cars in a year or something and had his emp…

> In the end he won the bet and got an enormous payout. I remember calculating that if he divided the award in half and split that half evenly among every single Tesla employee that it would amount to about $40,000 per person, a life changing amount of money for most people. Instead he kept it all for himself and gave a press conference about how big of a genius he is.

You call the bet "reckless", but are seemingly only opposed to it because he didn't share the winnings? Which one is it? Also, I can't find the source for this bet, only some bets about covid, and whether the tesla roadster could be built at all.

Re: Manufactured consensus on x.com

#183

Post by jandrese »

RankingMember wrote: post #44
dismalaf wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every platform has Holocaust denial because that's the one thing that the far-left and far-right both agree on...

The far-left denies the Holocaust? On what grounds?

Typically this means someone who claims that Israel's policies towards the Palestinian population is causing a humanitarian crisis that is counterproductive to long term stability in the region is labeled as anti Jew and a Holocaust denier.

Re: Manufactured consensus on x.com

#184

Post by jdeibele »

gruez wrote: post #173
jandrese wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to see how this wasn't by design. Elon loudly released the source code to the algorithm so SEO engineers could optimize their systems to have total control over the narrative. Sure "anybody can read it", but realistically only propagandists are going to go to the trouble and then have the time and resources to act on it. He basically handed the site over to the IRA and told them to go nuts.

>IRA Irish republican army?

Presumably https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency

Re: Manufactured consensus on x.com

#185

Post by numpad0 »

thmsths wrote: post #129
adeeds wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The smaller niche subreddits dedicated to a hobby or type of product are actually some of the worst for astroturfing from what I've seen. It only takes a few shills to start building consensus. There's a really interesting pattern where you'll see one person start a thread asking "Hey, any recs for durable travel pants?" Then a second comment chimes in "No specific brands, just make sure you get ones that have qualit…

How is that not treated as fraud? As you pointed out, with a little bit of detective work (which is well beyond the means and motivation of a casual internet user, but well within reach of a consumer protection agency) it's fairly easy to expose these manipulative tactics. Commercial communication ought to be clearly labelled as such.

Because the cyberspace was lawless for far too long. Justice systems worldwide were too ill-equipped to handle anything involving computers logically, effectively nullifying broad ranges of laws.

Re: Manufactured consensus on x.com

#186

Post by gruez »

unethical_ban wrote: post #131
jampa wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Reddit for 12 years. After the API fiasco, the quality dropped a lot. Most popular subreddits are now astroturfed, where every week there is a crusade against something (First it was for banning Twitter, now it is against banning AI Art). Even in regular posts, Reddit has been a hive mind lately. If you scroll through the comments, most of them will have the same opinion over and over, with comments t…

The API shutdown allows a flooding of bots, crippled 3rd party apps and the moderator tools that kept things clean. But I don't think the "crusades" are always bot related. Movements get momentum.

>The API shutdown allows a flooding of bots, crippled 3rd party apps and the moderator tools that kept things clean.

I thought they backed down on the API changes for moderators?

Re: Manufactured consensus on x.com

#187

Post by jandrese »

jsheard wrote: post #35
qnleigh wrote: post #7

Do we know that this is how the algorithm actually works? The article only shows one plot of one specific instance, and there could be more than one explanation for the sudden drop in viewership (especially given the involvement of Twitter's owner).

> Do we know that this is how the algorithm actually works? Funnily enough we should know that, since Elon promised to open source the algorithm in the name of transparency. But what actually happened is they dropped a one-time snapshot onto GitHub two years ago, never updated it, and never acknowledged it again. Many such cases.

It was enough info that people who professionally post on X/Twitter can play the algorithm like a fiddle. They can get anything they want to the top, and often can even get Elon to re-tweet it.

Re: Manufactured consensus on x.com

#188

Post by gruez »

Aurornis wrote: post #140
jampa wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Reddit for 12 years. After the API fiasco, the quality dropped a lot. Most popular subreddits are now astroturfed, where every week there is a crusade against something (First it was for banning Twitter, now it is against banning AI Art). Even in regular posts, Reddit has been a hive mind lately. If you scroll through the comments, most of them will have the same opinion over and over, with comments t…

> I've been using Reddit for 12 years. After the API fiasco, the quality dropped a lot. Most popular subreddits are now astroturfed, where every week there is a crusade against something (First it was for banning Twitter, now it is against banning AI Art). This didn’t start with the API change drama. The API change protests were their own crusade. The calls to ban Twitter links or AI art are just the next iterations…

>This didn’t start with the API change drama

The proximate cause IMO is that the protests (ie. moderators shutting down their subreddits) resulted in some moderators being deposed, causing new subreddits and moderators to come in power, which were easier to astroturf or whatever.

Re: Manufactured consensus on x.com

#189

Post by fkyoureadthedoc »

os2warpman wrote: post #106
jampa wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Reddit for 12 years. After the API fiasco, the quality dropped a lot. Most popular subreddits are now astroturfed, where every week there is a crusade against something (First it was for banning Twitter, now it is against banning AI Art). Even in regular posts, Reddit has been a hive mind lately. If you scroll through the comments, most of them will have the same opinion over and over, with comments t…

> now it is against banning AI Art AI art does not exist. There is only slop stolen from artists.

Gatekeeping the definition of art probably doesn't help your cause. Even if you convince everyone to say, I don't know, "algorithmically generated images" instead, have you really improved the situation from the artists perspective?

Re: Manufactured consensus on x.com

#190

Post by jandrese »

whalesalad wrote: post #117

Spend ten minutes on X with a new account and this is clear as day. It’s one of the most surreal communities on earth at this point. Everything is gaslighting/hyperbole.

What is most amazing it to see what Elon retweets, often with just a single word followup. It's the most batshit stuff you've ever seen. Or just blatantly obvious propaganda. And people call him a genius. It's like the world is bowing down at the altar of your drunkest most racist uncle.
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