twitter/the-algorithm • Hacker News Board

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#241

Post by Yoric » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 10:28 PM UTC

bscphil wrote: post #234

memish wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Among the elite, and within Twitter specifically, there is much more inclination to ban the right. I say this as someone whose political views, if you force them onto the left-right spectrum, probably end up about 80% toward the left. E.g. I've spent millions over the past several elections supporting the Democrats. It used to be that censorship was something the right did, and free speech was something the left wer…

> That's why people on the far right keep starting lame Twitter alternatives. You don't see people on the far left doing that. They don't need to because they have cool Twitter alternatives. Like Mastodon.

Which is also the Trump alternative, iirc. Just the far left seems to respect the license.

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#242

Post by KrishnaShripad » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 10:29 PM UTC

Yoric wrote: post #239

triyambakam wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To those that are probably triggered by this and likely even uninformed, the "left" view has been that the laptop story was fake, but it turns out it was real.

Oh, was this finally confirmed? I stopped following that story a long time ago.

Yep it was!

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#243

Post by bogomipz » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 10:29 PM UTC

philjohn wrote: post #56

CincinnatiMan wrote: post #12

Makes me wonder how Twitter employees internally are handling the news. If they are celebrating or commiserating?

Wonder if their RSU grants have a clause that converts them to cash in the event of a takeover. And having been in a company that was taken over, it's a mixture of emotions - is my job safe, will this be the same culture I joined for etc. etc.

>"Wonder if their RSU grants have a clause that converts them to cash in the event of a takeover"

This is interesting question since RSUs are a big part of total comp but how are unvested RSUs dealt with when the stock is retired? Are those put on a future cash comp schedule? And if so at what conversion rate?

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#244

Post by omoikane » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 10:29 PM UTC

Irishsteve wrote: post #7

Many people have commented that it is empty. However what they do not realize is that there has never actually been an algorithm and that is why it is empty.

That sounds like a variant of this joke: https://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com/

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#245

Post by Traster » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 10:29 PM UTC

At the time of posting, Will Norris (the open source lead at twitter, admin of their github account presumably) posted this. It has 44 retweets, 193 likes, 17 quote tweets, on github it has 1.6k stars.

That seems... bizarre to me?

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#246

Post by mcphage » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 10:30 PM UTC

memish wrote: post #188

mhh__ wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it doesn't make sense. I think it's just a dog whistle to the people who believe google have a guy in a room somewhere turning the "conservative search results" lever down a notch during elections.

"Among the elite, and within Twitter specifically, there is much more inclination to ban the right. I say this as someone whose political views, if you force them onto the left-right spectrum, probably end up about 80% toward the left. E.g. I've spent millions over the past several elections supporting the Democrats. It used to be that censorship was something the right did, and free speech was something the left wer…

Which side is on a book banning tear again?

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#247

Post by NaturalPhallacy » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 10:30 PM UTC

mhh__ wrote: post #116

axg11 wrote: post #95

I've worked on very large scale recommendation systems at a FAANG. If Twitter's system resembles anything like ours, the concept of publishing or open sourcing "the algorithm" doesn't make sense. Even if we were to open source all associated code and publish all related documents it would be very difficult to make sense of the entire system. That is precisely why companies such as Twitter A/B test the hell out of eve…

Of course it doesn't make sense. I think it's just a dog whistle to the people who believe google have a guy in a room somewhere turning the "conservative search results" lever down a notch during elections.

A comparison I did from four months ago across google, ddg, yandex, and search.brave, searching for "are conservatives being silenced by big tech"

https://i.imgur.com/MVlshAT.png

You don't have to be conservative to see there's a pretty significant bias, just in the headlines. I'm a Pacific Green and I can still see it.

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#248

Post by lupire » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 10:30 PM UTC

mhh__ wrote: post #150

tyingq wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not saying Google is turning down conservative search results, but they absolutely can. Using the same cycle of human raters and tweaking weights they used to push down comparison shopping sites. See http://graphics.wsj.com/google-ftc-report/

It's the man in a room part I was emphasising. It's simultaneously massively incorrect about how software actually works, misunderstands social dynamics inside companies, and massively stokes the fire when it comes to conspiracy theories along these lines (in this case at least)

There absolutely are explicit lists of controversial words that get weights on the models for up/down ranking or hiding content or flagging for manual review.

It's also true that these lists are only a small part of what affects your fringe website or twitter accounts.

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#249

Post by vrfvr » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 10:31 PM UTC

memish wrote: post #188

mhh__ wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it doesn't make sense. I think it's just a dog whistle to the people who believe google have a guy in a room somewhere turning the "conservative search results" lever down a notch during elections.

"Among the elite, and within Twitter specifically, there is much more inclination to ban the right. I say this as someone whose political views, if you force them onto the left-right spectrum, probably end up about 80% toward the left. E.g. I've spent millions over the past several elections supporting the Democrats. It used to be that censorship was something the right did, and free speech was something the left wer…

Mastodon is from a far right?

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#250

Post by Avicebron » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 10:31 PM UTC

farias0 wrote: post #223

Traster wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so difficult as someone who works in technology to tolerate this idea that there is "an algorithm". Maybe this will get flagged on HN but the overwhelming feeling is to just scream "don't be such a fucking idiot, this is a $43Bn company it doesn't boil down to 50 lines of code" and hell, there are plenty of examples of 50 lines of code at my company I could spend a month really understanding and even then not un…

I don't think that most people actually believe "the algorithm" is like a Python script or something.

agreed, I see this more as a simplification of how a network of interdependent systems operate, just because its not simple doesn't mean there isn't a fundamental structure the farther and farther you zoom out.