Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#291

Post by threeseed » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

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.

Many of us use Twitter in chronological mode so their algorithm does little.

In which case I absolutely do not want accounts to be artificially increasing engagement.

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#292

Post by bko » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

Traster wrote: post #286

bko wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great. Why did twitter delete this one?

Doesn't it seem a pretty strong indicator that the claim they got censored for reporting on Maxwell is untrue because more popular, more credible people aren't being suspended. If the goal is to supress news about Maxwell it seems pretty clear that suspending some small anonymous account would not acheive that.

> more credible people aren't being suspended

yes, but this one was the most popular. If they're looking at suppressing news or attention, they'd want to ban the most popular, not the most credible necessarily.

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#293

Post by bambax » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 6:55 PM UTC

balbaugh wrote: post #7

There is a Substack associated with the suspended twitter account [0]. They have made a recent post about the suspension of said account and all of the users other twitter accounts [1]. It states that twitter told the user "the account was “artificially” amplifying information". [0] https://patriotone.substack.com [1] https://patriotone.substack.com/p/twitter-suspension

It's ironic that they're using Substack when they say:

> Big tech has gotten too powerful, and they can silence us anytime they want.

Substack is well on its way to becoming part of "big tech" and is yet another platform you don't control.

Setting up your own blog will not protect you from any and all threats but it makes arbitrary "suspensions" very difficult.

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#294

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 6:56 PM UTC

agentdrtran wrote: post #266

paganel wrote: post #12

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

No it isn't, this means you can't use bots to boost your account, as this account very clearly did.

[deleted]

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#295

Post by dang » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #12

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

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29484989.

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#296

Post by bambax » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 6:58 PM UTC

theossuary wrote: post #198

throwaway2331 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and the Dutch East India Company was just a trading operation that had no long-term repercussions on the world. They're both transnationals (something that is an abomination against humanity, in my opinion). There is no good faith reason to be on Twitter's side unless: 1). You work there, and it aligns with your interests for your current employer to continue to operate and generate profit (likewise if you hold…

Or 3). You still believe in the constitution and first amendment. They have their right to free speech just like I do, and I don't plan on chipping away at that right. If you have such issues with these massive companies perhaps we should address that, instead of trying to strip people of their constitutional rights?

Companies are not people. They are things. It's a very troublesome state of affairs when things have more rights than people.

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#297

Post by josefx » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 6:58 PM UTC

xanaxagoras wrote: post #268

josefx wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thought that the first amendment was about people rather than companies. Any amendment written before slavery was abolished probably had a rather flexible view on the whole "people" issue. If an African American can be property then a corporation can be a person.

This discussion has nothing to do with race. You're obsessed.

> You're obsessed.

I made one comment on this and that makes me obsessed?

> This discussion has nothing to do with race.

The claim was that it applied to people, I merely mentioned that what the law considers people is a rather flexible thing.

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#298

Post by dang » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 6:59 PM UTC

nahqz wrote: post #62

mikeyouse wrote: post #9

There are plenty of reputable journalists closely following the trial including Julie K Brown, the Miami based reporter whose story broke the whole thing open a few years ago leading to these arrests: https://twitter.com/jkbjournalist Adam Klasfeld is another one I enjoy: https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports

Ah well, if we have "reputable journalists" on the case then we don't need some lowlife reporting on it.

Would you please roll back the new account creation and guidelines breakage?

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#299

Post by joshuamorton » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #282

joshuamorton wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very specifically said that there were hard problems, just that this wasn't one ;) In this case, a fairly straightforward account age rule would get you like 95% of the way there. My twitter account, which is 7 years old and has a few hundred followers and tweets once a week isn't going to benefit from this. You don't ban it. Similarly, you don't ban a 7 year old account with 10s of thousands of followers that's be…

Your proposal is quite naive and displays the type of aggressive ignorance all too common among software developers. Aged Twitter accounts with thousands of followers are available for sale if you know where to look. They don't even cost very much. Brigading attacks by flagging content in bad faith are also very common for political and ideological reasons.

>Aged Twitter accounts with thousands of followers are available for sale

Yes, this is mostly irrelevant to what we were discussing though (and goes to the "change in behavior" thing I mentioned, which while more challenging, is still often detectable).

> Brigading attacks by flagging content in bad faith are also very common for political and ideological reasons.

Yes, but this is distinct from trying to frame someone for purchasing/using bot follows, and so is mostly irrelevant to what we were discussing. I agree that this is a challenging problem to solve, it's just not the one that was mentioned.

I'll reiterate:

There are challenging problems in abuse detection. Someone abusively using fake accounts to frame a legitimate user else for using fake accounts isn't a particularly challenging (or relevant) one.

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#300

Post by realce » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

mikeyouse wrote: post #278

realce wrote: post #204

https://twitter.com/realMattBuck/status/1468535971125895175 @NancyTracker, the account that tweets Pelosi's stock trades, was suspended today.

The person running the Maxwell tracking account ran that account too (per their Gab) -- so whatever they were doing to get banned (they apparently had 200k followers a few days after creating their account, so they likely had paid bots) ensnared both.

Oh interesting, thanks for the insight!

Not to be conspiratorial, but through a political lens they both serve to serve a similar message. Maybe they're part of a low-profile campaign, who knows.