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twitter/the-algorithm

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Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#351

Post by throwaway894345 »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #322
throwaway894345 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a dog whistle, it's just a simplification because it's easier to say "the algorithm" than describing the system. Moreover, this nomenclature was mainstreamed by left-wing concern about "racist algorithms", especially in law enforcement, so it's not a partisan phrase at all.

That isn't very fair though, because its very different concern isn't it? The racist algorithms critique isn't that their is a shadowy conspiracy of people pushing buttons behind the curtain, getting the results they want with conscious decisions, it is a concern about datasets mainly, as well as sociological questions about unconscious bias in testing and verifying the correctness of programs, which can cascade into…

My point wasn’t that these theories are equal, but that “the algorithm” isn’t a right-wing dog whistle because it’s used in left-wing contexts as well.

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#352

Post by KrishnaShripad »

madeofpalk wrote: post #349
KrishnaShripad wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Has there ever been any actual indication of twitter shadow bans being a real thing Please stop living in this bubble. There have been plenty of reports of Twitter shadow banning speech it doesn't like. It has even suspended accounts multiple times only to reinstate them by saying it was an "algorithm error" or it being "wrongly flagged". In India we regularly see Twitter suspending accounts that have not violated…

What you linked to is not shadow banning, and was explicit banning/suspension that happens transparently (in the sense that anyone can see that it happened).

> What you linked to is not shadow banning

Of course this is evident too. And let me quote directly from an Opposition leader in India (whose party/ideology I completely oppose):

"“I have been reliably, albeit discreetly, informed by people at Twitter India that they are under immense pressure by the government to silence my voice. My account was even blocked for a few days for no legitimate reason,” Gandhi said in his letter."

"“For example, in May 2021, my account gained roughly 640,000 new followers. This had been the case for several years until July 2021. Then something strange happened. Since August 2021, the average number of my new monthly Twitter followers has fallen to nearly zero,” he claimed."

Article in question: https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/in-focus/story/rahul-gan...

Now just because I am opposed to his ideology (which is Left-Centrist) doesn't mean I want him banned/shadow-banned from the platform. He has every right to continue to voice his opinions. Now he claims that it was the Government (whose ideology I support) which supposedly interfered and pressurized Twitter to manipulate follower count. I would like transparency on this if my Government, which I support, did indeed do that. Or did Twitter itself decide to shadow ban his account. Or was Twitter doing it legitimately because he had a lot of bots following him and when they banned those bots his follower count decreased. Either ways, I want the facts in the open.

As far as shadow banning content goes. It happens on a fairly regular basis. Open any Tweet that has quite a few comments right now and scroll to the end. You typically have a "Show additional replies, including those that may contain offensive content". Take this tweet as an example: https://twitter.com/Bob_Mayo/status/1518679097672617990

When you click more replies it shows "Show additional replies". Clicking on it is an innocuous tweet with laughing emoji. But the tweet above it isn't put behind a collapsible card. How many would click on the "Show" button and read those replies that are hidden by default? This is throttling reach a.k.a shadow banning. It is not like there is some abusive word being used in the tweet. It is just laughing emojis.

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#353

Post by mcphage »

memish wrote: post #265
mcphage wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which side is on a book banning tear again?

Both! The difference is in what they target. "On the right, banning books means trying to prevent their kids from reading them. But on the left it often means trying to prevent anyone from reading them." https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1515563419386191880

That reads like those "UI vs UX" images where the creator just takes 2 random photos and sticks them next to each other—while simultaneously being deeply ignorant of what’s going on in the country right now.

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#354

Post by philosopher1234 »

legalcorrection wrote: post #350
philosopher1234 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, do go on and on. You can stop when you get to the left attempting to overturn the American presidential election. Edit: are our neoliberal overlords a bunch of cold hearted shit heads? Yes. Should we elect and promote barely disguised fascists in response? No.

They framed Trump for treason and thereby completely undermined him before he even formally took office. Are we going to memoryhole that? That’s the same thing as stealing the election.

One is an indisputable coup attempt and the other is exaggerated.

> it’s not the one you think

Yes it is.

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#355

Post by hazb »

"The algorithm" could mean a lot of things. Whatever it means, it probably spans hundreds or even thousands of services. That doesn't mean it cannot be made open-source.

I imagine they'd probably start with documentation and white-papers that communicate "here's how we intend for it to work".

It's seriously unlikely anyone in Twitter knows actually works how any non-trivial algorithm in the company works. To figure THAT out, they could decide to do a company-wide documentation and instrumentation push like they probably would've had to do for GDPR anyway, which is painful and boring and going to take a very long time.

Failing that, they could just say 'the algorithm as it stands is no longer fit for purpose, given part of its core requirement has become that it needs to be transparent and publishable, and presumably legible. We need to make a new one. Publish the core algorithm. We probably won't deploy it in that exact state, it's going to span multi-services and so on, you obviously don't get the data we used to train the models, but we will work backwards from it and here's an open mechanism to measure how true-to-form it actually is'

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#356

Post by jacobolus »

KrishnaShripad wrote: post #332
jacobolus wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was “confirmed” was that many emails placed onto the hard drive were, in fact, real emails. (The content of those emails is fairly innocuous, neither illegal nor even particularly corrupt. But a year of continuous drumbeat spun GOP partisans into a frothy outrage about it.) Those who investigated thoroughly found that the chain of custody of the hard drive was incredibly sloppy and the content of the hard drive…

Washington Post was one of the news outlets that denied Hunter Biden's laptop story and cast shadow on its authenticity until it had to do a major U-turn one year later. I wouldn't touch that publication with a 6-foot pole when it comes to unearthing Truth about Hunter Biden laptop case at the very least.

The Washington Post (among others) were rightly skeptical of a tabloid fluff story with no details, corroboration, or expert analysis about a mysterious harddrive with an implausible backstory somehow in the custody of Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani, dropping immediately before a presidential election.

Their skepticism turned out to be well founded. There’s really no story there. (This was similar to the non-story of Hillary Clinton’s email server, Russian-hacked DNC emails, etc. of 2016 which turned out to be completely anodyne and routine, but became the intense focus of months of news coverage and whipped partisans into a frothy frenzy based on wild lies/speculation.)

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#357

Post by sakopov »

I agree that there is no such thing as "the algorithm." It is Twitter in its entirety. And with that I have a wild question. Can Musk make Twitter fully open-source on GitHub?

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#359

Post by edouard-harris »

Assuming Twitter is serious about publishing their feed algorithm [1], it's possible they're merely anticipating the EU's upcoming Digital Services Act which was finalized over the weekend. Among other things, the Act will compel large platforms to "make the working of their recommender algorithms (used for sorting content on the News Feed or suggesting TV shows on Netflix) transparent to users." [2]

Twitter's EU user base is probably [3] above the 45 million threshold that triggers the strictest transparency requirements under the Act. So perhaps they figure if they're going to be forced to disclose anyway, they might as well do it proactively.

[1] If it's even coherent to talk about their feed ranking system as a single algorithm — see the other comments in this thread.

[2] https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/23/23036976/eu-digital-servi...

[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/242606/number-of-active-...

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