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The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

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Re: The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

#521

Post by josephb »

dekhn wrote: post #488
mandmandam wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was responding to an estimate that placed the death toll at 3.4%. The highest estimates now seem to be at around .28%. That's more than an order of magnitude. He wasn't all that wrong. Also, he advised focusing efforts on the most vulnerable; the elderly and people with comorbidities. He was very right there too. All those vaccines into kids and lockdowns of schools after the elderly were triple-vaccinated was a s…

While I don't think many of Jay's points were wrong, he sort of established himself as an anti-establishment person. I think if he had acted slightly differently, we'd all be praising him for keeping us from making a big mistake. But the reality is that the medical establishment has an immune system honed by decades of vaccine denialism (remember "vaccines cause autism because mercury") and tends to overreact when pe…

The medical establishment bring on a lack of trust due to their close ties with pharmaceutical companies who's aim is to simply make profits from the "medicine discovery of the day", no matter the consequences.

If the medical establishment (doctors, scientists, researchers, etc) took no funding from pharmaceutical companies, it might help their position. Taking funding from companies that have way too often been found of wrong doing, just poisons people's view of the whole system.

Re: The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

#522

Post by drummer »

dang wrote: post #87
quyleanh wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's appeared on #27 and then be flagged. Just wow HN.

It's just the normal up-and-down of sensational submissions on HN. The 'wow' factor is a function of the attention you're paying to it.

This kind of censorship is nothing normal dang.

Re: The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

#523

Post by theonething »

jacobsenscott wrote: post #478
theonething wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I see the term fascist being thrown around against conservatives frequently on sites like Reddit and I just chalk it up to people on sites like that not really knowing what the term means. HN to me is different. I fully expect people to understand and mean what they say here. So I'd like to know from a fellow HNer what exactly do you mean by calling "these" people fascists and who exactly are these fascists? Do yo…

> a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition. Lets take Trump, since you asked for a specific example. Certainly this criteria applies to Trumpists be definition, l…

Pretty hyperbolic. When I think of a dictatorial leader, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pol Pot, NK's Kims, Putin come to mind.[0]

Did Trump (or any US leadership past or present) wield that kind of violent and absolute power over government and people?

> severe economic and social regimentation

Again, I think of NK, China's treatment of Uighurs, their Covid lockdown policy, etc.

The left and right have different ideas on what is good for the nation and they have some commonalities too. I think this is healthy. What's not healthy is demonizing the other side because of different perspectives and beliefs.

Ironically, this demonizing of other groups is actually more akin to fascism (not calling anyone fascist, just pointing out the irony in this case) as that is the strategy used against the opposition by real fascists. E.g. Hitler towards Jews.

On Reddit, the language used against anyone not aligning with the Left is downright scary and dehumanizing. [1]

[0] Dictator: a ruler with total power over a country, typically one who has obtained control by force.

[1] See r/politics

Re: The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

#524

Post by theonething »

hundredeyed wrote: post #346
theonething wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I see the term fascist being thrown around against conservatives frequently on sites like Reddit and I just chalk it up to people on sites like that not really knowing what the term means. HN to me is different. I fully expect people to understand and mean what they say here. So I'd like to know from a fellow HNer what exactly do you mean by calling "these" people fascists and who exactly are these fascists? Do yo…

It's a strange hyperbole isn't it. Same as when people are accused of being "hateful" and "spreading hate" just for voicing a dissenting opinion on some controversial topics, without any hate involved at all.

You summed up what is really going on well.

Re: The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

#525

Post by lern_too_spel »

yucky wrote: post #516
etchalon wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you take someone casually rounding up from 90% to 100% as a deep reason for concern, I have some bad news for you regarding weather forecasts.

No expert in any field would tell you that "casually rounding from 90% to 100%" should ever be done in any serious setting. Ever. Idiots on the Internet are free to do so, but not the Director of the CDC or the US President. That gets people killed.

Surely, you can't be serious. The setting isn't a paper but a news interview, where they want the general idea of a study, not the details. In a news interview, saying "people who smoke get cancer" is perfectly acceptable (and not likely to "get people killed"), even though not 100% of them do.

Re: The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

#526

Post by nrki »

oska wrote: post #416
nrki wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come now, this could be verified with evidence. I'm sure these actions exist in a database and email trail. Musk could release the evidence himself, or use an actual journalistic process and have someone impartial review it. But there is none, and so he hides behind his disdain of "the MSM" and posts yes/no answers to leading questions that only serve to rile up his base.

Your comment seems to me to be full of bad faith. > use an actual journalistic process There is a journalistic process being followed - two established journalists have been given comprehensive access to internal files and are documenting what they have found, while putting their discoveries in context. Elon is also promising that these files will be released publicly for other journalists and the interested public t…

I think others have already replied with basically what I would have replied with, but to be clear: I was not talking about "Twitter Files Part 2", I was talking about the comment thread you posted.

My hyperbole was not necessary, you're right, but one can't say EM doesn't have disdain for MSM - he says it almost every day.

Re: The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

#527

Post by conscion »

veec_cas_tant wrote: post #12

Is this information new (as of #27)? Doesn't every social media platform augment reach for troublemakers? For example, here is Elon's new policy[0]: >New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach. >Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter. >You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Interne…

Spectacle is how Musk brands and motivates his companies. Tesla was originally climate change and lately has been self-driving. Space X is colonizing Mars. Twitter will be "radical transparency".

Even if Twitter does the exact same actions, Musk will frame them all as"radical transparency"

Re: The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

#528

Post by nrki »

MockObject wrote: post #469
nickthegreek wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is reasonable to worry that no additional information will be forthcoming... Elon has a habit of lying. Is that a controversial statement? Is Elon's true motivations to shine sunlight at the old twitter or is it to put on another dog and pony show? Because he is failing at the former and not even trying to disguide the latter. I am interested in understanding more about twitter's past and most importantly CUR…

Elon's given unprecedented access to journalists, and is considering releasing all that information to the public, but you're worried that he's going to remain secretive regarding a topic that he voluntarily decided to tease? Elon, whom you characterize as running a dog and pony show, is going to miss another opportunity for drama? No, sorry, but there's no way I can see how that stance is reasonable.

The Twitter Files are much less earth-shattering than what Elon implied with the response we are talking about. That is, the planned, deliberate muzzling of political figures _for their political views_, ordered by other political figures or in-power government figures.

I have no doubt Part 3 will be forthcoming, and if it unequivocally points to that, I will sit up and take note.

That said, all of this drama is for something that is now dead. That is, Twitter is dead as a platform for political discourse. Even given the previous Twitter administration's apparent overmoderation of rightwing voices, it was still the loudhailer for what was almost an overthrow of the US government. For better or for worse, those shackles have been removed. November 2023 and on may see a replay, and the loudhailer has no filter anymore.

Re: The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

#529

Post by raydev »

rhaksw wrote: post #370
adamwk wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that colloquially it's definition can be looser depending on context, but it's in bad faith that Weiss[0] quotes Twitter's then Head of Policy and Trust as saying Twitter doesn't shadow ban people when in the very blog post[1] she's quoting they clearly define shadow banning as, "deliberately making someone’s content undiscoverable to everyone except the person who posted it, unbeknownst to the original poste…

> "deliberately making someone’s content undiscoverable to everyone except the person who posted it, unbeknownst to the original poster." This happened to my tweet here [1]. It doesn't show up under the parent tweet [2]. It appears to be some sort of domain-based shadow filtering. It's probably because of the cheap .win domain I bought for $2. Why would Twitter censor that link? One could speculate it was because pat…

FYI, I think your tweet must be hidden if the user is logged out.

I'm logged in, and can see your tweet in the replies just fine. Still not shadowingbanning.

Re: The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

#530

Post by NaturalPhallacy »

ModernMech wrote: post #415
NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #46

Quoted post unavailable.

[flagged]

>apparently it has to be on the front page or you are violating the first amendment rights of those who want it on the front page!

This is a ridiculous strawman fallacy. HN loves gossip about tech companies getting caught doing things all of the other times it has happened. Hundreds of comments and upvotes on each one. But not this time? What's the difference?

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