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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

#531

Post by raydev »

somenameforme wrote: post #257
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…

Would most people consider an account shadow banned when it can post as normal, yet its post are secretly set to have near zero visibility? The answer is self evident. Twitter tried to redefine shadowbanning to something they do not do, and then put out a post saying they don't shadowban. That is engaging in extremely bad faith. Using the definition as normally understood, is not. There was a post on Hacker News when…

> yet its post are secretly set to have near zero visibility

Whoever is following you and using the chronological timeline will see your tweets just fine as they happen.

Twitter deciding not to promote your tweet in the trending-ish/follows timeline doesn't seem close to shadowbanning to me.

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

#532

Post by raydev »

mandmandam wrote: post #218
quadrifoliate wrote: post #125

I have been responsible a bit of content moderation myself, and interacted with mods on various forums. It's possible that this is responsible for some of my views, summarized here. - The "secret" aspect of all this can be largely ignored. Twitter is under no obligation to tell its users exactly how their Tweets are moderated. I am sure most moderation tools are secret, including whatever Twitter (or for that matter,…

> Overall, I don't really see too much that would cause me to gasp with horror. I didn't "gasp", but, silently blocking an esteemed scientist is indeed horrible. He, and who knows how many others, presented sensible analyses against extended lockdowns in schools. This dissenting view, like with the lableak theory, was systematically blocked from ever reaching journalists eyes, and thus from reaching parents minds. Th…

> silently blocking an esteemed scientist is indeed horrible

My understanding is that anyone using the chrono timeline could still his tweets as they happened. Twitter deciding not to promote his tweets in the algo timeline seems far away from blocking.

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

#533

Post by dang »

drummer wrote: post #522
dang wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is hardly censorship:

The Twitter Files - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33838556 - Dec 2022 (1549 comments)

The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33915734 - Dec 2022 (481 comments)

... and it's quite normal. It happens with every sensational or inflammatory story, especially the Major Ongoing Topic kind: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu....

We don't have any interest in censoring this—it's being moderated the same way we moderate anything else in this category, regardless of which way the political vectors point.

You guys are cherry-picking a tiny and arbitrary sample of datapoints—i.e. what you happen to notice, when you happen to be looking, which is (1) a tiny time sample, and (2) strongly influenced by how you feel about the story. Other people who look at different times and/or feel differently notice different things and come to completely different conclusions. Then you (some of you, at least!) turn those unreliable, sample-biased and feeling-influenced observations into flaming arrows and fire them at the mods—the same mods, btw, who turned off the flags on the story in the first place.

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

#534

Post by godelski »

darkpatterns wrote: post #508
root_axis wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't prove that. This reasoning is like saying the law oppresses men because they are disproportionately convicted of violent crimes.

Don't read anything into this, but can you see the next step here if you replace "men" with "black men"? Is this actually the point you want to make?

That was such a bad faith argument/read that I don't even know where to begin.

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

#535

Post by godelski »

darkpatterns wrote: post #515
root_axis wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how that changes anything except to make the analogy politically fraught and easier to derail. The logic remains the same. Certainly, conservatives have no problem with the logic if you modify the analogy as you have suggested.

My only point that as with anything (and especially with crime statistics), "it's just not that simple" and nuance matters, in the sense that (in the modified analogy), to say at least some systemic racism doesn't exist in the way the prison stats play out seems naive at best, it seems similarly naive to assume there's no bias in this case as well.

> My only point that as with anything (and especially with crime statistics), "it's just not that simple" and nuance matters,

If this is actually your point then you are supporting root's argument, not rebutting it. Root was pointing out poor causal relationships determined from lack of recognition of confounding variables. You just listed another (substantially more famous) example of such a relationship.

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

#536

Post by godelski »

Georgelemental wrote: post #506
godelski wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bad faith read of my comment and the chain of conversation[0]. Spreading false and dangerous information does in fact violate Twitter's rules. As I've repeatedly said, we can't draw any strong conclusions without knowing the actual post that resulted in the ban. Without that we are just speculating and indulging in our personal biases. Please stop perpetuating this witch hunt and help demand real proof and…

Simple falsehood doesn't appear to be against the rules either, only deliberate lies/manipulated media are. > We can't draw any strong conclusions without knowing the actual post that resulted in the ban. We don't know what the post in question is, because Twitter is not transparent and shadowbans people without telling them why. With no evidence to the contrary, we should presume Dr. Bhattacharya innocent.

> Simple falsehood doesn't appear to be against the rules either, only deliberate lies/manipulated media are.

So Twitter made this claim. FP didn't deny it either fwiw.

> With no evidence to the contrary, we should presume Dr. Bhattacharya innocent.

While I'm a big fan of Blackstone's Ratio you need to recognize that I am not accusing him of anything. He's not on trial here, the FP is. My claim is that these Twitter Files are propagating controversy without providing any substantial evidence. Dr. Bhattacharya is only part of this conversation because YetAnotherNick claimed that the post about him was direct evidence of manipulation. Which, if you read back, I said that this sample is not informative since we do not know what led to the ban. Without that evidence we don't know if Twitter acted in good faith or not.

Again, Dr. Bhattacharya is not on trial. Proof of his innocence would help The FP's argument, so why are they hiding it? The same is true for __every single one of the samples given__. We have ZERO information about the content that was posted that led to the actual down-weighting and bans. Because this information is being _intentionally_ hidden from us we must be suspicious of The FP's motives here. If you visit their website I'm sure you'll find a bias that strongly correlates with the claims they are making here: Twitter devalues right wing voices. Problem is, the claim still has no evidence. Just correlations. But these are not the same thing and that's why people are fighting in the comments. There is absolutely no information given that can allow us to draw accurate _causal_ solutions.

Don't confuse criticism with political hackery.

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

#537

Post by alexandre_m »

Always funny to see these new revelations, while at the same time reading https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/debunking-twitter-...

"Does Twitter shadow ban? Let’s discuss this one upfront. Simply put, we don’t shadow ban! Ever. We do rank Tweets to create a more relevant experience for you, however, and you’re always able to see Tweets from people you follow. Check out our company blog post for more details."

and news articles from earlier, such as

2022-05-03 https://www.wral.com/fact-check-hannity-says-elon-musk-bid-e...

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

#538

Post by ryeights »

vdnkh wrote: post #448
drewbug01 wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people just want to believe Accurate. There’s a strong contingent of folks here that believe “the leftists” are oppressing them and “Twitter silences our voices” is a big part of the conspiracy theory. Musk is throwing fuel on the fire, because he also just wants to believe.

The hilarious part too is that the same contingent also ignores the screenshots showing that the "Libs of Tiktok" account had special rules around moderating it. So much for "silencing conservative thought" (if you can call that Twitter account "thought").

@libsoftiktok is not a left-wing account. The name is derogatory

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

#539

Post by nrki »

Georgelemental wrote: post #480
telaelit wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly what I’m saying, Libs of TikTok has been using their followers to direct hate and violence towards the LGBTQ+ community and as a result they’ve put children’s lives in danger by shutting down hospitals. Twitter’s advertisers don’t want to be associated with such hateful conduct. I’m glad we agree.

Do you have an example of them advocating for or encouraging violence against anyone?

No https://twitter.com/MattBinder/status/1516829759333969924

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

#540

Post by hintymad »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #509
hintymad wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a scientist is yelling about mysterious conspiracies and causing arguments "Mysterious conspiracies" by who? By the moderators who couldn't spell mitochondria or couldn't tell the difference between gene vs allele? Insults aside, didn't history give us so many "conspiracies" that turned out to be true? Like Heliocentrism，like climate change (in case people forgot how many people denied the climate change decades…

> I mean, how can Twitter's moderators, many of whom could barely understand college-level STEM or any subject, be so sure that they are on the right side of the history? They don't need to be, in order to preserve the peace on their platform (for whatever definition of peace). If you start yelling about mitochondria or climate change at Disneyland, you will be unceremoniously ejected for disturbing the peace at the…

> I don't understand why people think that Twitter, a private company, should be more like the town square than Disneyland.

In a way I agree with you. Twitter is a private company, and it does not necessarily have legal or moral obligation to be neutral or be a town square. Its staff should be perfectly safe to be biased towards left or right, or moderate content with or without facts or consistency.

I also agree with you that Twitter's staff needed to consider brand safety and how to retain advertisers. That's also the theory of Stratechery and why Ben Thompson thought that Elon needed to find revenue stream other than ads to really push his ideal of free speech on social media.

On the other hand, I do wish that Twitter a town square and they do have neutral or at least consistent moderation policies for practical reasons: millions of people do get news or information from Twitter on a daily basis. Millions of people do engage in discussion on Twitter on a daily basis. As a result, Twitter does become essential for facilitating and spreading information. In that regard, moderating debates, especially the controversial ones, can be harmful to the public. Imagine what it would be like if you were Botzmann yet you couldn't discuss your theory, or you were John Snow yet you were silenced for thinking cholera was not spread by miasma. Miasma was the mainstream theory in the late 1890s, no? In the eyes of the people in 1895, Snow was spreading "misinformation" that "could danger people's lives", no? We could safely bet that if there were Twitter at that time, the staff would be sided with the miasma theory, no? Another reason is in the spirit of "veil of ignorance". Society changes. People change. We're progressive today, but we can be conservative tomorrow. We can be left-leaning today and love projecting and attacking people's motives, but we can be right-leaning tomorrow and declare heresy this and evil that. I bet Robespierre believed that no one he guillotined was innocent and he could stay in power for long enough. I bet many people believed that the protestants in St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre deserved the death. I bet the elementary school students in China believed that they were righteous when they beat their teachers and school principals to death with knuckled belts. Without us believing that we can expressive our opinions in public safely, there will be guarantee that truth could come out quickly, and there will no guarantee that your group of people will be safe, no matter how dominant you are for now.

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