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Twitter Shadow Bans Turkish Presidential Candidate

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Re: Twitter Shadow Bans Turkish Presidential Candidate

#81

Post by like_any_other »

roughly wrote: post #8

I am not an Elon or X fan, and I don’t think this is Good, but Twitter’s policy pre-X to comply with national content laws was to geo-block content when a government demanded it be blocked. I don’t recall if the algorithmic shadow-ban was in that toolkit pre-X as well, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Again, I don’t think this is a good outcome, but it’s not substantially at odds with what Twitter pre-Elon would’ve done…

> it’s a little bit more of a “dog bites man” than a “man bites dog” story at this point.

Not just at this point, and not just Twitter - slanting algorithms and bans for political ends is common practice, it's just usually a little more subtle:

Twitter Aided the Pentagon in Its Covert Online Propaganda Campaign - https://theintercept.com/2022/12/20/twitter-dod-us-military-... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/22/technology/twitter-milita...

On Facebook, Comments About ‘Whites,’ ‘Men,’ And ‘Americans’ Will Face Less Moderation - https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/12/03/on-face...

Facebook, Twitter stocked with ex-FBI, CIA officials in key posts - https://nypost.com/2022/12/22/facebook-twitter-stocked-with-...

Emi Palmor, the former General Director of the Israeli Ministry of Justice is on Facebook's oversight board - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emi_Palmor

1993-1997 US secretary of Labor Robert Reich: Trump is suing Facebook, Twitter, and Google for violating his 1st Amendment rights by keeping him off their platforms. Someone should remind him that they're private companies to which the 1st Amendment doesn't apply. - https://twitter.com/RBReich/status/1412826396490039296

Meet the Ex-CIA Agents Deciding Facebook’s Content Policy - https://www.mintpressnews.com/meet-ex-cia-agents-deciding-fa...

Far-right Polish groups protest Facebook profile blockages - https://apnews.com/article/7ea31c13b8bf45db88430e763e594025

Polish PM calls Facebook ban on far-right party undemocratic - https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-technology-h...

YouTube: Keeping Americans in the Dark on Islam - https://www.raymondibrahim.com/01/26/2018/youtube-keeping-am...

PPC candidate banned from Facebook and public debates - https://xcancel.com/MarcScottEmery/status/143384506948066510...

Website critical of Joe Biden banned by reddit, and even banned from private messages on Facebook - https://old.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/hr30p3/reddit_f...

Facebook Prevents Sharing New York Post Story on Black Lives Matter Founder Patrisse Cullors' Real Estate - https://www.newsweek.com/facebook-prevents-sharing-new-york-...

Facebook Says It Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the U.S. and Israeli Governments - https://theintercept.com/2017/12/30/facebook-says-it-is-dele...

Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News - https://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-sup...

Reporter: Facebook using ex-CIA to decide misinformation policy is ‘very, very worrying’ - https://thehill.com/hilltv/3566225-reporter-facebook-using-e...

Meta: Systemic Censorship of Palestine Content - https://text.hrw.org/news/2023/12/20/meta-systemic-censorshi...

How Facebook restricted news in Palestinian territories - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c786wlxz4jgo

Re: Twitter Shadow Bans Turkish Presidential Candidate

#83

Post by eptcyka »

marcosdumay wrote: post #75
postexitus wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All material facts are correct - but let's also remember that the world in 2013 doesn't exist anymore. In 2013, the authoritarianism was not on the rise. Arab Spring gave people hope. Gezi people were not only protesting, but also enjoying their uprising, singing, dreaming. Today - all of that is gone. Most western democracies succumbed to levels of authoritarianism. Let alone the number of active wars and conflicts…

> but let's also remember that the world in 2013 doesn't exist anymore Yep. In 2013 the social networks all found out that they can sell censorship to governments all over the world and their users wouldn't even notice it.

What is your argument exactly? The world is worse so we should be OK with that?

Re: Twitter Shadow Bans Turkish Presidential Candidate

#84

Post by [deleted] »

roughly wrote: post #8

I am not an Elon or X fan, and I don’t think this is Good, but Twitter’s policy pre-X to comply with national content laws was to geo-block content when a government demanded it be blocked. I don’t recall if the algorithmic shadow-ban was in that toolkit pre-X as well, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Again, I don’t think this is a good outcome, but it’s not substantially at odds with what Twitter pre-Elon would’ve done…

[deleted]

Re: Twitter Shadow Bans Turkish Presidential Candidate

#85

Post by numpad0 »

roughly wrote: post #8

I am not an Elon or X fan, and I don’t think this is Good, but Twitter’s policy pre-X to comply with national content laws was to geo-block content when a government demanded it be blocked. I don’t recall if the algorithmic shadow-ban was in that toolkit pre-X as well, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Again, I don’t think this is a good outcome, but it’s not substantially at odds with what Twitter pre-Elon would’ve done…

imo the bigger talking point is that Twitter post-acquisition has been working pathetically to curb organic buzzes in favor of manufactured trends, even harder than its previous left-leaning management. Effect of that being observed in Turkish politics is a downstream issue to that.

Twitter's strict "fun wins" algorithm of past seem like it had been a major driver in e.g. Arab Spring.

Re: Twitter Shadow Bans Turkish Presidential Candidate

#86

Post by lovich »

declan_roberts wrote: post #30
socrates1998 wrote: post #25

[flagged]

How do you measure viable? Twitter is still the best place to hear and read about breaking news.

It’s best only if you ignore the signal to noise ratio.

I might read “breaking news” on Twitter first, but simultaneously I’ll see the other 10 variants of reality about said “breaking news” with no way to discern between them quickly.

By the time you’ve fact checked anything, the regular news has already reported it

Re: Twitter Shadow Bans Turkish Presidential Candidate

#87

Post by Quarrelsome »

graemep wrote: post #78
Quarrelsome wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The man owns twitter ffs. The only way his attempts to gain political influence will ever fail is if the UK government block access to twitter or British people decide to stop using it. Until then he has significant capacity to sway political opinion. As an example: there is significant power in cultivating the default UK experience of twitter for new accounts, which he's already had significant impact on by culling…

You would think so, but he seems to have had remarkably little impact so far.

you're focusing too much on him personally instead of the impact of his platform and how he runs it. Twitter has had significant impact on UK politics and will continue to do so, especially in spreading disinformation[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Leicester_unrest

Re: Twitter Shadow Bans Turkish Presidential Candidate

#88

Post by dlivingston »

socrates1998 wrote: post #25

[flagged]

The sole reason I'm still on Twitter/X is that it's still ground zero for the startup scene. Paul Graham, Sam Altman, Garry Tan, and thousands of other VCs, CEOs, founders, and engineers are highly active and visible.

Also, I cannot stand BlueSky, as much I want to like it. There's this intense moralizing and pile-on culture that reminds me of the worst of pre-Musk Twitter. I'll never forget joining BlueSky late last year, posting some very milquetoast, liberal-coded and frankly inoffensive opinions, and finding myself added to lists called "MAGA / Nazi accounts to block". Just absolutely blew my mind and caused me to write off the platform forever.

Re: Twitter Shadow Bans Turkish Presidential Candidate

#90

Post by marcosdumay »

eptcyka wrote: post #83
marcosdumay wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but let's also remember that the world in 2013 doesn't exist anymore Yep. In 2013 the social networks all found out that they can sell censorship to governments all over the world and their users wouldn't even notice it.

What is your argument exactly? The world is worse so we should be OK with that?

Exactly that thing Twitter is doing now was one of the main contributors to the world getting worse. That they and all their other competitors have been doing since then.

Free-speech Twitter was either an accident or had a very quick change of mind. And either way, expecting centralized platforms to be of any use here is deeply misguided.

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