“Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with diverse viewpoints”(twitter.com)
twitter.com
“Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with diverse viewpoints”
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586059953311137792
987 comments
I don't see anything in Elon Musk's past operation of businesses as CEO that suggests to me he's going to have a better sense of how to run a social network than the previous operators.
I predict the best case scenario is that he does no worse.
I predict the best case scenario is that he does no worse.
Twitter is basically an internet scale public bathroom wall with everyone scrawling short hot takes onto the walls. The best case scenario has always been that it shut down and I hope we are one day closer to that eventuality.
It is ironic and laughable that Elons post to advertisers is done with screenshots of text. After 20+ years of mainstream networked computing this is what passes as a state of art platform and user experience to communicate to n audience.
The bulk of the problems Twitter faces today are amplified and directly inflicted by the essential design of the product.
Tl/Dr; nothing of value was lost.
It is ironic and laughable that Elons post to advertisers is done with screenshots of text. After 20+ years of mainstream networked computing this is what passes as a state of art platform and user experience to communicate to n audience.
The bulk of the problems Twitter faces today are amplified and directly inflicted by the essential design of the product.
Tl/Dr; nothing of value was lost.
> Twitter is basically an internet scale public bathroom wall with everyone scrawling short hot takes onto the walls. The best case scenario has always been that it shut down and I hope we are one day closer to that eventuality.
I really don't see a problem with having an internet scale public bathroom wall for people to scrawl all over. Sure, Twitter is mostly spam and garbage, but so what? Every comment, however useless/offensive/entertaining/banal/silly/poetic/helpful/etc that isn't breaking the law isn't really a problem and no one is forcing you to read it.
I don't have much trouble ignoring Twitter entirely most of the time and the main issues I have with it aren't even about Twitter itself but with how people try to use it for things it is poorly suited for. It's the "journalists" who copy/paste tweets then call that an article I take issue with. Twitter is absolutely no place for presidential records, and shouldn't be the only place for any kind of important or official notification, or the only way to reach a company to get customer service.
There are certainty far better platforms for blogging, but lots of people like Twitter and find it useful. I don't see why Twitter should go away.
I really don't see a problem with having an internet scale public bathroom wall for people to scrawl all over. Sure, Twitter is mostly spam and garbage, but so what? Every comment, however useless/offensive/entertaining/banal/silly/poetic/helpful/etc that isn't breaking the law isn't really a problem and no one is forcing you to read it.
I don't have much trouble ignoring Twitter entirely most of the time and the main issues I have with it aren't even about Twitter itself but with how people try to use it for things it is poorly suited for. It's the "journalists" who copy/paste tweets then call that an article I take issue with. Twitter is absolutely no place for presidential records, and shouldn't be the only place for any kind of important or official notification, or the only way to reach a company to get customer service.
There are certainty far better platforms for blogging, but lots of people like Twitter and find it useful. I don't see why Twitter should go away.
What's wrong with screenshots of text? They're easily readable. The white background makes things stand out more than just posting text on stock Twitter. It's one reason Insta story posts and even slides have text.
Technological progress doesn't mean making user-hostile design. If users like a format or medium, you can offer it to them even if your platform is capable of greater things.
Technological progress doesn't mean making user-hostile design. If users like a format or medium, you can offer it to them even if your platform is capable of greater things.
What's wrong? Everything.
Screenshots of text are popular because people don't seem to be able to copy and save data anymore. Social media apps don't let users download pictures anymore. I can only share intra-platform links to content. The Instagram app won't even let me select text. People get around this insanity by screenshotting the whole screen and saving a poor quality version of the data in image form. This is actually a lossy format conversion and will happen multiple times as people encounter resistance when they try to copy, save and share. It's not just images of text, it's screenshots of screenshots of of screenshots of text.
This is what computing has degenerated to. People can't do basic actions like copying and downloading anymore so they just use screen shots and screen recorders to get around software limitations. I've seen so many videos that end with the user manipulating the interface to stop the recorder. And then there's the people reduced to taking pictures of another screen with their phone cameras.
Screenshots of text are popular because people don't seem to be able to copy and save data anymore. Social media apps don't let users download pictures anymore. I can only share intra-platform links to content. The Instagram app won't even let me select text. People get around this insanity by screenshotting the whole screen and saving a poor quality version of the data in image form. This is actually a lossy format conversion and will happen multiple times as people encounter resistance when they try to copy, save and share. It's not just images of text, it's screenshots of screenshots of of screenshots of text.
This is what computing has degenerated to. People can't do basic actions like copying and downloading anymore so they just use screen shots and screen recorders to get around software limitations. I've seen so many videos that end with the user manipulating the interface to stop the recorder. And then there's the people reduced to taking pictures of another screen with their phone cameras.
> Social media apps don't let users download pictures anymore.
These aren't problems with screenshots of text (although others have done a pretty good job in listing those) or even problems with computing. These are problems with shitty social media platforms that want to take control from their users, and with the users who accept those kinds of limitations. Stop using bad user-hostile platforms and they'll either improve to win back users or they'll become obsolete and die as people flock to better alternatives.
These aren't problems with screenshots of text (although others have done a pretty good job in listing those) or even problems with computing. These are problems with shitty social media platforms that want to take control from their users, and with the users who accept those kinds of limitations. Stop using bad user-hostile platforms and they'll either improve to win back users or they'll become obsolete and die as people flock to better alternatives.
> Stop using bad user-hostile platforms and they'll either improve to win back users or they'll become obsolete and die as people flock to better alternatives.
There's no point in migrating to some perfect encrypted federated free software platform and being alone because everyone I know is still using Instagram.
There's no point in migrating to some perfect encrypted federated free software platform and being alone because everyone I know is still using Instagram.
Maybe just stop using social media. If you're interesting your friends will contact you still. If you're not interesting, go get a hobby and become interesting.
Usually this site is the only place I care about but there's a presidential election in my country tomorrow. I'm not gonna stop using social media right now. Future of my country is at stake.
> There's no point in migrating to some perfect encrypted federated free software platform and being alone because everyone I know is still using Instagram.
If everyone went by that logic no one could ever stop using the social media sites they are using today. If you've found a good platform your best bet is to get people to use it in addition to the bad ones they use now and as more people join and use the better platform people could find themselves using the old ones less frequently. By enjoying and getting used to having the benefits of the new platform they could grow increasingly frustrated by the limitations of the older ones.
As long as the perfect encrypted federated free software platform is at least as easy to join and use as the old one asking a friend to add one more app to their rotation wouldn't be putting a huge burden on them.
If everyone went by that logic no one could ever stop using the social media sites they are using today. If you've found a good platform your best bet is to get people to use it in addition to the bad ones they use now and as more people join and use the better platform people could find themselves using the old ones less frequently. By enjoying and getting used to having the benefits of the new platform they could grow increasingly frustrated by the limitations of the older ones.
As long as the perfect encrypted federated free software platform is at least as easy to join and use as the old one asking a friend to add one more app to their rotation wouldn't be putting a huge burden on them.
Don’t even get me started with screen recording on a phone. At least on Apple if any Apple Music is playing that you don’t own the mp3 for, gets scrubbed out. I only know this from trying to make a cool thing for my son. I’m so tired of the nanny shit and wish I could just go back to android.
> At least on Apple if any Apple Music is playing that you don’t own the mp3 for, gets scrubbed out.
Yeah. Next year I'll be reading about how the camera apps are detecting copyrighted content and refusing to take pictures too.
> wish I could just go back to android
Don't count on Android. Stakeholder lock down is increasing there too. Remote attestation is already a thing, soon we won't be able to run most apps if we "tamper" with the device by owning it.
Yeah. Next year I'll be reading about how the camera apps are detecting copyrighted content and refusing to take pictures too.
> wish I could just go back to android
Don't count on Android. Stakeholder lock down is increasing there too. Remote attestation is already a thing, soon we won't be able to run most apps if we "tamper" with the device by owning it.
> , soon we won't be able to run most apps if we "tamper" with the device by owning it.
Do you have any evidence of this ? I think samsung has done something with knox, but that is the only case I know of.
Do you have any evidence of this ? I think samsung has done something with knox, but that is the only case I know of.
Google's SafetyNet. It either has or will have support for hardware attestation. This can't be circumvented by software like Magisk.
Apps will insist that you run unmodified software. Bank apps will require attestation because of "fraud". WhatsApp will require attestation because of "terms of service". Streaming apps will require attestation because of "piracy". Games will require attestation because of "cheating". Every app in the Play Store will find a bullshit reason to require it and the result is we can't use their software if we own the machine, we have to let the corporation own it.
Apps will insist that you run unmodified software. Bank apps will require attestation because of "fraud". WhatsApp will require attestation because of "terms of service". Streaming apps will require attestation because of "piracy". Games will require attestation because of "cheating". Every app in the Play Store will find a bullshit reason to require it and the result is we can't use their software if we own the machine, we have to let the corporation own it.
Also its terrible for accessibility. Text can be manipulated and rendered in all sorts of ways. Tim Berners Lee is rolling in his grave!!
Yes, completely agree. The sibling comments already explained the technical limitations in detail so I just left it implict in my "lossy conversion" point.
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screenshots of text on twitter exist primarily because people still want to post long segments of text on a platform that explicitly disallows it. screenshots of text are worse than actual text in every way i can think of. they do not:
- allow clicking hyperlinks
- allow copying content to paste elsewhere
- adhere to device display preferences. you wanted dark mode? fuck you, my screenshot's black on white, dwi
- support screen readers. i loled hardcore at the other post suggesting twitter OCR them--i mean sure, as a practical matter, they should given the status quo, but YOU COULD HAVE JUST USED TEXT TO BEGIN WITH
- scale properly when zoomed in or out
- display all the text up front. virtually all of these require you click through each image because the thumbnail is cropped (if not too small to read anyway)
idk what reason you'd ever actually want to use them unless you desperately needed to show off the cool font you used. saying they're easily readable is like saying the abhorrent mandatory training videos featuring some extremely bored person reading a script over a static background for 30 minutes, with no option to speed up playback or fast-forward, are perfectly understandable. like, yeah, sure, they _are_, but also you could have provided a set of text bullet points about how not to violate USFCPA that any literate person could read in about 2 minutes and we'd all learn the same damn thing
- allow clicking hyperlinks
- allow copying content to paste elsewhere
- adhere to device display preferences. you wanted dark mode? fuck you, my screenshot's black on white, dwi
- support screen readers. i loled hardcore at the other post suggesting twitter OCR them--i mean sure, as a practical matter, they should given the status quo, but YOU COULD HAVE JUST USED TEXT TO BEGIN WITH
- scale properly when zoomed in or out
- display all the text up front. virtually all of these require you click through each image because the thumbnail is cropped (if not too small to read anyway)
idk what reason you'd ever actually want to use them unless you desperately needed to show off the cool font you used. saying they're easily readable is like saying the abhorrent mandatory training videos featuring some extremely bored person reading a script over a static background for 30 minutes, with no option to speed up playback or fast-forward, are perfectly understandable. like, yeah, sure, they _are_, but also you could have provided a set of text bullet points about how not to violate USFCPA that any literate person could read in about 2 minutes and we'd all learn the same damn thing
Mostly the fact that they completely ignore accessibility.
In fact, if Twitter did want to improve the user experience, automatic OCR of such text and generation of the corresponding alt tag would be a practical improvement. In fact, general recognition of the content of an image and auto generation of an ALT tag would be a significant improvement.
... But that require them to do actual machine learning as opposed to being the internet's bathroom stall wall.
In fact, if Twitter did want to improve the user experience, automatic OCR of such text and generation of the corresponding alt tag would be a practical improvement. In fact, general recognition of the content of an image and auto generation of an ALT tag would be a significant improvement.
... But that require them to do actual machine learning as opposed to being the internet's bathroom stall wall.
Twitter does a lot of actual machine learning, but mostly to improve ad clickability.
OCR is a solved problem. It's like one call to tesseract and you're done.
The fact they haven't done this just shows how inept their employees are.
The fact they haven't done this just shows how inept their employees are.
Tesseract has a horrific API and decades of technical debt. Add to this, it's also very sensitive to fonts. So... yeah, OCR is 'solved', but that doesn't mean it's easy.
Solved for most the image text I see on social.
> What's wrong with screenshots of text? They're easily readable. The white background makes things stand out more than just posting text on stock Twitter. It's one reason Insta story posts and even slides have text.
The fact you defend it as more readable than actual twitter design says a lot
The fact you defend it as more readable than actual twitter design says a lot
> Technological progress doesn't mean making user-hostile design
Ok I want to copy paste one of the sentences he said to send to my friend but not the whole message. Oh wait
Ok I want to copy paste one of the sentences he said to send to my friend but not the whole message. Oh wait
A lot of accounts on Twitter screenshot text in order to circumvent notifications to the accounts they cite... This allows people to hijack content, and to arrange brigades without having a clear path back to the source of where they started.
One of the most important things for Elon to understand is that no matter how many programmatical measures are put into place to prevent abuse, there will always eventually be a workaround for people on a very public and open site. Protecting users and their content rights should be a goal of the platform as well, too many of these social sites see copycat behavior as fair game, and they reward people who steal and hijack content, that needs to be discouraged among several other bad social media behaviors.
One of the most important things for Elon to understand is that no matter how many programmatical measures are put into place to prevent abuse, there will always eventually be a workaround for people on a very public and open site. Protecting users and their content rights should be a goal of the platform as well, too many of these social sites see copycat behavior as fair game, and they reward people who steal and hijack content, that needs to be discouraged among several other bad social media behaviors.
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He uses Twitter a lot. The previous CEO barely uses it. That alone gives him a massive advantage.
But is his usage reflective of the majority of the users?
It's like saying that if you own a Lamborghini you can be a great manager at Lada.
Yeah maybe it helps a little but the vast majority of your decisions is still going to be determined by analysis on your users, not your experience.
It's like saying that if you own a Lamborghini you can be a great manager at Lada.
Yeah maybe it helps a little but the vast majority of your decisions is still going to be determined by analysis on your users, not your experience.
Many Twitter employees think Elon Musk can do better, especially with bolder decisions on obvious things. Source: several friends working there.
1. Spams and bots are rampant. Now I understand it's hard, but eliminating the obvious ones is not hard. A verified account impersonating people and selling crypto is just insane.
2. I used to ask for verification and get this. Twitter doesn't agree with verifying myself. What is this idiotic policy? I am myself.
3. People should allow to tweet as long as it's not illegal, especially from high profile accounts. Moderation might not go away, but it should be minimal.
My opinion is that, if twitter enables widespread verification where a lot more people can be verified, twitter's convo will get 10x better (e.g. now they can rank replies, people will act more reasonably).
1. Spams and bots are rampant. Now I understand it's hard, but eliminating the obvious ones is not hard. A verified account impersonating people and selling crypto is just insane.
2. I used to ask for verification and get this. Twitter doesn't agree with verifying myself. What is this idiotic policy? I am myself.
3. People should allow to tweet as long as it's not illegal, especially from high profile accounts. Moderation might not go away, but it should be minimal.
My opinion is that, if twitter enables widespread verification where a lot more people can be verified, twitter's convo will get 10x better (e.g. now they can rank replies, people will act more reasonably).
The most likely result seems to be he sells it within 5 years after making zero meaningful changes and taking a massive loss. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad result.
I don't think he'd sell. At this point, I think it's more of a "crown jewel" for him—like the tech nerd equivalent of owning a baseball or a basketball team.
I guess so, maybe? Though I can barely think of a less interesting tech-y thing to own than something like Twitter when you already own SpaceX and Tesla. In terms of Tech-y-ness, Twitter is a spectacular downgrade.
Twitter will owe > 1B/year in interest. If it doesn’t start making money, it either goes bankrupt or Elon bails it out.
He will definitely make a lot of changes to the user experience of Twitter, and add a lot of features. He has already outlined some of the features he wants to add around billing and commerce, similar to super apps in China like Wechat. He has been thinking about this for a long time under the X banner.
I fully expect the logo and UI to change, but he isn’t going to suddenly prevent people from following people, sending / reading tweets or do anything else that would drive most users away because that would just be setting billions of dollars on fire.
If he manages to resell it at a gain, he will have flipped the bird.
i've typed this 1000 times. this is a win/win
either elon musk is the business genius a lot of people think he is (I think he is this) and he turns Twitter around and it's awesome.
else twitter fails and doesnt exist. net positive for the world and net negative for Elon, also good for humanity .
either elon musk is the business genius a lot of people think he is (I think he is this) and he turns Twitter around and it's awesome.
else twitter fails and doesnt exist. net positive for the world and net negative for Elon, also good for humanity .
Big room for middle ground in there of "Elon is good at some things, bad at others, Twitter muddles around as a net negative for the world."
I wouldn't be so quick to assume that Musk's ~15 recent years of experiences with mechanical/aerospace/production-engineering businesses is gonna translate perfectly to whatever Twitter is supposed to be.
I wouldn't be so quick to assume that Musk's ~15 recent years of experiences with mechanical/aerospace/production-engineering businesses is gonna translate perfectly to whatever Twitter is supposed to be.
Musk's MO is in creating new markets in ambitious new areas. I see no evidence of his ability in turning round failing old companies with old, below-par products.
Maybe being forced to buy it (it's probably already halved in value at least) will make him think twice before gobbing off in future though.
Maybe being forced to buy it (it's probably already halved in value at least) will make him think twice before gobbing off in future though.
Ho boy was Twitter mismanaged up to now. I think that's why he bought it.
Mismanaged according to who, him? He bought it because he forced the stock price down with the announcement and was forced into buying it.
It was mismanaged according to *me*. I posted my opinion. It may be incorrect. That's true of most posts on the internet.
Twitter has 7,500 employees. It doesn't take that many to run a Twitter. Most Twitter employees I know use their positions to work on things weakly aligned with the success of Twitter, such as random political or nerdy projects. That's a small sample set, but the things I hear raise my eyebrows.
If Twitter were private, and management aligned to shareholder value, the value could increase by a lot. I'm not sure if Musk can do that, or if it isn't overvalued in the first place, but that's my opinion on Twitter management from where I sit.
It's not uncommon for public companies, especially older ones, by the way. In many cases, almost every employee, right up through the CEO, is there to maximize their income, to maximize their future career prospects, and to have fun. That doesn't always align well with shareholder value.
Twitter has 7,500 employees. It doesn't take that many to run a Twitter. Most Twitter employees I know use their positions to work on things weakly aligned with the success of Twitter, such as random political or nerdy projects. That's a small sample set, but the things I hear raise my eyebrows.
If Twitter were private, and management aligned to shareholder value, the value could increase by a lot. I'm not sure if Musk can do that, or if it isn't overvalued in the first place, but that's my opinion on Twitter management from where I sit.
It's not uncommon for public companies, especially older ones, by the way. In many cases, almost every employee, right up through the CEO, is there to maximize their income, to maximize their future career prospects, and to have fun. That doesn't always align well with shareholder value.
44bn is a lot for a social media company. Westinghouse was sold off for 7.9bn. They make nuclear reactors as opposed to distributing short text messages over the Internet.
"Forced into buying it" is really not an accurate way to think about it. It makes it sound like he never wanted to buy Twitter, when in fact he did want to buy it for less money because he knew the valuation was too high (because of bot farms, managerial bloat, &c.)
> he knew the valuation was too high (because of bot farms, managerial bloat, &c.)
"He knew the valuation was too high" is really not an accurate way to think about it. It makes it sound like he successfully proved those claims, when in fact he failed to present compelling enough evidence in court when he tried to use legal action to back out.
"He knew the valuation was too high" is really not an accurate way to think about it. It makes it sound like he successfully proved those claims, when in fact he failed to present compelling enough evidence in court when he tried to use legal action to back out.
Oops! Turns out Wachtell & Turner and the previous Twitter board hid evidence of fraudulent metrics. This could easily turn into legal popcorn time: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586885887341645824
He set the price, than backpedaled not because he discovered new information, which he did not, but because the market slumped.
We know this because he decided not to go to court to prove that Twitter had hidden information.
We know this because he decided not to go to court to prove that Twitter had hidden information.
He said he'd buy it at $54.20 and they held him to that. If he didn't mean it he shouldn't have said it (a constant Elon problem)
>maybe eliminate the high profile banning but a person on the ground will have largely the same experience
It's either going to be a double standard or not. I moderated a busy gaming site for years. Users have nothing to do but re-post what got someone else banned and then complain things aren't consistent.
I would find the idea that a politician gets to say things, but I don't completely absurd.
It's either going to be a double standard or not. I moderated a busy gaming site for years. Users have nothing to do but re-post what got someone else banned and then complain things aren't consistent.
I would find the idea that a politician gets to say things, but I don't completely absurd.
> I would find the idea that a politician gets to say things, but I don't completely absurd.
That’s been Twitter’s official policy since they got criticized a lot for giving Trump passes on generally applicable rules in the runup to and just after thrbe 2016 election: they changed the rules so governments and sufficiently prominent public figures have wider latitude.
Musk selectively loosening restrictions on those who already have the loosest restrictions would be... well, not at all surprising.
That’s been Twitter’s official policy since they got criticized a lot for giving Trump passes on generally applicable rules in the runup to and just after thrbe 2016 election: they changed the rules so governments and sufficiently prominent public figures have wider latitude.
Musk selectively loosening restrictions on those who already have the loosest restrictions would be... well, not at all surprising.
I mean, if you think that “everyone is happy with Elon’s content moderation strategies” was one of the possible outcomes, well then I disagree, I think Elon is going to take heat for content moderation across the political spectrum.
> I think Elon is going to take heat for content moderation across the political spectrum
The difference now is that Elon went from being one of the loudest members of the peanut gallery to the guy running the show.
The difference now is that Elon went from being one of the loudest members of the peanut gallery to the guy running the show.
Yep. Much harder to be the one bearing the responsibility of the calls being made than being an armchair commentator complaining about the decisions. I don't anticipate that he'll be any more successful at this than other leadership teams of social media companies. There's no way of "winning" at this game: damned if you do, damned if you don't.
I was thinking of it just from a moderation perspective. Elon, who knows.
If you moderated the 18-25, huge respect, I’m just adding background info: it’s a huge piece of French culture among geeks, like the 4chan, except most of the interesting website exists within the lapse between posting and being censored. It’s everything-ist and very bad taste. The rest is uninteresting, if it stays on, then it means it doesn’t say anything of any relevance. Moderators are kept to believe they’re administering a gaming forum with occasional slip-ups, whereas “being 410ed” became a colloquial word among teens (410 means your post returns HTTP-410, i.e. it was deleted). It’s like Snapchat, nothing lives for eternity (18-25 stands for the age, it’s not a 13-52 ratio, that would be banned). The 18-25 is a piece of ephemeral art.
Are you talking about this?
https://m.jeuxvideo.com/forums/0-51-0-1-0-1-0-blabla-18-25-a...
https://m.jeuxvideo.com/forums/0-51-0-1-0-1-0-blabla-18-25-a...
Things start to get weird when you're talking about heads of state and/or official government policy.
If the contents of a law violates Twitter's TOS, can we not disseminate it on Twitter?
If the contents of a law violates Twitter's TOS, can we not disseminate it on Twitter?
At some point big social media might have to be made a utility and or nationalized, assuming we want a de-jure government to be our real government, and not a constellation of corporations acting as a de-facto one.
I don't disagree, but the people most angry about being kicked off Twitter are also the people who insisted that net neutrality was "Obamacare for the Internet".
So I believe your comment to be in good faith but it's overly optimistic.
First, whenever it comes to "free speech" 99% of the time people make that argument they're not arguging for "all speech". They're talking about "my speech". And most of that time they really just want to utter hate speech.
Second, the idea of what's normal or acceptable is built on deeply ingrained beliefs that typically aren't rational. You see this whenever Elon talks about the "far left". This is such a laughable concept. The "far left" in American politics quite often simply means "we should let trans people exist" (eg [1]). Even suggesting things like everyone deserves access to healthcare is viewed as an extreme left position in the US.
So when Elon argues he's a centrist, the calibration is off because your choices in mainstream American politics are mostly between extreme right (often called the "alt right") being the party of Trump and the center right in the form of the Democratic Party (eg [2]). There is no "left" in American politics. The takeover of neoliberalism in the US is near-total.
As for Elon's plans for Twitter, he's put a lot of money on the line and the letter to advertisers I think gives a good signal of where this is going. I predict Elon will simply cut costs, unban a few conservatives as a token gesture and wait a couple of years to take the company public again and get out. He may as well start making a "Mission Accomplished" banner now and book the aircraft carrier. This is basically the private equity playbook.
[1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/17/elon-musk-should-apologize-f...
[2]: https://twitter.com/cnbc/status/1471615893411090433?lang=en
First, whenever it comes to "free speech" 99% of the time people make that argument they're not arguging for "all speech". They're talking about "my speech". And most of that time they really just want to utter hate speech.
Second, the idea of what's normal or acceptable is built on deeply ingrained beliefs that typically aren't rational. You see this whenever Elon talks about the "far left". This is such a laughable concept. The "far left" in American politics quite often simply means "we should let trans people exist" (eg [1]). Even suggesting things like everyone deserves access to healthcare is viewed as an extreme left position in the US.
So when Elon argues he's a centrist, the calibration is off because your choices in mainstream American politics are mostly between extreme right (often called the "alt right") being the party of Trump and the center right in the form of the Democratic Party (eg [2]). There is no "left" in American politics. The takeover of neoliberalism in the US is near-total.
As for Elon's plans for Twitter, he's put a lot of money on the line and the letter to advertisers I think gives a good signal of where this is going. I predict Elon will simply cut costs, unban a few conservatives as a token gesture and wait a couple of years to take the company public again and get out. He may as well start making a "Mission Accomplished" banner now and book the aircraft carrier. This is basically the private equity playbook.
[1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/17/elon-musk-should-apologize-f...
[2]: https://twitter.com/cnbc/status/1471615893411090433?lang=en
> You see this whenever Elon talks about the "far left". This is such a laughable concept. The "far left" in American politics quite often simply means "we should let trans people exist"
Look I’m probably somewhere between center and far left depending on your perspective and maybe that’s the point. For better or for worse(probably worse) the functioning of society is based on relative, not absolute belief.
Look I’m probably somewhere between center and far left depending on your perspective and maybe that’s the point. For better or for worse(probably worse) the functioning of society is based on relative, not absolute belief.
I would agree that the (economic) policy of the democrats is center-right, but culturally the party definitely has a far-left voice. Radical feminism, postmodernism, anti-racism Mao struggles, gender puzzles. And to use the overused term "wokism".
Wokism is culturally dominant, but widely rejected all the way from center-left to anything to the right of that.
Republicans are economically right (so not extreme right), yet have a far-right outing, as you say.
Wokism is culturally dominant, but widely rejected all the way from center-left to anything to the right of that.
Republicans are economically right (so not extreme right), yet have a far-right outing, as you say.
Gender puzzles??? If you find it puzzling, maybe you're just dumber than me?
> This sort of justifies the viewpoint that despite all his bluster, Elon will probably run Twitter the way a "reasonable executive" would. Not just release the hounds.
He literally just had every engineer print out the last 3 months of code lol
He literally just had every engineer print out the last 3 months of code lol
I understand he also laid off the entire data engineering team, that news being sourced from Messrs. Ligma & Johnson, two prankster nerds who went to the vicinity of Twitter HQ and walked around carrying cardboard boxes.
Definitely a story to be careful on
Definitely a story to be careful on
Yes, I saw that. The reporter behind this story says he has 4 sources and screenshots. I can't say it's 100% true but it seems much more likely than the Ligma/Johnson bit.
> Elon will probably run Twitter the way a "reasonable executive" would.
Take your originally intended actions and obscure responsibility for them until risks of accountability are sufficiently mitigated?
Take your originally intended actions and obscure responsibility for them until risks of accountability are sufficiently mitigated?
I mean maybe, I sort of literally just mean not drive his investment into the ground by opening the floodgates, that could take a lot of forms.
"Keep the advertisers happy, but try to reduce the reliance on advertisers."
I actually think the opposite is going to happen. He's already said he wants Twitter to be the most prolific site for advertisers saying that he thinks advertising can "delight, entertain, and inform you."
If he introduces a subscription model TikTok will pull ahead and take over the entire social media space.
I actually think the opposite is going to happen. He's already said he wants Twitter to be the most prolific site for advertisers saying that he thinks advertising can "delight, entertain, and inform you."
If he introduces a subscription model TikTok will pull ahead and take over the entire social media space.
> If he introduces a subscription model TikTok will pull ahead and take over the entire social media space.
No it won't. A lot of people simply aren't interested in short form video.
I think there will be another app that is half way between Twitter and LinkedIn.
No it won't. A lot of people simply aren't interested in short form video.
I think there will be another app that is half way between Twitter and LinkedIn.
Agree, Twitter and TikTok are two completely separate experiences.
Yeah, I'll be curious to see, now this is not first hand, but I was referencing this pitch deck to investors which seems like the most honest version of Elon?
Since it's directly connected to the money, but who knows.
https://www.pymnts.com/news/investment-tracker/2022/musks-pi...
https://www.pymnts.com/news/investment-tracker/2022/musks-pi...
From advertisers perspective TikTok has already won in the social media space. It’s going to take another year or so for advertisers and TikTok to figure it all out but from talking to the guys who do focus on brands social media spends they can’t get on TikTok fast enough.
Through from what I have heard TikToks handling of ad money (how it goes to the creator) is bad and their handling of copyright is even worse.
On the other hand YouTube shorts can already technically do most things TikTok can, and handles copyright okay (from the pov of the big copyright holders) and has licenses for a lot of music and stuff and created an ad model making it much more interesting for people to create shorts then TikToks and allows using shorts as a way to get someone hooked for longer videos. And there are GeoPolitical reasons why regulators might want to push YouTube over TikTok e.g. by how they create regulations.
So there is a realistic chance that in the next 1 or two years YouTube Shorts will eat up TikTok due to better quality Shorts for the user and better monetization/money making chances for the creators.
On the other hand YouTube shorts can already technically do most things TikTok can, and handles copyright okay (from the pov of the big copyright holders) and has licenses for a lot of music and stuff and created an ad model making it much more interesting for people to create shorts then TikToks and allows using shorts as a way to get someone hooked for longer videos. And there are GeoPolitical reasons why regulators might want to push YouTube over TikTok e.g. by how they create regulations.
So there is a realistic chance that in the next 1 or two years YouTube Shorts will eat up TikTok due to better quality Shorts for the user and better monetization/money making chances for the creators.
I think TikTok will likely have to rework their method for paying creators. But they have a platform that’s made for creators to work directly with advertisers who will see more revenues that way.
That’s why I said there’s a lot they have to work out. They don’t want to fall into a model like Instagram where the bulk of ad revenues go to the largest influencers. But I would not be surprised to see them rework their payout scheme to something more predictable like YouTubes. The “big pot of money, split evenly” was a simple way to start but now is getting stretched.
One thing I find interesting about TikTok is they have one of the best, completely in App, ways of targeting users. The short format videos allows them to assemble a ton of data points very quickly on user interests and more and more product and recommendation searches are being done on their platform.
I could be wrong but I don’t see YouTube shorts catching up anytime soon TikTok has too much of the social Zeitgest going their way and it’s far easier for new creators to get noticed there as well.
That’s why I said there’s a lot they have to work out. They don’t want to fall into a model like Instagram where the bulk of ad revenues go to the largest influencers. But I would not be surprised to see them rework their payout scheme to something more predictable like YouTubes. The “big pot of money, split evenly” was a simple way to start but now is getting stretched.
One thing I find interesting about TikTok is they have one of the best, completely in App, ways of targeting users. The short format videos allows them to assemble a ton of data points very quickly on user interests and more and more product and recommendation searches are being done on their platform.
I could be wrong but I don’t see YouTube shorts catching up anytime soon TikTok has too much of the social Zeitgest going their way and it’s far easier for new creators to get noticed there as well.
"pull ahead?" You know it's like 5 times the size?
Meta just announced 2.93 billion daily active users across its family of apps. Reels are being shared one billion times a day.
TikTok is not taking over the entire social media space any time soon.
TikTok is not taking over the entire social media space any time soon.
Based upon his build up, this will be a fig leaf/scapegoat .
I don't see anything in his behaviour which would justify your "optimistic" outlook. Sure it won't degenerate in one of those gutter platforms right away but I doubt he'll be able to maintain an acceptable level as long as he's directly involved. He just doesn't make the the impression of an adult person.
imho this may end up being really good for the rest of the internet if it drives away interesting and important people to other platforms.
> scapegoat
I don't see anything in his behaviour which would justify your "optimistic" outlook. Sure it won't degenerate in one of those gutter platforms right away but I doubt he'll be able to maintain an acceptable level as long as he's directly involved. He just doesn't make the the impression of an adult person.
imho this may end up being really good for the rest of the internet if it drives away interesting and important people to other platforms.
> scapegoat
Musk had to borrow quite a bit of money to close the deal. Those looming debt payments will force real business decisions.
He lost money before on his childish outbursts. Why is this supposed to be different?
The scale. A million here and there for him is nothing, but billions is real money, even for him.
Obviously not or he wouldn't have gone so far in the first place.
He clearly didn’t mean to go this far, but Twitter out lawyered him and locked him into an airtight contract. His hubris bit him in the ass this time.
This is one of the problems with putting rich and successful people like Musk on a pedestal--it makes it seem like they can't make dumb, ego-driven mistakes. Irrational behavior gets interpreted as some 4D chess move that us mortals can't wrap our head around.
Exactly. It's like when people thought it was some amazing play so he could sell loads of tesla stock without tanking it. No, because if it was he would have given himself loads of getouts. Instead he gave up rights to all DD. Just arrogance IMO and he had to pay the price.
Now it's operation "get money back". He'll probably hold it for 5-10 years until tech stocks recover then IPO to try to foist it on his gullible fanboys. Until then he just needs to not scare off advertisers and cut costs enough to afford his debt repayments.
Now it's operation "get money back". He'll probably hold it for 5-10 years until tech stocks recover then IPO to try to foist it on his gullible fanboys. Until then he just needs to not scare off advertisers and cut costs enough to afford his debt repayments.
In fact 4D chess is a hermenutic in post-modern exigesis.
> He clearly didn’t mean to go this far
He signed a very clear contract to buy Twitter, he meant to do this.
He started to try and reneg when stocks dropped and his financing was looking extremely shaky.
He signed a very clear contract to buy Twitter, he meant to do this.
He started to try and reneg when stocks dropped and his financing was looking extremely shaky.
> He just doesn't make the the impression of an adult person.
No, obviously not. Ramping up his car company from roughly nothing to major global presence, kickstarting the world on electric traffic, and setting up private space rocketeering on the side. Oh, and becoming the supposedly richest person on the planet in the process. How insufferably childish of him.
No, obviously not. Ramping up his car company from roughly nothing to major global presence, kickstarting the world on electric traffic, and setting up private space rocketeering on the side. Oh, and becoming the supposedly richest person on the planet in the process. How insufferably childish of him.
It seems you got something the other way around.
As far as I remember it's: being born rich, getting lucky on one investment and than chewing up ideas of other people and having them sweat his bullshit out to keep their jobs sounds more like the true history here. Didn't get much better in the recent years.
I mean Trump made it to the president of the US of A and I wouldn't consider him an adult person either. History looks pretty similar. Just a different time with the appropriate difference in methods.
As far as I remember it's: being born rich, getting lucky on one investment and than chewing up ideas of other people and having them sweat his bullshit out to keep their jobs sounds more like the true history here. Didn't get much better in the recent years.
I mean Trump made it to the president of the US of A and I wouldn't consider him an adult person either. History looks pretty similar. Just a different time with the appropriate difference in methods.
Adding to this: https://i.redd.it/yv12zm4ik3y91.jpg
Sums it up in the best possible way.
Sums it up in the best possible way.
But he posts memes and makes fun of people!
This might be true, in which case maybe he brings jack nack or another executive in? I think jack expressed he wasn’t interested.
Jack is launching his own new social media effort, and announced it publicly immediately after the Twitter deal closed.
This is rather confusing to me.
Earlier this year he seemed pretty set on the idea of allowing whatever's legal, making Twitter all about free speech. But now it'll just get some minor changes? If it's true, why the change of heart?
Earlier this year he seemed pretty set on the idea of allowing whatever's legal, making Twitter all about free speech. But now it'll just get some minor changes? If it's true, why the change of heart?
His money is now on the line: He has sunk $44B and has to get it back somehow. It is no longer a cute thought experiment, but cold, harsh reality.
You might be right, though I do wonder how much Elon and Zuckerberg look at risks and think "doesn't matter I'll still be insanely wealthy".
He has to deal with actual issues if he's bought Twitter, I agree, but I don't know if the financial incentive is so key, even with borrowed money.
He has to deal with actual issues if he's bought Twitter, I agree, but I don't know if the financial incentive is so key, even with borrowed money.
Don't see it happening in his lifetime...unless he changes it radically and just bought it for the user base, which honestly is probably closer to the truth.
Even if he fired everyone, and got free hosting, it would take nearly a decade to get that back. But that's obviously not realistic.
Even if he fired everyone, and got free hosting, it would take nearly a decade to get that back. But that's obviously not realistic.
He did't sink 44b, more like 33b.
Thanks for the correction; this changes everything.
As your namesake understood intimately, we can’t know it’s in someone’s heart. And as a reasonable modern observer should understand, Elon makes frequent course adjustments. Not only don’t we know how it’s going to work out, my guess is he doesn’t know either at the moment.
Because as an outsider, he doesn't like any restriction of his speech, but as an insider, he doesn't like speech critical of him.
I expect Twitter to continue canceling people for holding the wrong opinions, it's just that the definition of wrong will flip.
I expect Twitter to continue canceling people for holding the wrong opinions, it's just that the definition of wrong will flip.
I think his goal is to figure out how to do this and keep it sane and keep the advertisers and grow the membership. It will take a long time to get there, and Twitter will have to look very different to get there.
It may be time to consider the possibility that you have been reading far too much in to the inane witterings of one of the world's most prolific compulsive liars and fantasists.
well he did just put the company he bought $13bn more into debt, good to take a breather
https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musks-twitter-takeover-see...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musks-twitter-takeover-see...
He didn't Twitter profitability required partners that would demand more.
You are taking him at his word when he has demonstrated time and time again that he should not be taken at his word.
I think I'm taking him at his incentives. 44 billion is a lot of incentive.
Incentive only to get his money out. Not to follow through on his promises.
"I'm going to buy Twitter"
- Elon Musk
- Elon Musk
Don't forget he's super anti-remote-work which is going to scare a way a good 30% of the employees anyway
People hate to hear it on HN but you really don't need 10000+ employees to run a glorified forum site and Musk is going to prove it once again.
> Musk is going to prove it once again.
You make it sound like this has been proven many times, examples?
You make it sound like this has been proven many times, examples?
sure, between that and the quid-pro-quo sexual harassment...
>Elon will probably run Twitter the way a "reasonable executive" would. Not just release the hounds.
Is there a list of how many different institutions and investors have money in Twitter now? Because I remember Musk taking in a lot of money for this takeover. And those people probably had the smarts to give them an exit in case Musk decided to release the hounds.
Is there a list of how many different institutions and investors have money in Twitter now? Because I remember Musk taking in a lot of money for this takeover. And those people probably had the smarts to give them an exit in case Musk decided to release the hounds.
> Elon will probably run Twitter the way a "reasonable executive" would. Not just release the hounds.
Isn't this his duty to shareholders as long as Twitter is (still) a publicly traded company?
Isn't this his duty to shareholders as long as Twitter is (still) a publicly traded company?
Twitter is no longer a publicly traded company. Elon Musk owns it now.
He still has a fiduciary duty since he's not the sole shareholder though.
Who are the other shareholders? I thought the entire point of the purchase is that he bought out all the shareholders.
Not all shareholders have been bought out , notably the saudi investment continues and is rolled forward as equity shares into the new structure, they retain the same amount of ownership as before .
Also he raised equity investment commitments from a16z , Sequoia , Ellison and few others as well who likely come in as new investors.[1]
So he still has a few shareholders but those who are accredited and have much higher risk appetite and long term view unlike not qtr to qtr of typical public companies so twitter wont be buffeted with market forces like FB is now when trying something radical.
[1] while some of 7B equity investment secured backed out since April , few publicly affirmed their intent to participate recently, no one knows how much was still on table and how much musk took.
Also he raised equity investment commitments from a16z , Sequoia , Ellison and few others as well who likely come in as new investors.[1]
So he still has a few shareholders but those who are accredited and have much higher risk appetite and long term view unlike not qtr to qtr of typical public companies so twitter wont be buffeted with market forces like FB is now when trying something radical.
[1] while some of 7B equity investment secured backed out since April , few publicly affirmed their intent to participate recently, no one knows how much was still on table and how much musk took.
Maybe shareholders was the wrong term, doesn’t he have a duty to like the banks and Saudis and other investors
Oh, I see. I have no idea. My intuition is that it's like a standard loan, as in he can do whatever he wants but if he doesn't pay it back then they'll come after his other assets he supposedly put up as collateral. That's just me guessing. I have no idea how that works at that scale of financing.
Debt financing is different than buying shares in the company. There is no fiduciary responsbility in the strict sense of the meaning. But, there is an obligation to pay back the loan with interest.
Crappy link but it tells you the basics: https://www.zeni.ai/blog/debt-financing-for-startups
Crappy link but it tells you the basics: https://www.zeni.ai/blog/debt-financing-for-startups
The only duty to creditors is to service the debt.
He doesn't have any duties to debt investors beyond what's explicitly in a contract with them. If he has equity co-investors (which he was certainly attempting to syndicate at one point) then those are indeed shareholders (private rather than public, but still shareholders) and he'll have duties to them.
On the contrary, LBO debt investors typically have clauses to be able to convert their debt to equity and basically force liquidation/sale etc to recover the money they put in if their debt is defaulted on.
The 13 billion in loans are secured not complete junk.
Of course if cash flows become too low to service the debt (I.e. default), musk can always inject[1] more capital and keep the debt serviced he can afford to do that by leveraging (or selling)TSLA and SpaceX stock easily or use other financing options
(1) he could also buy the debt directly himself without changing capital structure, or refinance it by lending the company money personally
or have one of his other companies lend Twitter money,
he did this between spaceX and Tesla once , it is more difficult with TSLA today- he will get sued . However he controls the board and has the power. He did force TSLA by solarCity and won the lawsuit as well so not implausible.
The 13 billion in loans are secured not complete junk.
Of course if cash flows become too low to service the debt (I.e. default), musk can always inject[1] more capital and keep the debt serviced he can afford to do that by leveraging (or selling)TSLA and SpaceX stock easily or use other financing options
(1) he could also buy the debt directly himself without changing capital structure, or refinance it by lending the company money personally
or have one of his other companies lend Twitter money,
he did this between spaceX and Tesla once , it is more difficult with TSLA today- he will get sued . However he controls the board and has the power. He did force TSLA by solarCity and won the lawsuit as well so not implausible.
None of that contradicts what I said. Yes, there may be various terms that take effect if he defaults on the debt and some of them may cause him to take on fiduciary obligations (although I find it hard to imagine converting to equity would be desirable in that case - normally in that scenario the equity is getting zeroed). But he has no such obligations unless and until he's getting close to default.
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I'm not sure that's an enormous restriction since that ends in only about a week.
Unless this is also bluster.
What is this Elon's account?
Because he’s usually self deprecating? I didn’t think this was a particularly kind analysis, my assessment was basically he’ll do whatever makes him the most money (or loses him the least)
He already tweeted something groveling to the importance of advertisers asking them to not leave yet.
His tweets about China show he knows how to grovel when money's at stake.
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A bunch of accounts like The Babylon Bee and Ye have been unbanned w/o input from any such committee of diverse viewpoints. I don't have much faith that Musk will not act unilaterally in service of his friends and allies.
Babylon Bee being suspended was one of the dumber things the previous Twitter rules had done. It's a satire site, it's right leaning, nothing in the piece they said was hateful or even an unpopular view. Kanye's ban, he's just a mentally ill person. I don't think he meant "death con" he just didn't know that it's actually "def con." His remarks are still reprehensible.
Twitter's whole moderation problem has been it is very, very inconsistent. I've seen accounts from certain political persuasions be banned or suspended, but then I have seen someone openly tell someone to kill themselves (or that they deserve to be killed or beaten) and the tweet was never removed, and the person was never suspended/banned because of the account it was aimed at. The Onion has had some questionable pieces that weren't any better than what Babylon Bee had, and they were never touched. The moderation has to be consistent; I don't think a council is a bad idea, especially for bigger account bans.
All that said, I hope Trump is never allowed back, but he probably will be. In any case, things have to be equally applied and that has not been the case to anyone paying attention. Even the doxing rules have basically been completely ignored if it were aimed at -some- people.
Then, there are things like the Taliban, Russia, China, etc which have at times actively cheered on social media about the death of Americans or an American defeat... having active accounts but then you ban sitting members of the US government? (I think Trump deserved it, but there are others.) How does that make any sense at all?
Twitter's whole moderation problem has been it is very, very inconsistent. I've seen accounts from certain political persuasions be banned or suspended, but then I have seen someone openly tell someone to kill themselves (or that they deserve to be killed or beaten) and the tweet was never removed, and the person was never suspended/banned because of the account it was aimed at. The Onion has had some questionable pieces that weren't any better than what Babylon Bee had, and they were never touched. The moderation has to be consistent; I don't think a council is a bad idea, especially for bigger account bans.
All that said, I hope Trump is never allowed back, but he probably will be. In any case, things have to be equally applied and that has not been the case to anyone paying attention. Even the doxing rules have basically been completely ignored if it were aimed at -some- people.
Then, there are things like the Taliban, Russia, China, etc which have at times actively cheered on social media about the death of Americans or an American defeat... having active accounts but then you ban sitting members of the US government? (I think Trump deserved it, but there are others.) How does that make any sense at all?
>Babylon Bee being suspended was one of the dumber things the previous Twitter rules had done. It's a satire site, it's right leaning, nothing in the piece they said was hateful or even an unpopular view.
Twitter banned the Babylon Bee for targeting a random and rather anonymous bureaucrat that likely isn't among the 1000 most powerful people in government in the US for the sole purpose that she is trans. This targeting by the Babylon Bee and other conservative media has led to her getting death threats. Being a satire site doesn't mean we can laugh off all their behavior as a joke. Their behavior was a part of a harassment campaign against someone who is largely a private citizen in this instance. Stopping that doesn't seem like a mistake to me.
Twitter banned the Babylon Bee for targeting a random and rather anonymous bureaucrat that likely isn't among the 1000 most powerful people in government in the US for the sole purpose that she is trans. This targeting by the Babylon Bee and other conservative media has led to her getting death threats. Being a satire site doesn't mean we can laugh off all their behavior as a joke. Their behavior was a part of a harassment campaign against someone who is largely a private citizen in this instance. Stopping that doesn't seem like a mistake to me.
The piece satirized the confusion between sex and gender. It has only been very, very recently that we have gone from "gender is a social construct" to "sex is a social construct." It's still a highly debated topic and well within the public sphere of debate. Also, this person was a public official and was in the news from general news outlets (named Woman of the Year) which puts them well within the public realm of ridicule, even if you or I don't agree with it. If the piece had advocated physical harm that would be much much different.
>It has only been very, very recently that we have gone from...
Would you have said the same thing about ridiculing someone for being openly gay in government 30 years ago, being Catholic in government 60 years ago, or being Black in government 80 years ago?
Would you have said the same thing about ridiculing someone for being openly gay in government 30 years ago, being Catholic in government 60 years ago, or being Black in government 80 years ago?
No, because those aren't even remotely similar things. It wouldn't be a "hate crime" to call a Catholic a Protestant, or a Gay person a Straight person or a Black person a white person. It would be a hateful to deny them rights or to call for abuse. In this instance the "hate crime" is merely saying someone's biological sex is x, even if they say they are y. However, If I called a non-trans woman a man or a non-trans man a woman, that's not a hate crime. So, the whole idea is fairly inconsistent.
I still think it's very much up for debate, unlike the instances you listed. I have trans friends, and while I can't speak for them, I don't believe they think the debate is as settled on some of these issues, especially in regard to "misgendering" being a hate crime. Hell, I've misgendered one of my non-binary friends constantly by accident and we're still friends. I'm not banned and haven't been charged with a hate crime. Would I want someone intentionally misgendering them just to get to them? No, I think that's cruel, and I'd defend my friend; but I don't think that person should automatically lose their account or be arrested (which has happened outside the US.) There's an important distinction there and it's an important debate.
I still think it's very much up for debate, unlike the instances you listed. I have trans friends, and while I can't speak for them, I don't believe they think the debate is as settled on some of these issues, especially in regard to "misgendering" being a hate crime. Hell, I've misgendered one of my non-binary friends constantly by accident and we're still friends. I'm not banned and haven't been charged with a hate crime. Would I want someone intentionally misgendering them just to get to them? No, I think that's cruel, and I'd defend my friend; but I don't think that person should automatically lose their account or be arrested (which has happened outside the US.) There's an important distinction there and it's an important debate.
What do you think is the fundamental joke the article is making?
The only joke I see is "a trans person exists". The article isn't about her policies, her performance in her job, or even complexities in our evolving definition of either sex or gender like you are implying. The joke is that this person is trans. The message of that joke is the existence of a trans person in public is worthy of mockery. Therefore the only way to stop the mockery is to stop being trans or retreat from public life. I think refusing to stop that mockery until the target does one of those two things qualifies as harassment.
The only joke I see is "a trans person exists". The article isn't about her policies, her performance in her job, or even complexities in our evolving definition of either sex or gender like you are implying. The joke is that this person is trans. The message of that joke is the existence of a trans person in public is worthy of mockery. Therefore the only way to stop the mockery is to stop being trans or retreat from public life. I think refusing to stop that mockery until the target does one of those two things qualifies as harassment.
The joke of the article was that she was named "Woman of the Year," so they named her "Man of the Year" to point out the ridiculousness of such an award for her. You can disagree with that, or you can agree with that, but it's still a very tame joke. I don't think the debate on transsexualism is a closed case in many regards. There are important topics to discuss on it; and satire, even if you don't find it funny, is important to that debate.
I mean the idea that a trans-woman could actually feel and experience the challenges a biological woman faces...is pretty controversial; or the fact that many base their identity on media stereotypes rather than the very diverse experiences of womanhood, also is a pretty important debate, especially among feminists.
We can't just close the debate off and disallow any discussion on it (or jokes about it), and call anything against it a hate crime. That's not how things work. It could also have massive political fallout if Progressives are unwilling to join in the debate and stifle any attempts at it.
I mean the idea that a trans-woman could actually feel and experience the challenges a biological woman faces...is pretty controversial; or the fact that many base their identity on media stereotypes rather than the very diverse experiences of womanhood, also is a pretty important debate, especially among feminists.
We can't just close the debate off and disallow any discussion on it (or jokes about it), and call anything against it a hate crime. That's not how things work. It could also have massive political fallout if Progressives are unwilling to join in the debate and stifle any attempts at it.
>The joke of the article was that she was named "Woman of the Year," so they named her "Man of the Year" to point out the ridiculousness of such an award for her.
The award is only ridiculous if you think trans people shouldn't exist in public as openly trans. I mean you even referred to her as "her" so you seemingly recognize that her being eligible for "Woman of the Year" is more appropriate than "Man of the Year". The perceived ridiculousness comes from the same fundamental concept underlying the joke, the existence of trans people is funny and their desire to simply live their life as they see fit is worthy of mockery.
>I mean the idea that a tran-woman could actually feel and experience the challenges a biological woman faces...is pretty controversial; or the fact that many base their identity on media stereotypes rather than the very diverse experiences of womanhood, also is a pretty important debate, especially among feminists.
No one is arguing that here. This is a person identifying as a woman and being recognized in public as a women. That is the only political statement being challenged. You are free to continue debating whether trans women and cis women have the same experience or whatever, but neither the USA Today or the Babylon Bee was making a statement in that debate.
>We can't just close the debate off and disallow any discussion on it (or jokes about it), and call anything against it a hate crime. That's not how things work. It could also have massive political fallout if Progressives are unwilling to join in the debate and stifle any attempts at it.
I don't know why this is framed as progressives shutting down the debate on the topic. The conservatives viewpoint that the Babylon Bee seems to subscribe to is that gender and sex are they same thing and they are binary. There is no way to debate against that viewpoint. There is no possible compromise position. It denies the very existence of someone like Levine. There is nothing Levine could have said to the Babylon Bee to stop them from targeting her specifically because they weren't criticizing any of her beliefs or actions. They were criticizing an innate quality of her being.
The award is only ridiculous if you think trans people shouldn't exist in public as openly trans. I mean you even referred to her as "her" so you seemingly recognize that her being eligible for "Woman of the Year" is more appropriate than "Man of the Year". The perceived ridiculousness comes from the same fundamental concept underlying the joke, the existence of trans people is funny and their desire to simply live their life as they see fit is worthy of mockery.
>I mean the idea that a tran-woman could actually feel and experience the challenges a biological woman faces...is pretty controversial; or the fact that many base their identity on media stereotypes rather than the very diverse experiences of womanhood, also is a pretty important debate, especially among feminists.
No one is arguing that here. This is a person identifying as a woman and being recognized in public as a women. That is the only political statement being challenged. You are free to continue debating whether trans women and cis women have the same experience or whatever, but neither the USA Today or the Babylon Bee was making a statement in that debate.
>We can't just close the debate off and disallow any discussion on it (or jokes about it), and call anything against it a hate crime. That's not how things work. It could also have massive political fallout if Progressives are unwilling to join in the debate and stifle any attempts at it.
I don't know why this is framed as progressives shutting down the debate on the topic. The conservatives viewpoint that the Babylon Bee seems to subscribe to is that gender and sex are they same thing and they are binary. There is no way to debate against that viewpoint. There is no possible compromise position. It denies the very existence of someone like Levine. There is nothing Levine could have said to the Babylon Bee to stop them from targeting her specifically because they weren't criticizing any of her beliefs or actions. They were criticizing an innate quality of her being.
> The award is only ridiculous if you think trans people shouldn't exist in public as openly trans.
This is simply your skewed view and not how many people read the joke. She was named as "woman of the year" BECAUSE she was trans, not because she was/is a woman. That's the joke. USA Today itself probably doesn't care if she is or isn't a woman, the award was issued to get engagement.
> I don't know why this is framed as progressives shutting down the debate on the topic.
Because that is how Progressives have treated the topic in general (at least publicly, privately not so much.)
> It denies the very existence of someone like Levine.
This is not true, it denies how this person views themselves, not their existence; and your existence isn't whatever reality you have chosen for yourself. For example, being gay is something you don't force society to see, you are simply attracted to the same sex. When you change your sex or gender, you are asking for a societal buy-in. That is much different.
> You are free to continue debating whether trans women and cis women have the same experience or whatever, but neither the USA Today or the Babylon Bee was making a statement in that debate.
Actually, both are very much connected, because the idea that you could not experience what a naturally born biological female could is perceive in the eyes of many as to why you cannot yourself ever be a biological female...when you were born male. These are very integrated topics.
This is simply your skewed view and not how many people read the joke. She was named as "woman of the year" BECAUSE she was trans, not because she was/is a woman. That's the joke. USA Today itself probably doesn't care if she is or isn't a woman, the award was issued to get engagement.
> I don't know why this is framed as progressives shutting down the debate on the topic.
Because that is how Progressives have treated the topic in general (at least publicly, privately not so much.)
> It denies the very existence of someone like Levine.
This is not true, it denies how this person views themselves, not their existence; and your existence isn't whatever reality you have chosen for yourself. For example, being gay is something you don't force society to see, you are simply attracted to the same sex. When you change your sex or gender, you are asking for a societal buy-in. That is much different.
> You are free to continue debating whether trans women and cis women have the same experience or whatever, but neither the USA Today or the Babylon Bee was making a statement in that debate.
Actually, both are very much connected, because the idea that you could not experience what a naturally born biological female could is perceive in the eyes of many as to why you cannot yourself ever be a biological female...when you were born male. These are very integrated topics.
>This is simply your skewed view and not how many people read the joke. She was named as "woman of the year" BECAUSE she was trans,
Fine, and this is "simply your skewed view". Yours is not inherently more right than mine.
>Because that is how Progressives have treated the topic in general (at least publicly, privately not so much.)
You completely skipped my point. Progressives have treated this topic this way because there is no compromise position. What concession can a progressive hope to accomplish debating someone who believes that sex and gender are the same and binary?
>This is not true, it denies how this person views themselves, not their existence; and your existence isn't whatever reality you have chosen for yourself. For example, being gay is something you don't force society to see, you are simply attracted to the same sex. When you change your sex or gender, you are asking for a societal buy-in. That is much different.
Trans people don't need "societal buy-in" any more than any other group. They just want to live their life how they see fit. A trans person choice's don't impact you any more than a gay person's choice. Just leave them all alone and mind your own business.
>Actually, both are very much connected, because the idea that you could not experience what a naturally born biological female could is perceive in the eyes of many as to why you cannot yourself ever be a biological female...when you were born male. These are very integrated topics.
This has no relevance to the issue at hand. They weren't awarding the Cis Woman of the Year Award. They were awarding the Woman of the Year Award. Trans women should be just as eligible for that as cis women. This isn't a weightlifting competition. There is no reason to exclude trans women from this type of award.
Fine, and this is "simply your skewed view". Yours is not inherently more right than mine.
>Because that is how Progressives have treated the topic in general (at least publicly, privately not so much.)
You completely skipped my point. Progressives have treated this topic this way because there is no compromise position. What concession can a progressive hope to accomplish debating someone who believes that sex and gender are the same and binary?
>This is not true, it denies how this person views themselves, not their existence; and your existence isn't whatever reality you have chosen for yourself. For example, being gay is something you don't force society to see, you are simply attracted to the same sex. When you change your sex or gender, you are asking for a societal buy-in. That is much different.
Trans people don't need "societal buy-in" any more than any other group. They just want to live their life how they see fit. A trans person choice's don't impact you any more than a gay person's choice. Just leave them all alone and mind your own business.
>Actually, both are very much connected, because the idea that you could not experience what a naturally born biological female could is perceive in the eyes of many as to why you cannot yourself ever be a biological female...when you were born male. These are very integrated topics.
This has no relevance to the issue at hand. They weren't awarding the Cis Woman of the Year Award. They were awarding the Woman of the Year Award. Trans women should be just as eligible for that as cis women. This isn't a weightlifting competition. There is no reason to exclude trans women from this type of award.
> The award is only ridiculous if you think trans people shouldn't exist in public as openly trans. I mean you even referred to her as "her" so you seemingly recognize that her being eligible for "Woman of the Year" is more appropriate than "Man of the Year".
One issue with people being coerced into using wrong-sex pronouns is that it restricts discussion on this topic.
In this case, for example, if you believe that he shouldn't have been awarded a "Woman of the Year" accolade because he is really a man, but have to refer to him as "her" to be able to say this such that other people can read this - i.e. to avoid your comment being removed or your account banned - then it undermines the entire point being made.
This thoughtful essay discusses some other repercussions of being coerced to use wrong-sex pronouns: https://fairplayforwomen.com/pronouns/
One issue with people being coerced into using wrong-sex pronouns is that it restricts discussion on this topic.
In this case, for example, if you believe that he shouldn't have been awarded a "Woman of the Year" accolade because he is really a man, but have to refer to him as "her" to be able to say this such that other people can read this - i.e. to avoid your comment being removed or your account banned - then it undermines the entire point being made.
This thoughtful essay discusses some other repercussions of being coerced to use wrong-sex pronouns: https://fairplayforwomen.com/pronouns/
> The conservatives viewpoint that the Babylon Bee seems to subscribe to is that gender and sex are they same thing and they are binary. There is no way to debate against that viewpoint. There is no possible compromise position.
No, the conservative position is that sex is objective and factual, while gender is a subjective facet of personality that is socially constructed. The compromise position is to destigmatize gender nonconformance within the category of “man” in a way that does not set up a conflict of rights with women.
No, the conservative position is that sex is objective and factual, while gender is a subjective facet of personality that is socially constructed. The compromise position is to destigmatize gender nonconformance within the category of “man” in a way that does not set up a conflict of rights with women.
It's cool how HN discussions predictably get distracted from the main point.
The main point was that the claims made by the new owner are demonstrably false.
The new owner claimed that unbanning decisions would be made by a new moderation council. While he was saying this, a slew of right-wing and conspiracy accounts were reinstated even though the council does not yet exist.
Meanwhile here we are, debating gender and sexuality.
The main point was that the claims made by the new owner are demonstrably false.
The new owner claimed that unbanning decisions would be made by a new moderation council. While he was saying this, a slew of right-wing and conspiracy accounts were reinstated even though the council does not yet exist.
Meanwhile here we are, debating gender and sexuality.
Babylon Bee has not been reinstated.
They remain locked out of their account until they agree to delete a tweet about the story we’re discussing, which they’ve refused to do.
They remain locked out of their account until they agree to delete a tweet about the story we’re discussing, which they’ve refused to do.
> he only joke I see is "a trans person exists". The article isn't about her policies, her performance in her job, or even complexities in our evolving definition of either sex or gender like you are implying. The joke is that this person is trans. The message of that joke is the existence of a trans person in public is worthy of mockery. Therefore the only way to stop the mockery is to stop being trans or retreat from public life. I think refusing to stop that mockery until the target does one of those two things qualifies as harassment.
meh.
Twitter allowed much worse things that joking about someones self-identified gender.
It's a satire site: it's exactly what it says on the tin. If you leave political affiliation out of it, then, yes, twitter has been taking sides.
meh.
Twitter allowed much worse things that joking about someones self-identified gender.
It's a satire site: it's exactly what it says on the tin. If you leave political affiliation out of it, then, yes, twitter has been taking sides.
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> What do you think is the fundamental joke the article is making?
That a man was voted “Woman of the Year”.
By any non-tautological definition of “woman” and “man”, that’s objectively true.
Are we not allowed to point out obvious truths when people claim the opposite?
That a man was voted “Woman of the Year”.
By any non-tautological definition of “woman” and “man”, that’s objectively true.
Are we not allowed to point out obvious truths when people claim the opposite?
Generally we consider jokes to be cruel when they mock an affliction that someone didn’t choose to have. You can just about get away with making such jokes about the abstract idea of an affliction, but when you name someone directly it crosses a line.
Whether you think this particular example was cruel depends ultimately on whether you think it is targeting the individual’s gender dysphoria (the thing they didn’t choose to have), or whether it is targeting their claim to be something they objectively are not.
One might argue that there is no difference, if one believes that gender affirmation is the only treatment for gender dysphoria, and that everyone is obliged to participate in that treatment, and to do otherwise amounts to mockery of the unchosen affliction.
Personally I think it’s wrong to joke about people with schizophrenia, but equally wrong to tell them the voices in their head are real.
Whether you think this particular example was cruel depends ultimately on whether you think it is targeting the individual’s gender dysphoria (the thing they didn’t choose to have), or whether it is targeting their claim to be something they objectively are not.
One might argue that there is no difference, if one believes that gender affirmation is the only treatment for gender dysphoria, and that everyone is obliged to participate in that treatment, and to do otherwise amounts to mockery of the unchosen affliction.
Personally I think it’s wrong to joke about people with schizophrenia, but equally wrong to tell them the voices in their head are real.
I take your point, but would suggest the joke is more pointedly aimed at society generally, and the magazine specifically.
What makes the joke funny and culturally relevant — as opposed trivial cruelty — is that it represents a simple, forbidden truth for which one will be subject to severe public censure and deplatforming.
Comedy is a final bulwark against uncritical thinking, and can be used to deflate ludicrous ideas that are otherwise culturally unassailable.
What makes the joke funny and culturally relevant — as opposed trivial cruelty — is that it represents a simple, forbidden truth for which one will be subject to severe public censure and deplatforming.
Comedy is a final bulwark against uncritical thinking, and can be used to deflate ludicrous ideas that are otherwise culturally unassailable.
>Comedy is a final bulwark against uncritical thinking, and can be used to deflate ludicrous ideas that are otherwise culturally unassailable.
Comedy can inspire thoughfullness and push back against societal norms. Comedy can also be a way to normalize bullying marginalized people. Being a troll and saying 'But wait, I'm being funny!' still makes you a troll. It's not like the account in question was trying to generate thoughtful discussion. Punch-down comedy is just dressed up hatefullness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8yV8xUorQ8
Comedy can inspire thoughfullness and push back against societal norms. Comedy can also be a way to normalize bullying marginalized people. Being a troll and saying 'But wait, I'm being funny!' still makes you a troll. It's not like the account in question was trying to generate thoughtful discussion. Punch-down comedy is just dressed up hatefullness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8yV8xUorQ8
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No court in the USA would confuse mockery, or in this case satire, with harrassment. Obviously it’s very different in places like England.
> In this instance the "hate crime" is merely saying someone's biological sex is x, even if they say they are y.
That's mischaracterizing what was said. Here's the actual article: https://babylonbee.com/news/the-babylon-bees-man-of-the-year...
This is ridicule, quite clearly. I won't get into the "is it or is it not a hate crime" bit, but this isn't "merely" stating anything. The term "biological sex" doesn't even appear in the article. The point the reader is supposed to take from this article is quite clearly not "mere" information about Rachel Levine's gender and/or "biological sex". It's that Rachel Levine's presented gender was very funny to the authors and that we should laugh at her for it.
> Would I want someone intentionally misgendering them just to get to them? No, I think that's cruel
Seems like you're putting an awful lot of weight on the distinction between "hate" and "cruel" to me.
What about here on HN? Do you think it's OK for users here to be "cruel" to others, or should dang ban them? Because HN bans people for being cruel, probably every day. Why is Twitter different?
That's mischaracterizing what was said. Here's the actual article: https://babylonbee.com/news/the-babylon-bees-man-of-the-year...
This is ridicule, quite clearly. I won't get into the "is it or is it not a hate crime" bit, but this isn't "merely" stating anything. The term "biological sex" doesn't even appear in the article. The point the reader is supposed to take from this article is quite clearly not "mere" information about Rachel Levine's gender and/or "biological sex". It's that Rachel Levine's presented gender was very funny to the authors and that we should laugh at her for it.
> Would I want someone intentionally misgendering them just to get to them? No, I think that's cruel
Seems like you're putting an awful lot of weight on the distinction between "hate" and "cruel" to me.
What about here on HN? Do you think it's OK for users here to be "cruel" to others, or should dang ban them? Because HN bans people for being cruel, probably every day. Why is Twitter different?
I'm going to reply to my own comment to extend the last point, because I think it's important to point out:
I think it's clear, and that everyone would agree, that if you showed up here on HN making fun of another commenter for their gender in exactly the way that the Bee did, using exactly the same words, that you'd be banned. And we'd all agree that you should be banned.
I think the logical trap that the "free speech" folks are falling into here is that this doesn't "feel" targetted in the same way. It's a "media organization" making fun of a "public figure" and neither the Bee nor Levine are part of "your community". So Twitter banning them doesn't feel like community enforcement of norms, it feels political. And since the Bee is on "your side" you feel like they must have been wronged.
So maybe you should be constructing arguments around whether or not Twitter consitutes a "community" with "norms"? Maybe it doesn't, I'm willing to hear arguments. But the idea that the article wasn't hateful jut doesn't fly as I see it. It was awful, and the only way to see otherwise is to get into a headspace where Levine isn't part of "your community" and thus her feelings don't matter.
I think it's clear, and that everyone would agree, that if you showed up here on HN making fun of another commenter for their gender in exactly the way that the Bee did, using exactly the same words, that you'd be banned. And we'd all agree that you should be banned.
I think the logical trap that the "free speech" folks are falling into here is that this doesn't "feel" targetted in the same way. It's a "media organization" making fun of a "public figure" and neither the Bee nor Levine are part of "your community". So Twitter banning them doesn't feel like community enforcement of norms, it feels political. And since the Bee is on "your side" you feel like they must have been wronged.
So maybe you should be constructing arguments around whether or not Twitter consitutes a "community" with "norms"? Maybe it doesn't, I'm willing to hear arguments. But the idea that the article wasn't hateful jut doesn't fly as I see it. It was awful, and the only way to see otherwise is to get into a headspace where Levine isn't part of "your community" and thus her feelings don't matter.
I agree with this, but I would emphasize something you glossed over, which is that the target is a "public figure." It's normative to be cruel to "public figures" in ways that would be totally unacceptable in any normal interpersonal relationship. I personally think that's fucked up, but it really is normative.
So singling out e.g. cruelty specifically about trans people's gender presentation seems targeted and political, because it's completely commonplace to say cruel things about someone if they made bad art, or if they disagree with you about some political policies, and rarely do people get banned from anything about it.
So singling out e.g. cruelty specifically about trans people's gender presentation seems targeted and political, because it's completely commonplace to say cruel things about someone if they made bad art, or if they disagree with you about some political policies, and rarely do people get banned from anything about it.
This is a perspective thing. But I just don't see that. I mean, sure, there are Internet Yahoos everywhere who run around calling people Nazis and whatnot. But do you have any examples of major abuse directed by big accounts with big audiences (i.e. the ones that attract the censors' attention) that should have been banned but weren't?
The Bee went way out on a limb with that article as I see it. And they got banned. Certainly other similar accounts (the Onion, say) aren't nearly as hateful.
The Bee went way out on a limb with that article as I see it. And they got banned. Certainly other similar accounts (the Onion, say) aren't nearly as hateful.
I don't actually use Twitter, so I don't really have specific examples of huge Twitter accounts tweeting nasty things? I am just thinking of what's clearly considered normal among my peers. For example, here is a random thing I find if I Google "mean tweets about donald trump": https://twitter.com/dadsaysjokes/status/1062806755229474824?...
> What's the difference between Donald Trump and a worm? One of them is a slimy, loathsome creature incapable of complex thought; the other one actually shows up when it rains.
I'm claiming that most people would think that it's totally okay to say that about Donald Trump in public, even though it's an absurdly mean thing to say. (I am sure I could find similar jokes about Joe Biden, too.) I don't think that this would be deleted from Twitter if people reported it. But I also don't think it's really much different from what the Bee wrote. I think people would treat the Bee's article as different mainly if they think that being trans is a special category that is taboo to be cruel about.
> What's the difference between Donald Trump and a worm? One of them is a slimy, loathsome creature incapable of complex thought; the other one actually shows up when it rains.
I'm claiming that most people would think that it's totally okay to say that about Donald Trump in public, even though it's an absurdly mean thing to say. (I am sure I could find similar jokes about Joe Biden, too.) I don't think that this would be deleted from Twitter if people reported it. But I also don't think it's really much different from what the Bee wrote. I think people would treat the Bee's article as different mainly if they think that being trans is a special category that is taboo to be cruel about.
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There aren't public figures on HN like this, and people make fun of some public figures here sometimes regardless. You also can't compare a massive platform like Twitter that has a broad range of discussions and allowances with HN which is a very niche forum on very niche topics that surround tech.
It's like comparing someone being banned from your school chess club for being mean vs banning someone from the entire school district for being mean. It's not comparable. Twitter and Facebook are massive public forums, to the point where they are nearly public utilities that are privately owned.
An example: you would have your post removed if you posted that topless Elon photo with his weird body structure and made a comment about it, but on Twitter/Facebook that flies...because they aren't niche forums.
It's like comparing someone being banned from your school chess club for being mean vs banning someone from the entire school district for being mean. It's not comparable. Twitter and Facebook are massive public forums, to the point where they are nearly public utilities that are privately owned.
An example: you would have your post removed if you posted that topless Elon photo with his weird body structure and made a comment about it, but on Twitter/Facebook that flies...because they aren't niche forums.
There are many things otherwise allowed on Twitter that would get you banned from HN.
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I think the debate on misgendering being a "hate crime" is a bit pedantic. A lot of normal things between friends, lovers, acquaintances, colleagues pr strangers can be considered criminal or normal depending on circumstances / context. The idea that you're going to be jailed by accidentally misgendering your buddy is just moral panic at the expense of trans folks.
If I walked around the office calling my male co-worker by some random female name as a form of ridicule I'd end up on those cheesy videos they make you watch for sexual harassment training.
If I walked around the office calling my male co-worker by some random female name as a form of ridicule I'd end up on those cheesy videos they make you watch for sexual harassment training.
When you say something like this to a friend, you're giving them power and control over you because if they decide to make you a criminal, they can.
That's not what trust is supposed to mean between friends.
If someone stabs a friend they can't claim that since it's between friends, it's ok.
This is how you know laws such as what you're discussing are ridiculous.
Does it make you an asshole to crack a rude gay joke in front of someone who is gay? yes. Should it be criminal? absolutely not.
That's not what trust is supposed to mean between friends.
If someone stabs a friend they can't claim that since it's between friends, it's ok.
This is how you know laws such as what you're discussing are ridiculous.
Does it make you an asshole to crack a rude gay joke in front of someone who is gay? yes. Should it be criminal? absolutely not.
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>being Catholic in government 60 years ago
you mean like the then current president John f Kennedy?
you mean like the then current president John f Kennedy?
I guess I could have said 62 years, but yes I was specifically referencing JFK. His Catholicism was a major topic at the time of his election. Many people questioned whether he would defer political decisions and general loyalty to the Pope. He had to give speeches professing his belief in the separation of church and state. However by the time we got ready to elect our second Catholic, no one seriously questioned Joe Biden about it.
What about if it was someone pretending to be gay, or pretending to be Catholic, or wearing blackface?
That would be a more appropriate analogy to what this official is doing.
That would be a more appropriate analogy to what this official is doing.
> It has only been very, very recently that we have gone from "gender is a social construct" to "sex is a social construct."
What? Since when is sex a social construct?
What? Since when is sex a social construct?
Some people believe sex is a spectrum, or that it can be changed, but it’s super-fringe and mostly reflects ignorance of the difference between sex and gender rather than being a serious philosophical position.
It may be fringe in the sense that people don't state what they actually believe out of fear, but it is not fringe on official policies and the direction they are heading. If you don't agree with the statement "Trans women are women", and all the conclusions that leads to, ie. trans women in sports, then you risk being cancelled.
"Sex is a spectrum" is hard scientific truth. Unlike computers, biology doesn't work in binaries. Intersex people exist and are surprisingly common.
“Sex is a spectrum” is nonsense:
https://areomagazine.com/2022/01/05/race-is-a-spectrum-sex-i...
https://areomagazine.com/2022/01/05/race-is-a-spectrum-sex-i...
Binary means 0 and 1. It does not mean 0, 1, or 2 1.7% (or even 0.018%) of the time.
Of course, the word "binary" is a social construct, and "spectrum" is a social construct as well. However I would expect that in a forum focused on computers, binary generally means 0 or 1 with no other values possible even 0.0000001% of the time.
"Some men choose to identify as women." Really? This is not a serious statement that engages with the science behind gender transition.
Of course, the word "binary" is a social construct, and "spectrum" is a social construct as well. However I would expect that in a forum focused on computers, binary generally means 0 or 1 with no other values possible even 0.0000001% of the time.
"Some men choose to identify as women." Really? This is not a serious statement that engages with the science behind gender transition.
Allow me to introduce you to the X and Y chromosomes.
Allow me to introduce you to Klinefelter syndrome and the difference between genotype and phenotype.
A "random genetic error" (by definition) is not an argument for sex being a spectrum.
>A genetic condition in which a male is born with an extra copy of the X chromosome
So still a male, got it.
>A genetic condition in which a male is born with an extra copy of the X chromosome
So still a male, got it.
It sure is an argument for sex being a spectrum.
The word "error" is a social construct. I prefer "variation", which also is a social construct, but doesn't imply a judgment. (Of course, judgments are social constructs.)
The word "error" is a social construct. I prefer "variation", which also is a social construct, but doesn't imply a judgment. (Of course, judgments are social constructs.)
I think they’re being glib, but sex absolutely is a social construct. What exactly constitutes THE properties of the female and male sex is defined by society more than biology. For example, people who have androgen insensitivity syndrome develop perfectly normal looking “female” bodies, but their genetic sex is “male”. People generally still consider those individuals to be “female”. If you want to get down to it, all words are socially defined. They usually attempt to describe or capture reoccurring details about the observable world, but nature (especially biology) has too much variety and weird exceptions for any simple linguistic model to perfectly match the physical world. That’s doubly true for a linguistic model used in everyday life as opposed to scientific discourse.
That’s not to say that “sex isn’t real” or some absurd position like that. There is a real phenomenon in biology where genetic and phenotypical variance tends to follow a limited set of patterns. Biologists call those patterns “sex”. But, the idea that “sex” as we use it in normal day-to-day life is a rigidly defined system based on hard biological facts is laughably false. When was the last time you insisted on seeing someone’s genetic karyotype test results? When was the last time you asked someone to drop their pants so you could examine their genitalia and determine their sex?
The phrase “sex is a social construct” is technically true in the same way that “chairs are a social construct” is true. The word describes a fuzzy subset of the set of all things, and what we consider in or out of the set is largely based on what we think should belong to it, and that is absolutely influenced by societal expectations. Where do chairs end and tables begin? Where does the female sex end?
Once you get to that point, the phrase almost has no meaning. If all word definitions are social constructs, then that’s table stakes and it doesn’t make sense to call out a specific word as having that property. Surely the phrase “is a social construct” must mean something more than “is like any other word”. Indeed, the meaning of that phrase is larger than what it literally says. There is a socially defined meaning that is attached to it. That phrase implies the word in question “is arbitrarily defined (more than most words)” and “is up for interpretation (more than most words)”.
If you agree with me this far, then the right way to frame this discussion is “should we pin ‘sex’ as it is used in every day life to specific physical properties or should we allow it to be more porous?”. This isn’t as straightforward as it might seem. If we pin it, for example, to genetic karyotype, then we need to stop using it in contexts where the genetics of the person are unknown and must admit the existence of several additional sexes (e.g. X, XXY) AND recognize it’s no longer useful for describing the phenomenon of what a person looks like or how their body works. If we make it porous, then we will endlessly debate about whether boundary cases fall into one bucket or the other and possibly hurt some feelings along the way.
The fun thing is that we get to pick what words mean, and we get to pick what we do with “sex”. Language is, after all, a social construct.
That’s not to say that “sex isn’t real” or some absurd position like that. There is a real phenomenon in biology where genetic and phenotypical variance tends to follow a limited set of patterns. Biologists call those patterns “sex”. But, the idea that “sex” as we use it in normal day-to-day life is a rigidly defined system based on hard biological facts is laughably false. When was the last time you insisted on seeing someone’s genetic karyotype test results? When was the last time you asked someone to drop their pants so you could examine their genitalia and determine their sex?
The phrase “sex is a social construct” is technically true in the same way that “chairs are a social construct” is true. The word describes a fuzzy subset of the set of all things, and what we consider in or out of the set is largely based on what we think should belong to it, and that is absolutely influenced by societal expectations. Where do chairs end and tables begin? Where does the female sex end?
Once you get to that point, the phrase almost has no meaning. If all word definitions are social constructs, then that’s table stakes and it doesn’t make sense to call out a specific word as having that property. Surely the phrase “is a social construct” must mean something more than “is like any other word”. Indeed, the meaning of that phrase is larger than what it literally says. There is a socially defined meaning that is attached to it. That phrase implies the word in question “is arbitrarily defined (more than most words)” and “is up for interpretation (more than most words)”.
If you agree with me this far, then the right way to frame this discussion is “should we pin ‘sex’ as it is used in every day life to specific physical properties or should we allow it to be more porous?”. This isn’t as straightforward as it might seem. If we pin it, for example, to genetic karyotype, then we need to stop using it in contexts where the genetics of the person are unknown and must admit the existence of several additional sexes (e.g. X, XXY) AND recognize it’s no longer useful for describing the phenomenon of what a person looks like or how their body works. If we make it porous, then we will endlessly debate about whether boundary cases fall into one bucket or the other and possibly hurt some feelings along the way.
The fun thing is that we get to pick what words mean, and we get to pick what we do with “sex”. Language is, after all, a social construct.
> What exactly constitutes THE properties of the female and male sex is defined by society more than biology.
This might be true for the incredibly tiny minority of intersex individuals who defy categorization, but for >99.9% of people it’s not true at all, and challenging the meaningfulness of a word based on such rare edge cases is a huge overstatement of how controversial this is.
This might be true for the incredibly tiny minority of intersex individuals who defy categorization, but for >99.9% of people it’s not true at all, and challenging the meaningfulness of a word based on such rare edge cases is a huge overstatement of how controversial this is.
Intersex conditions being rare or not doesn’t really matter for my argument. There could be literally be just one person with AIS in the history of humanity, and the statement “if you consider this person to be female then your definition of female is based on more than just their sex chromosomes” would still be true.
I found these articles to be a good overview on this topic --- the change of interpretation between "sex" and "gender", and defining characteristics of "woman" within the context of feminist philosophy:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/ https://aeon.co/essays/do-analytic-and-continental-philosoph...
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/ https://aeon.co/essays/do-analytic-and-continental-philosoph...
Thank you! I’ll check them out!
For what it’s worth, I’m a trans woman, and I’m well aware of some of the discourse around this topic already (both positions that are pro- and anti- “trans women are women”). I tried very hard to avoid injecting any of those details into it, though. I wanted to do a “reasoning from first principles” sort of analysis of the idea rather than try to recap the discussions that are happening in feminist spheres.
For what it’s worth, I’m a trans woman, and I’m well aware of some of the discourse around this topic already (both positions that are pro- and anti- “trans women are women”). I tried very hard to avoid injecting any of those details into it, though. I wanted to do a “reasoning from first principles” sort of analysis of the idea rather than try to recap the discussions that are happening in feminist spheres.
Isn’t the fact that we separate gender and sex because one (gender) is a social construct while the other (sex) isn’t?
No, gender-sex separation has always been an oversimplification. The fact is that gender identity is driven by complex interactions between biology and society. There is no better explanation for why regret rates for gender affirming surgeries are the lowest across all of medicine.
I've never heard this before. Can you point me some place where I can read more?
In this meta-analysis, the regret rate of GAS was found to be 1%.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8099405/#:~:tex...).
Compare this to:
Prostrate surgery: https://www.europeanurology.com/article/S0302-2838(08)00764-... (19%)
Knee surgery: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6961288/#:~:tex... (6-30%)
Mastectomy for breast cancer: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/964824 (8% -- and this is presented as very low!)
The satisfaction rate for gender-affirming surgery is in a completely different league from the rest of medicine. (And I have a lot of sympathy for the few people that do regret them -- I'm good friends with one such person.)
Compare this to:
Prostrate surgery: https://www.europeanurology.com/article/S0302-2838(08)00764-... (19%)
Knee surgery: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6961288/#:~:tex... (6-30%)
Mastectomy for breast cancer: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/964824 (8% -- and this is presented as very low!)
The satisfaction rate for gender-affirming surgery is in a completely different league from the rest of medicine. (And I have a lot of sympathy for the few people that do regret them -- I'm good friends with one such person.)
All language is a social construct. We recognize patterns in the real world and assign words to them, but patterns in complex systems like human biology have all kinds of exceptions.
Social construct doesn't mean fake, though. It's real, and it describes a real thing, but is a simplified model of it. The fight is over which model is better.
Social construct doesn't mean fake, though. It's real, and it describes a real thing, but is a simplified model of it. The fight is over which model is better.
Even if none of those things were true, satire and pisstaking shouldn't ever be banned.
> It has only been very, very recently that we have gone from "gender is a social construct" to "sex is a social construct."
I don’t think I’ve seen anyone say that sex is a social construct. Gender yes. And that gender and sex are orthogonal. And that gender is a spectrum but sex in humans is binary.
Maybe I missed the evolution of the conversation but I don’t think I’ve seen any volume of argument that sex is a social construct. I’m open to be convinced.
I don’t think I’ve seen anyone say that sex is a social construct. Gender yes. And that gender and sex are orthogonal. And that gender is a spectrum but sex in humans is binary.
Maybe I missed the evolution of the conversation but I don’t think I’ve seen any volume of argument that sex is a social construct. I’m open to be convinced.
There are many pieces now that proclaim biological sex (not gender) is a social construct. There are pieces in Forbes, Psychology Today, Professor curriculum, etc that are now saying this. I would say it was fringe if it weren't for the fact that it's been elevated by major publications.
When I was younger "gender is a social construct" mostly meant that if you were a man you were allowed to enjoy feminine things and if you were a woman, you could be a tomboy, etc. It also applied to trans individuals. However, that has shifted heavily over the last few years to be something very different and has gone so far as to go fully to the extent that sex (not gender) at birth is up for debate (even outside of Turner Syndrome or Intersex births.)
When I was younger "gender is a social construct" mostly meant that if you were a man you were allowed to enjoy feminine things and if you were a woman, you could be a tomboy, etc. It also applied to trans individuals. However, that has shifted heavily over the last few years to be something very different and has gone so far as to go fully to the extent that sex (not gender) at birth is up for debate (even outside of Turner Syndrome or Intersex births.)
The earliest most popular publication that posited that "sex is a social construct" might be Butler's Gender Trouble. This article is a pretty good overview on the evolution of the discourse on this topic:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/#SexGenDi...
(I linked straight to the section on sex as a social construct, but the whole article is worth a read.)
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/#SexGenDi...
(I linked straight to the section on sex as a social construct, but the whole article is worth a read.)
Orthogonal means uncorrelated. Sex and gender are in reality highly, though not perfectly, correlated.
I would say 'orthogonal' is used for conceptually independent, not causally independent nor statistically independent (uncorrelated). So i would say that sex and gender are conceptually independent, although in reality statistically highly correlated.
I think the word you're looking for is "distinct."
There is no right to zero consequences for speaking freely.
I say give users the moderation power and let aggregate voting dictate content that remains visible.
No one wants public control of democracy though. What these guys want is a business friendly soapbox.
I say give users the moderation power and let aggregate voting dictate content that remains visible.
No one wants public control of democracy though. What these guys want is a business friendly soapbox.
Where did I claim there was? You can philosophically believe that free speech (and also know that the 1st Amendment does not apply to private companies, but that the "right" to it is a general philosophy outside of government) should exist while holding the position that you can be held accountable for some things.
The question is how much a public forum should allow or not, especially one that has advertisers but is also an important forum for our democracy. That's very important and just saying everything under the sun is hate speech is not a good debate starter, especially when it's unevenly applied, and the rules are written by one viewpoint.
I think the "downvote" system which does eventually hide comments (until you request them) is a feature that already exists in beta. I think that's better than the "shadow banning" and suspensions in some instances. Obviously, you still can't tolerate some things, such as calls for violence, rioting, etc. Moderation is very difficult, but I err on the side of more openness than locking things down and stifling speech and debate.
The question is how much a public forum should allow or not, especially one that has advertisers but is also an important forum for our democracy. That's very important and just saying everything under the sun is hate speech is not a good debate starter, especially when it's unevenly applied, and the rules are written by one viewpoint.
I think the "downvote" system which does eventually hide comments (until you request them) is a feature that already exists in beta. I think that's better than the "shadow banning" and suspensions in some instances. Obviously, you still can't tolerate some things, such as calls for violence, rioting, etc. Moderation is very difficult, but I err on the side of more openness than locking things down and stifling speech and debate.
This is the random and anonymous person, right? One of USA Today's 2022 Women of the Year? https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/opinion/2022/03/13/rachel-...
That list looks pretty "random and anonymous" to me. How many people on that list do you think an average person would recognize? I can't imagine it is more than 2 out of the 11 award recipients and many won't know a single one?
Are they known to the public is what's important
Levine was very prominent among conservative media, not due to being trans, but due to being a prominent part of Biden's Covid response alongside Fauci. It wasn't a random targeting.
And when SNL satirizes a political figure, absolutely no one refers to it as "targeting"
A political figure is a politician, this person is not
and yet that changes nothing
Babylon Bee was not first to “target” Levine. Washington Post, for example, has run an article on Levine before Bee, also for the sole purpose of Levine being trans:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/10/19/levine-tran...
If WaPo can bring out “random bureaucrats” to public attention for sole reason of being trans, why can’t Bee do the same?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/10/19/levine-tran...
If WaPo can bring out “random bureaucrats” to public attention for sole reason of being trans, why can’t Bee do the same?
Giving an award to a Black person has slightly different connotations when it is done at a NAACP meeting compared to a Klan meeting.
But I absolutely don't want Twitter to decide which organisations are like the NAACP and which are like the Klan. This is regardless of who runs Twitter.
I very much want to. I've been on the net long enough to have noticed that ultimately what makes a discussion platform worth using is the right sort of moderation. Without moderation any large enough community quickly degenerates. The best platforms tend to be stringently moderated to keep up the quality -- not only kick out the wrong people, but discourage the low effort and pointless content enough that most of what's going on is worth reading.
For instance I absolutely wouldn't be using NH if it wasn't moderated in a way I happen to like. There are the various chan-derived boards and such, but I don't see any value in even finding out which still exist, because it's just not worth it my time to wade through mountains of garbage.
For instance I absolutely wouldn't be using NH if it wasn't moderated in a way I happen to like. There are the various chan-derived boards and such, but I don't see any value in even finding out which still exist, because it's just not worth it my time to wade through mountains of garbage.
Well, good luck having a readable twitter then
I'd rather read what people really think than what they are allowed to think.
You aren't going to read what anyone thinks because the deluge of nonsense and junk in an unmoderated environment will render it useless for such purposes.
I don't think the problem is whether Twitter is readable. The problem is whether it is advertisable for Twitter: whether advertisers will complain about being placed next to a tweet.
Who are they going to advertise to if its not readable?
What a ridiculous comparison. Let's stick to arguing in good faith, shall we?
She's involved in politics at a fairly high level; that's not "a private citizen" or "just a bureaucrat". Furthermore, making a few jokes is neither "harassment" nor "a campaign"; by that standard Twitter should ban a hell of a lot of folk. That people can't be jokes about folks merely because other people are also excessively mean-spirited about them is one of the more baffling ideas of the modern American left.
The real problem, however, is that you don't need to dig very far to see people engage in all sorts of behaviour that's not exactly in accordance with the Twitter rules, ranging from stuff like "just fucking deport the Christians already!!" to "would be a real shame if their face got smashed in with a brick wink wink" and that ... doesn't get moderated. I've reported a bunch of posts like that: always "no action needed, doesn't violate our community terms".
I think a lot of people would have significantly less trouble with Babylon Bee's ban if Twitter didn't let the platform be such a quagmire of nastiness, and then occasionally cherry-pick an example.
The real problem, however, is that you don't need to dig very far to see people engage in all sorts of behaviour that's not exactly in accordance with the Twitter rules, ranging from stuff like "just fucking deport the Christians already!!" to "would be a real shame if their face got smashed in with a brick wink wink" and that ... doesn't get moderated. I've reported a bunch of posts like that: always "no action needed, doesn't violate our community terms".
I think a lot of people would have significantly less trouble with Babylon Bee's ban if Twitter didn't let the platform be such a quagmire of nastiness, and then occasionally cherry-pick an example.
>likely isn't among the 1000 most powerful people in government
Why does that matter?
>has led to her getting death threats
OK, punish the people who did the illegal thing. Imagine having personal responsibility!
>Being a satire site doesn't mean we can laugh off all their behavior as a joke
Yes, yes that's exactly what it means.
>Their behavior was a part of a harassment campaign against someone who is largely a private citizen in this instance
No, one article is not a harassment campaign.
Why does that matter?
>has led to her getting death threats
OK, punish the people who did the illegal thing. Imagine having personal responsibility!
>Being a satire site doesn't mean we can laugh off all their behavior as a joke
Yes, yes that's exactly what it means.
>Their behavior was a part of a harassment campaign against someone who is largely a private citizen in this instance
No, one article is not a harassment campaign.
We should be allowed to satirize almost everything that is part of our society, so to speak, satire that avoids the hot societal topics isn't really satire (see SNL). The trans discussion is really a hot topic inside the US, for better of for worse, so a satirical website talking about it is how things should be.
Yet the Ayatollah can tweet at will. Nothing to see here.
> Their behavior was a part of a harassment campaign against someone who is largely a private citizen in this instance.
What you call a "harassment campaign" happens constantly on Twitter, driven by Twitter's own site and algorithms. Twitter frequently has a "main character" of the day, driven by the "What's Trending" sidebar on the home page, as well as quote Tweets by people with thousands or millions of followers that encourages and incentivizes the dragging of people who have little power. If this is a bannable offense, Twitter should ban itself.
What you call a "harassment campaign" happens constantly on Twitter, driven by Twitter's own site and algorithms. Twitter frequently has a "main character" of the day, driven by the "What's Trending" sidebar on the home page, as well as quote Tweets by people with thousands or millions of followers that encourages and incentivizes the dragging of people who have little power. If this is a bannable offense, Twitter should ban itself.
"he's just a mentally ill person"
That has very large influence and is spreading and inspiring hate [1]. Mentally ill or not, he's causing real-world damage.
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/banner-kanye-right-los-...
That has very large influence and is spreading and inspiring hate [1]. Mentally ill or not, he's causing real-world damage.
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/banner-kanye-right-los-...
The premise of speech is damaging, unless it's slander / libel, is I think the main thing Elon Musk wants to change at Twitter.
What about incitement to violence?
That's already illegal, report it to the police
"Some guy in Russia told all the white men to rise up and kill all the jews and blacks"
The police "again, that's the 23rd time today"
This kinda breaks down at the global scale. I can call for violent acts at your front door from a continent away with impunity.
The police "again, that's the 23rd time today"
This kinda breaks down at the global scale. I can call for violent acts at your front door from a continent away with impunity.
The main issue is violent acts, not the call for them. Whoever does something violent will not do so with impunity.
See, when you live a privileged and safe life these are some of the lies you believe. You are protected by your position in wealth, race, and maybe location. You're not black, or Jewish, or a unionist, and its all a big surprise when the angry mob does come for you. You yell "this is against the law!" And then only realize the person posting the hateful redeoric online was the officer that should be protecting you.
The fascists call for violence is always a joke to them, until the moment it is not.
The fascists call for violence is always a joke to them, until the moment it is not.
Through the fog of purple prose and judgment based on your assumptions and theories of ethnic classification, you seem to be claiming that the police will protect us from speech but not from violence. I don't see how that could possibly add up.
I don't think a bunch of attention seeking lunatics holding a banner over a bridge counts as "real-world damage". Especially when it seems to have galvanized everyone in power to denounce them and pledge their support to fight against similar groups.
I'm not sure most people here have seen the corner of Twitter known as "black Twitter." This is the part of Twitter where people (most of them from racial minorities) discuss things like "the Jews are keeping minorities poor," and "abortion is racist eugenics."
I don't know how they don't all get banned, but they somehow have a very vibrant community.
The level of antisemitism that Kanye (no, I will not call him "Ye") posted is not beyond the pale for people in black Twitter. I'm not sure he ever expected it to go this viral or get this much backlash.
I don't know how they don't all get banned, but they somehow have a very vibrant community.
The level of antisemitism that Kanye (no, I will not call him "Ye") posted is not beyond the pale for people in black Twitter. I'm not sure he ever expected it to go this viral or get this much backlash.
Anti-Semitism and anti-Asian views are pretty popular in the black community (I can't say to what degree but high enough that it shows up in hate crime stats), just as much as it exists in the white community. It gets swept under the rug and never really addressed; I've even seen that the idea that minorities can't be racist (even towards other minorities) being actively perpetuated on social media. I think that should change. Kanye is a big voice, but he's hardly a lone voice.
If only we could all agree that the idea that only one race can be bigoted and racist is in itself racist.
In my experience, anti-Asian views among black people and anti-black views among Asian people are more common than either among white people.
> Then, there are things like the Taliban, Russia, China, etc which have at times actively cheered on social media about the death of Americans or an American defeat
Soleimani. He helped the U.S. fight the Taliban. The U.S. later killed him in "self-defense" (no, really, that's what the U.S. Ambassador to the UN said). Scholars and the UN said the assassination was illegal. Do people who cheered his death deserve a ban?
That's not a trick question or whataboutism. At an international scale, principles have to be rigorously and fairly applied.
Soleimani. He helped the U.S. fight the Taliban. The U.S. later killed him in "self-defense" (no, really, that's what the U.S. Ambassador to the UN said). Scholars and the UN said the assassination was illegal. Do people who cheered his death deserve a ban?
That's not a trick question or whataboutism. At an international scale, principles have to be rigorously and fairly applied.
Isn't this just a long way to saying you think this is the right decision, but doesn't change the fact that it was arbitrary? Except I'm not even sure the decision actually happened. There still aren't any recent posts from them. You might need to wait a bit to know
> All that said, I hope Trump is never allowed back
Asking honestly, why?
I am genuinely curious to understand the reasoning behind this line of thinking.
Asking honestly, why?
I am genuinely curious to understand the reasoning behind this line of thinking.
> Babylon Bee being suspended was one of the dumber things the previous Twitter rules had done. It's a satire site, it's right leaning, nothing in the piece they said was hateful or even an unpopular view.
They didn’t even make a joke. They just called trans woman a man. It was hate speech, pure and simple.
I am very afraid for the future of twitter now. Hate speech is going to run rampant on that platform now.
They didn’t even make a joke. They just called trans woman a man. It was hate speech, pure and simple.
I am very afraid for the future of twitter now. Hate speech is going to run rampant on that platform now.
> They didn’t even make a joke. They just called trans woman a man. It was hate speech, pure and simple.
It’s not a crime nor hate speech to acknowledge someone’s biological sex. That’s what we do in sports and when we select partners for example. Most, if not all heterosexual men would not consider a “trans woman” to be an actual woman. Our way of selecting partners is proof of that. To punish a natural, and biologically based viewpoint that most of humanity hold and follow is tyrannical and unsustainable.
It’s not a crime nor hate speech to acknowledge someone’s biological sex. That’s what we do in sports and when we select partners for example. Most, if not all heterosexual men would not consider a “trans woman” to be an actual woman. Our way of selecting partners is proof of that. To punish a natural, and biologically based viewpoint that most of humanity hold and follow is tyrannical and unsustainable.
How are we this far into the modern trans rights movement and people still haven't wrapped their brains around sex and gender being two distinct concepts?
Most people are not on-board with that at all. Most people also feel you can do whatever, including be a man or woman if you so desire, but the whole ideological stuff surrounding that: yeah ... not really. This includes many progressives on the left.
The entire concept of "treating me as a {man,woman} and also agree to my particular ideas about sex and gender or otherwise you're a hateful bigot!" is quite remarkable. It's like "you must agree with my preferred theory about the origins of homosexuality or else you're homophobic!"
The entire concept of "treating me as a {man,woman} and also agree to my particular ideas about sex and gender or otherwise you're a hateful bigot!" is quite remarkable. It's like "you must agree with my preferred theory about the origins of homosexuality or else you're homophobic!"
It’s a distinction some guy just made up not too long ago. I can see why some people might not consider it a fact of the universe.
Gender as a concept distinct from sex is a way of describing an existing social phenomenon. Gender, though traditionally tied to biological sex, changes over time. What we define as "masculine" and "feminine" traits change as society changes, and can even differ between societies, despite the fact that male and female chromosomes have not changed. Just because no one had described this distinction before the last century doesn't mean it isn't legitimate.
The terminology of the debate gets confused a bit because while indeed the expectations of people’s behavior, dress, etc. based on their sex is indeed a social construct and has been probably since the beginning of humanity, that wasn’t what “gender” meant until very recently. As far as I can tell, “gender” and “sex” were completely synonymous until 50 years ago, even in niche academic communities, and until maybe 10 years ago among the general public.
I will agree that the terminology could probably be better. But my original point is that this is a pretty high-profile issue and has been for a while, so anyone taking a hardline stance of "I'm gonna deny trans people until someone makes a good argument why gender and sex are different" is willfully ignorant at best.
All categories are arbitrary distinctions that someone made up at some point, including the categories of biological sex, race, and your birth name. At the very least it would be bullying behavior for me to single you out and call you a different name or different racial group to what you actually are (as defined by the constructs that society has agreed upon).
Biological sex is not a construct, it's a simple observable reality. Biological sex is factual and immutable.
It is observable but it is far from simple.
Sex is an emergent property of multiple genetic networks. This doesn't mean that it doesn't exist or that it is not bi-modal, but it is far from simple.
https://www.nature.com/articles/518288a
The fact that we don't go around performing genetic testing on people before we interact with them also raises questions about whether sex itself matters, or whether there must be different definitions for sexed categories dependent on policy purpose. (e.g. based on genitals when the concern is sexual violence; based on fertility for the purposes of reproductive medicine; based on gender performance; based on hormone levels, etc.)
Sex is an emergent property of multiple genetic networks. This doesn't mean that it doesn't exist or that it is not bi-modal, but it is far from simple.
https://www.nature.com/articles/518288a
The fact that we don't go around performing genetic testing on people before we interact with them also raises questions about whether sex itself matters, or whether there must be different definitions for sexed categories dependent on policy purpose. (e.g. based on genitals when the concern is sexual violence; based on fertility for the purposes of reproductive medicine; based on gender performance; based on hormone levels, etc.)
The problem is that it's not at all straight-forward. It doesn't help that the word "gender" has been used to name a number of different and conflicting concepts.
See https://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/84795/ (copy available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZHkN2EYkl0v1oxhbd-5mnp9Fn1V...) for a discussion of the different concepts and the resulting confusion from a so-called gender critical perspective.
The distinction between sex and gender leads to interesting problems of performing gender and what it means for gender (and sex) to be socially constructed. And if both are socially constructed can the divide be upheld without requiring counter-intuitive definitions?
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/#SexGenDi...
The haziness of the term "woman" seems to be a popular target for mockery among conservatives. And phrased as an ontological question ("what is a woman?") it is unsurprisingly baffling to many people who haven't kept up with feminism and who are not personally affected by the outcome of this philosophical debate. Equally unsurprising then for these people to consider "The Left" to be out of touch.
Expressing exasperation at our collective failure to wrap our brains around these concepts is an understandable reaction from someone well-read, but it does nothing to change minds.
See https://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/84795/ (copy available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZHkN2EYkl0v1oxhbd-5mnp9Fn1V...) for a discussion of the different concepts and the resulting confusion from a so-called gender critical perspective.
The distinction between sex and gender leads to interesting problems of performing gender and what it means for gender (and sex) to be socially constructed. And if both are socially constructed can the divide be upheld without requiring counter-intuitive definitions?
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/#SexGenDi...
The haziness of the term "woman" seems to be a popular target for mockery among conservatives. And phrased as an ontological question ("what is a woman?") it is unsurprisingly baffling to many people who haven't kept up with feminism and who are not personally affected by the outcome of this philosophical debate. Equally unsurprising then for these people to consider "The Left" to be out of touch.
Expressing exasperation at our collective failure to wrap our brains around these concepts is an understandable reaction from someone well-read, but it does nothing to change minds.
I “still” haven’t wrapped my head around it because not once have I been presented with non-tautological replacement definitions for “man” and “woman”.
I will immediately change my mind and recant my views — here and now! — if someone provides:
- A specific definition of what “gender” is, if not a synonym for “sex”
- Non-tautological definitions of “man” and “woman” that are consistent with your definition of “gender”
I will immediately change my mind and recant my views — here and now! — if someone provides:
- A specific definition of what “gender” is, if not a synonym for “sex”
- Non-tautological definitions of “man” and “woman” that are consistent with your definition of “gender”
Gender is all about social interactions. For example, blue and pink being "masculine" and "feminine." Is there any relation to male or female chromosomes that would make blue appropriate for someone with X and Y chromosomes, and pink appropriate for someone with 2 X chromosomes? Of course not. Same goes for wearing makeup or high heels. At a different time in history, those things would have been considered "manly" but over time that's changed. None of the social flags that we use to determine a person's gender have anything to do with their genitalia or chromosomes, because we generally don't have that information when we see people in public. If gender and sex were really the same, it might be a bit more difficult for pre-op trans people to pass for a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth.
What about wanting to quit their jobs and take care of babies? That’s social/behavioral, so part of what you’d call gender. But it’s also rooted in biology.
It's not just cis women who want to do that though. And there are many cis women and trans men who don't. Not to mention, part of why it might be the case that women tend to quit their jobs and raise kids is because there's a lot of societal pressure to do that, and until relatively recently women (in the US at least) haven't really had the right to be independent at all.
Women not only do, but express the preference to, stay home with kids at much higher rates than men. It's quite likely there is a biological reason for that, and that the social construct derives from that instead of the other way around.
The fact that some women don't want to stay home and some men do doesn't mean it's a social construct. Many biologically-rooted differences between men and women are expressed in the population as overlapping but not coextensive normal distributions. E.g. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00421-006-0351-1
The fact that some women don't want to stay home and some men do doesn't mean it's a social construct. Many biologically-rooted differences between men and women are expressed in the population as overlapping but not coextensive normal distributions. E.g. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00421-006-0351-1
The science is a actually not settled on the reasons for the blue/pink preference.
Same for a lot of what trans activists want to pass as facts.
Tolerance and fighting discrimination is important but bullying people into a set of beliefs is doomed to fail, except on Twitter until today ;)
Same for a lot of what trans activists want to pass as facts.
Tolerance and fighting discrimination is important but bullying people into a set of beliefs is doomed to fail, except on Twitter until today ;)
Non-tautological definitions of “man” and “woman” that are consistent with your definition of “gender”
Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’re looking for, but this seems like a non-attainable standard to me. Language is _so_ fuzzy. Do many nouns have ‘non-tautological’ definitions? Like, could you define ‘house’ or ‘boat’ ‘non-tautologically’?
Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’re looking for, but this seems like a non-attainable standard to me. Language is _so_ fuzzy. Do many nouns have ‘non-tautological’ definitions? Like, could you define ‘house’ or ‘boat’ ‘non-tautologically’?
Not very far. It's not a lack of understanding, it's a rejection of plain falsehoods.
Maybe because the person who came up with that idea is a crazy pedophile who drove 2 young boys to suicide. Yes, really. Maybe we should not blindly accept all of his ideas.
It's funny how "KillAllMen" trended on Twitter and that wasn't considered hate speech, but calling a woman a man is?
Actually I guess that's consistent, if you think men are lesser beings who deserve to be killed, then it makes sense you would also think that the worst possible thing you can do to a woman is call them a man.
Actually I guess that's consistent, if you think men are lesser beings who deserve to be killed, then it makes sense you would also think that the worst possible thing you can do to a woman is call them a man.
There's some graffiti near where I live:
"Trans rights are human rights!"
Okay, great! And then on the next wall, in the same colour so presumably by the same people:
"Kill all men!"
"Trans rights are human rights!"
Okay, great! And then on the next wall, in the same colour so presumably by the same people:
"Kill all men!"
Exactly. Several types of deep hate, sometimes even death threats, are allowed on Twitter: general hate towards all men, all whites, specifically white men. It also matters who expresses the hate, more is allowed from non-whites, trans people, feminists, etc.
> They just called trans woman a man. It was hate speech, pure and simple.
This perfectly encapsulates the problem. So-called 'hate speech' is in the eye of the beholder and incredibly, just incredibly subjective.
This perfectly encapsulates the problem. So-called 'hate speech' is in the eye of the beholder and incredibly, just incredibly subjective.
They were satirizing the confusion between sex and gender. Disagreement isn’t necessarily hate speech.
saying it’s hate speech gives me Alice in Wonderland and 1984 vibes, 2+2=5 or you’re guilty and must be punished, regardless of what your senses tell you
[deleted]
Not to mention that the person who attacked Pelosi's husband with a hammer was also posting transphobic crap (along with a lot of other right-wing garbage). Hate online definitely has real world impact.
Is there any evidence he was specifically influenced and motivated by online rhetoric?
That's very common. There are a number of mass shooters in the US that targeted minorities who explicitly say in their manifesto or interrogation tape, that they were radicalized in online forums, and not offline.
Yes
Hate anywhere has real world impact.
There’s a lot of hate in the history books, 99% of it predating the internet.
Are those that engage in hate online more or less likely to act on it than those who engage in person? Are these interactions compelling them to use their voice off-line?
There’s a lot of hate in the history books, 99% of it predating the internet.
Are those that engage in hate online more or less likely to act on it than those who engage in person? Are these interactions compelling them to use their voice off-line?
Stop desperately trying to change to definition of hate speech.
I really don’t think Kanye is mentally ill or anti-Semitic, people are just claiming both or either of those as a way of “poisoning the well” about what he’s actually saying, check out this recent interview with ex-CNN Cuomo: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kQwaOfBb-s8
Ok, I bit. At 6:50 he explicitly decides to "call out" all Jewish people, and makes a claim that he's a victim of their behaviour.
> "And what I'm doing, I'm calling out the Jewish community as a whole to say. People say to me, all, we grew up on Ye. Talk to your brother, ask him why is Ye upset? Everybody, all they [the Jewish Community] want to do is silence and shoot the messenger."
That's plainly antisemitism.
> "And what I'm doing, I'm calling out the Jewish community as a whole to say. People say to me, all, we grew up on Ye. Talk to your brother, ask him why is Ye upset? Everybody, all they [the Jewish Community] want to do is silence and shoot the messenger."
That's plainly antisemitism.
I'm Jewish (feel free to believe me or not) and I disagree. I choose to ignore the overt bigotry and focus on addressing the underlying distrust.
What he said represents quite common black nationalist views and were espoused by most Black Power activists in the 60s. Those views are still highly relevant in the black community today, due to things like this[0], promoted by popular thinkers like Prof. James Small. Yes, they can be hurtful, but I believe the proper response is to make the sports and music contracts transparent and re-do them so they don't screw over black talent, as Kanye says, to address the underlying distrust, and rebuild proper ties between the Jewish and Black communities. Conflict is sometimes healthier when it's out in the open and gets addressed, rather than repressed and buried.
There's enormous dangers in following the "destroy Kanye" route; it makes everything worse, and the impulse to ban anyone who doesn't "talk right" will eventually lead to historic catastrophe as resentments get buried and build up, rather than getting hashed out.
There's a huge difference to me between people with zero grievances (except being incels) turning to hate, versus being with huge legitimate historical and current grievances where I just disagree with how they express it. I still view it as my (and our) duty to address those grievances; we can address the distrust between communities afterwards once they're solved.
[0]: https://www.972mag.com/%E2%80%9C2pac-killed-by-jewish-gangst...
What he said represents quite common black nationalist views and were espoused by most Black Power activists in the 60s. Those views are still highly relevant in the black community today, due to things like this[0], promoted by popular thinkers like Prof. James Small. Yes, they can be hurtful, but I believe the proper response is to make the sports and music contracts transparent and re-do them so they don't screw over black talent, as Kanye says, to address the underlying distrust, and rebuild proper ties between the Jewish and Black communities. Conflict is sometimes healthier when it's out in the open and gets addressed, rather than repressed and buried.
There's enormous dangers in following the "destroy Kanye" route; it makes everything worse, and the impulse to ban anyone who doesn't "talk right" will eventually lead to historic catastrophe as resentments get buried and build up, rather than getting hashed out.
There's a huge difference to me between people with zero grievances (except being incels) turning to hate, versus being with huge legitimate historical and current grievances where I just disagree with how they express it. I still view it as my (and our) duty to address those grievances; we can address the distrust between communities afterwards once they're solved.
[0]: https://www.972mag.com/%E2%80%9C2pac-killed-by-jewish-gangst...
> What he said represents quite common black nationalist views and were espoused by most Black Power activists in the 60s. Those views are still highly relevant in the black community today, due to things like this[0], promoted by popular thinkers like Prof. James Small. Yes, they can be hurtful, but I believe the proper response is to make the sports and music contracts transparent and re-do them so they don't screw over black talent, as Kanye says, to address the underlying distrust, and rebuild proper ties between the Jewish and Black communities.
This reads not like you disagree with whether or not its antisemitic, but rather that you're justifying tolerance of some antisemitism on the basis of it being a common black nationalist view.
Which I don't find acceptable. I won't tolerate ethnic or racial prejudice.
> I still view it as my (and our) duty to address those grievances; we can address the distrust between communities afterwards once they're solved.
That's entirely possible without also tolerating hatred.
We can say both that Ye is wrong to be antisemitic _and_ agree that the music industry is exploitative.
This reads not like you disagree with whether or not its antisemitic, but rather that you're justifying tolerance of some antisemitism on the basis of it being a common black nationalist view.
Which I don't find acceptable. I won't tolerate ethnic or racial prejudice.
> I still view it as my (and our) duty to address those grievances; we can address the distrust between communities afterwards once they're solved.
That's entirely possible without also tolerating hatred.
We can say both that Ye is wrong to be antisemitic _and_ agree that the music industry is exploitative.
It's not about supporting or tolerating views, it's about empathizing with people who reached the wrong conclusion based on positive intentions. It makes me uncomfortable to write people off when their pain is legitimate.
From what I can see, most people who support Kanye are uncomfortable with the way he said it, but support his crusade against labels and distributors. Most (not all) of the people who oppose Kanye don't give a shit about labels or distributors beyond lip service, and are themselves exploitative (like Ari Emmanuel, who IMO contributed more to antisemitism than Kanye ever could). These people are not motivated by principles of tolerance, they're just trying to bury the issue. It's easy for me to choose where to stand, and I'm perfectly comfortable with my choice.
> We can say both that Ye is wrong to be antisemitic _and_ agree that the music industry is exploitative.
I say both too. But on the chessboard, sometimes you need to move pieces you don't want to. Rhetoric which is already extremely widespread doesn't bother me much; systematic and institutional discrimination against some of the people I admire most, bothers me highly. Fixing those industries is hard enough, and I don't want to make it any harder for him by joining the mob. I'll take issue with his comments once his fight is won.
From what I can see, most people who support Kanye are uncomfortable with the way he said it, but support his crusade against labels and distributors. Most (not all) of the people who oppose Kanye don't give a shit about labels or distributors beyond lip service, and are themselves exploitative (like Ari Emmanuel, who IMO contributed more to antisemitism than Kanye ever could). These people are not motivated by principles of tolerance, they're just trying to bury the issue. It's easy for me to choose where to stand, and I'm perfectly comfortable with my choice.
> We can say both that Ye is wrong to be antisemitic _and_ agree that the music industry is exploitative.
I say both too. But on the chessboard, sometimes you need to move pieces you don't want to. Rhetoric which is already extremely widespread doesn't bother me much; systematic and institutional discrimination against some of the people I admire most, bothers me highly. Fixing those industries is hard enough, and I don't want to make it any harder for him by joining the mob. I'll take issue with his comments once his fight is won.
> I believe the proper response is to make the sports and music contracts transparent and re-do them so they don't screw over black talent
Why would you assume there's anything wrong with the contracts? He has the burden of proof and he hasn't shown it. Kanye believes he is being victimized by everyone. It's typical narcissist behavior. When someone says that everyone is an asshole, then they're probably the asshole.
Why would you assume there's anything wrong with the contracts? He has the burden of proof and he hasn't shown it. Kanye believes he is being victimized by everyone. It's typical narcissist behavior. When someone says that everyone is an asshole, then they're probably the asshole.
I assume there's something wrong with the contracts, because it's obvious to anyone following the industry, and it's been widely and thoroughly covered for decades (see links at the bottom or search the press, university publications, or ProQuest). It's true for all these contracts, and especially those with black artists and athletes.
Kanye made specific points that the contracts are unfair, with 'talent' not being paid fairly, and having their creative freedom restricted. He also argues that control over distribution is essential, and black people are underrepresented both as record label owners, and as distributors, therefore leading to a huge power imbalance. All those facts are true without needing to go into the 'Jewish' stuff.
People who focus on that controversy are helping these scum-of-the-earth industries survive for longer than they should. Artists should own their output. They need managers and agents, but those should be employees and contractors, not "owners".
I personally don't care to psychoanalyze Kanye, it's none of my business and none of yours. He has objectively been victimized, and became successful in spite of it. I empathize with him and hope what he points out will be resolved.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3gmjw/bad-deals-are-baked-i...
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-55366694
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/music-industry...
Kanye made specific points that the contracts are unfair, with 'talent' not being paid fairly, and having their creative freedom restricted. He also argues that control over distribution is essential, and black people are underrepresented both as record label owners, and as distributors, therefore leading to a huge power imbalance. All those facts are true without needing to go into the 'Jewish' stuff.
People who focus on that controversy are helping these scum-of-the-earth industries survive for longer than they should. Artists should own their output. They need managers and agents, but those should be employees and contractors, not "owners".
I personally don't care to psychoanalyze Kanye, it's none of my business and none of yours. He has objectively been victimized, and became successful in spite of it. I empathize with him and hope what he points out will be resolved.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3gmjw/bad-deals-are-baked-i...
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-55366694
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/music-industry...
> He has objectively been victimized
He hasn't met the burden of proof for this claim.
He hasn't met the burden of proof for this claim.
The speed of your response indicates you haven't read the links.
You want him to publish his contract? Ooops, he tried that. It showed that Kanye's deal is "standard" for the industry, which doesn't mean it's in any way fair.[0] He's also explicitly said he's doing this for black artists in general, not just himself.
You want him to try to change his contracts privately? Oops, he tried that; his label has deep pockets and just settled privately rather than changing anything.
Many others have tried and they just get buried in lawsuits, sometimes blackmailed (their next releases won't get promoted),[1] and even if they get out, their past albums are still owned by others.
Burden of proof is for exceptional claims. In an industry where egregiously unfair contracts are the norm, the exceptional claim is that Kanye's contracts are fair.
[0]: https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/kanye-west-record-...
[1]: https://www.okayplayer.com/music/rappers-bad-contracts.html
You want him to publish his contract? Ooops, he tried that. It showed that Kanye's deal is "standard" for the industry, which doesn't mean it's in any way fair.[0] He's also explicitly said he's doing this for black artists in general, not just himself.
You want him to try to change his contracts privately? Oops, he tried that; his label has deep pockets and just settled privately rather than changing anything.
Many others have tried and they just get buried in lawsuits, sometimes blackmailed (their next releases won't get promoted),[1] and even if they get out, their past albums are still owned by others.
Burden of proof is for exceptional claims. In an industry where egregiously unfair contracts are the norm, the exceptional claim is that Kanye's contracts are fair.
[0]: https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/kanye-west-record-...
[1]: https://www.okayplayer.com/music/rappers-bad-contracts.html
At the end of the interview he clarifies what he meant, he’s frustrated with apparent nepotism within an industry. I would be shocked if he claimed that he had a problem with a randomly chosen person who happened to be Jewish, it doesn’t make sense.
This is fairly clear to me, I don't need to hear his later equivocations:
> And what I'm doing, I'm calling out the Jewish community as a whole ...
Imagine calling out an entire ethnicity for your woes, and being surprised that people find that offensive.
> And what I'm doing, I'm calling out the Jewish community as a whole ...
Imagine calling out an entire ethnicity for your woes, and being surprised that people find that offensive.
“You people” never got anyone worked up, right?
If it is I think the term needs to be reviewed. In fact if people want to get sensitive about their racial identity then they need to focus on the actual words and tone.
Especially when it seems like alot of the time people are called racist or sexist for sharing a viewpoint that in their view is accurate.
For example, whenever I run into drivers that don’t react to a light change I have noticed it tends to be a woman with a phone in her hand.
I’m sure someone would take issue with my experience listed above, but I feel like I should have the right to make such a comment without backlash, because in my experience that observation holds true.
My point is I feel like context and history are important.
Especially when it seems like alot of the time people are called racist or sexist for sharing a viewpoint that in their view is accurate.
For example, whenever I run into drivers that don’t react to a light change I have noticed it tends to be a woman with a phone in her hand.
I’m sure someone would take issue with my experience listed above, but I feel like I should have the right to make such a comment without backlash, because in my experience that observation holds true.
My point is I feel like context and history are important.
He's definitely mentally ill, he has admitted so himself.
He also seems to basically cites a lot of things that Black Israelites and Farrakhan say/believe, who are openly anti-Semitic.
He also seems to basically cites a lot of things that Black Israelites and Farrakhan say/believe, who are openly anti-Semitic.
[deleted]
Let's avoid disinfo. Neither account was banned to begin with. Both accounts were restricted, which could be lifted after the user deletes the offending tweet. It's overwhelmingly likely Musk had nothing to do with either case (and he said so himself).
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/technology/kanye-ye-twitt...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/technology/kanye-ye-twitt...
Oh come on, that’s like saying someone isn’t being tortured, just temporarily having their pleasure removed until they confess.
It seems you're coming at it from the other side. If it were up to me, I'd remove the "lock" feature that seems too much like a struggle session (as noted in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33371795), and just have tweets be taken down without needing users to admit guilt. I also would oppose banning either Kanye or the Bee.
But if someone is arguing that it was a ban, and that it shows Musk unbanned them and is lying, then that's wrong. I was addressing that argument.
But if someone is arguing that it was a ban, and that it shows Musk unbanned them and is lying, then that's wrong. I was addressing that argument.
Is it actually anything like torture, though?
That's often not the point of analogies like this. So for the analog to be valid, the seriousness of the situation described doesn't have to be on similar levels. If you look up the definition of "analogy" on merriam-webster.com it says: "resemblance in some [my emphasis] particulars between things otherwise unlike"
Yeah, I know what an analogy is. It's a bloody stupid analogy because it's making a mountain out of a mole hill, when we all know that moles dig tunnels.
No, that is like saying someone should remove some obscene clothing before entering a private establishment and here you are comparing it to be tortured.
"You may not enter" is the literal definition of banning someone
If you can come back by removing the offending element, you aren't really banned.
"No offensive t-shirts" is not the same thing as being banned lol
"No offensive t-shirts" is not the same thing as being banned lol
If the offending element is one's personality or one's beliefs, then yes, one can come back by removing that, but it's the same thing as not coming back.
Removing a tweet and removing a belief are two very different things.
Not really: we see on Reddit all the time how subreddits quickly descend into herds that can only upvote accepted ideas and instantly downvote to oblivion or ban anything even neutral (much less antagonistic to the subreddit’s worldview).
Anybody who comes by with a different take immediately loses interest in the group and so there’s a self-perpetuating system that makes the group more and more fanatical about right-think and wrong-think.
On Twitter, deleting tweets for wrong-think has largely the same chilling effect and self-perpetuating descent into an echo chamber.
Anybody who comes by with a different take immediately loses interest in the group and so there’s a self-perpetuating system that makes the group more and more fanatical about right-think and wrong-think.
On Twitter, deleting tweets for wrong-think has largely the same chilling effect and self-perpetuating descent into an echo chamber.
"deleting tweets for wrong-think"
When did this happen? Are you referring to tweets that promote anti-semetism like Ye's? Or to tweets advocating for political violence, like Trump's?
When did this happen? Are you referring to tweets that promote anti-semetism like Ye's? Or to tweets advocating for political violence, like Trump's?
See: Basically everyone who was suggesting the Wuhan virology lab was a plausible source for a virus originating in Wuhan.
"You cannot believe in Christianity" and "You cannot hold mass in my house" are two very different statements.
Twitter have almost 400 million users. It's not "your house" at this point, it's public space.
So at what number of attendees does my house become public space?
Never because you own it and have rights just like the Supreme Court has established that most private businesses has the right to kick people out. If people don't like that then they should petition the government to take over Twitter and make it a utility or government service.
How about if AT&T said “you cannot pray over our telephone lines”? Because that seems closer to what’s happening here.
You're not removing your belief
No shirt, no shoes, no service.
I think one reasonable policy could be "form a council of diverse viewpoints and only ban someone if they all (or mostly all) agree the person should be kicked off" and another reasonable policy could be "form a council fo diverse viewpoints and ban someone if one (or a couple) think the person should be kicked off.
I think its fair to say the committee will end up being a scapegoat - but to be charitable to the idea in general its pretty clear that not 100% or even 75% of the population thinks that Babylon Bee should be banned. If you have a system where one voice on the committee can ban someone then most liberal comedians would be banned for played up reasons, too.
I think its fair to say the committee will end up being a scapegoat - but to be charitable to the idea in general its pretty clear that not 100% or even 75% of the population thinks that Babylon Bee should be banned. If you have a system where one voice on the committee can ban someone then most liberal comedians would be banned for played up reasons, too.
As long as it's legal, why ban anyone? The bar should be VERY high.
Ostensibly Twitter has to make money, and most companies do not want their ads to be seen next to blatant antisemitic messages.
In the crazy clown world in which we live, Twitter could theoretically kick off all the advertisers and become Elon Musk's self-promotion platform (which it already is), but I doubt the other investors would go along with this.
In the crazy clown world in which we live, Twitter could theoretically kick off all the advertisers and become Elon Musk's self-promotion platform (which it already is), but I doubt the other investors would go along with this.
Or just not show ads on those pages.
for the same reason you don't see laundry detergent ads on pornhub. most advertisers don't want their ads next to certain kinds of content. Whether for their own moral objections or fear of negative customer reaction they won't pay for ad space near it. As advertising pays the bills for this service you have to only host content that advertiser are willing to allow their ads near. It not about whats legal its about whats practical and profitable.
>>>for the same reason you don't see laundry detergent ads on pornhub. most advertisers don't want their ads next to certain kinds of content.
Hmmm, if I had a laundry detergent company I'd totally support tailored ads for Pornhub. "Forgot to take your dress off before the bukkake scene? Don't worry! DirtBlaster Detergent can handle even the crustiest of stains!"
You've actually got me thinking about the viability of this across a spectrum of common consumer products.....
Hmmm, if I had a laundry detergent company I'd totally support tailored ads for Pornhub. "Forgot to take your dress off before the bukkake scene? Don't worry! DirtBlaster Detergent can handle even the crustiest of stains!"
You've actually got me thinking about the viability of this across a spectrum of common consumer products.....
If you don't ban anyone, pretty soon the people who advertisers like leave the platform and you're left with free speech purists, hatemongers, and not too much else. Those people don't bring $$.
So in this case, free speech and the free market are at odds.
So in this case, free speech and the free market are at odds.
Spam city coming right at ya
Your first policy is reasonable, but your second is definitely not.
You could use the second standard to flag a user as "spicy" and hide them for users who prefer to be exposed to more "normal" opinions.
Sure. But ultimately there is some level of arbitrary lines where you have a trade-off of overbanning or underbanning.
Say you have a committee of 9 people? What's your cut-off? There isn't a clear answer - especially as norms change a bit and the committee members change.
Say you have a committee of 9 people? What's your cut-off? There isn't a clear answer - especially as norms change a bit and the committee members change.
I honestly don’t think it matters. The committee will answer to one person who can arbitrarily overrule the committee, whether formally or not.
It’s his company and he can do what he wants with it. Any rules can be changed at any time without recourse.
I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Well, it might be bad for Twitter the service, but as far as legal governance, it’s the way it works. The only limit will really be what advertisers will support. It is a business after all.
But any type of council should be considered advisory at best.
It’s his company and he can do what he wants with it. Any rules can be changed at any time without recourse.
I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Well, it might be bad for Twitter the service, but as far as legal governance, it’s the way it works. The only limit will really be what advertisers will support. It is a business after all.
But any type of council should be considered advisory at best.
Twitter has become the de facto standard, so IMHO moderation should only ask one question: "is this tweet legal?" If the answer is 'yes' then it should be allowed.
Of course, a corollary is that they should be able to filter content on a per country basis because, obviously, what's legal differs from country to country, but I think there is no escaping that for any platforms which claim to be global.
Of course, a corollary is that they should be able to filter content on a per country basis because, obviously, what's legal differs from country to country, but I think there is no escaping that for any platforms which claim to be global.
Sounds like a great way to foster a community filled with racist, unwelcoming, and generally toxic but perfectly legal content. Just like every other "free speech" platform devolves into.
Allow me to coin a hyperstitious and eponymous law.
Frog's Law of Social Media: free speech or advertising revenue - choose one.
Frog's Law of Social Media: free speech or advertising revenue - choose one.
Can we stick to a grown-up discussion, please? You are not replying to my points in any meaningful way.
It's shocking that HN commenters could be so toxic, indeed.
It's shocking that HN commenters could be so toxic, indeed.
Not sure what there is to discuss? I wholly disagree with your idea. There's plenty of other social network sites that have a similar moderation policy and they are overrun by people who wish to turn it into a platform to spread hate.
Any content moderation needs to extend beyond "Legal? (Y/N)" unless your main goal is to drive any real community away.
Any content moderation needs to extend beyond "Legal? (Y/N)" unless your main goal is to drive any real community away.
You're obviously ignoring 'de facto standard', which makes Twitter pretty much a utility in my opinion, hence my comment.
Anyway, it is simply shocking that so many think it is the 'correct way' to disallow what they don't agree with and that they are, like you, so aggressive about it to the point of shutting down any dissenting opinions, as is happening here.
It's a big regression from the heights of the enlightenment, or just the recent past, IMHO.
Some would go as far as claiming that this is "little red guard" behaviour and they wouldn't be completely wrong.
Good day.
Anyway, it is simply shocking that so many think it is the 'correct way' to disallow what they don't agree with and that they are, like you, so aggressive about it to the point of shutting down any dissenting opinions, as is happening here.
It's a big regression from the heights of the enlightenment, or just the recent past, IMHO.
Some would go as far as claiming that this is "little red guard" behaviour and they wouldn't be completely wrong.
Good day.
I disagree with your assertion that Twitter is a public utility then. There's plenty of ways to communication with other people on the internet. Twitter has less daily active users than Pinterest, if you want to shout out your opinion on the internet then play by Twitter's rules or find another platform.
What is your opinion on Parler deleting anti-Trump messages? Or liberal viewpoints?
Or r/conservative banning people who have posted on any one of a number of other subreddits, sometimes before they've even posted in r/conservative?
Or r/conservative banning people who have posted on any one of a number of other subreddits, sometimes before they've even posted in r/conservative?
Whataboutism...
Edit:
Not only that but also transparently disingenuous. I don't know r/conservative (my comments are not about liberal vs conservative and I find odd that you and others immediately frame them that way) but a dedicated 'conservative' subreddit is obviously not the same as Twitter, which, again as become the de facto standard for most political and news communication.
Edit:
Not only that but also transparently disingenuous. I don't know r/conservative (my comments are not about liberal vs conservative and I find odd that you and others immediately frame them that way) but a dedicated 'conservative' subreddit is obviously not the same as Twitter, which, again as become the de facto standard for most political and news communication.
It's a fair assumption. The free speech absolutist crowd very much tends to trend conservative.
I think most reasonable people would reject the assertion that twitter is the de facto standard. It isn't even in the top 10 for social media platforms by active monthly users, and usage and value of a platform varies way too much depending on age and gender. While twitter is possibly the de facto standard for gen-x + millennials and certain career groups such as politicians and journalists, it certainly won't be for 18-25 year olds. Facebook still has nearly 10x the monthly active users of twitter, in fact Twitter barely beats out Quora.
Ignoring the argument about it being the de facto standard, Twitter is a business. I expect that Elon would like to make money off of his $44B investment. In the battle between the free market and free speech, the free market will almost always win. If twitter goes the extreme free speech route, users who are often targeted by loud jerks, trolls and harassers will leave the platform. It will create bad press both in the form of people complaining about harassment as well as other businesses pulling ads where their customers or potential customers were harassed.
I think most reasonable people would reject the assertion that twitter is the de facto standard. It isn't even in the top 10 for social media platforms by active monthly users, and usage and value of a platform varies way too much depending on age and gender. While twitter is possibly the de facto standard for gen-x + millennials and certain career groups such as politicians and journalists, it certainly won't be for 18-25 year olds. Facebook still has nearly 10x the monthly active users of twitter, in fact Twitter barely beats out Quora.
Ignoring the argument about it being the de facto standard, Twitter is a business. I expect that Elon would like to make money off of his $44B investment. In the battle between the free market and free speech, the free market will almost always win. If twitter goes the extreme free speech route, users who are often targeted by loud jerks, trolls and harassers will leave the platform. It will create bad press both in the form of people complaining about harassment as well as other businesses pulling ads where their customers or potential customers were harassed.
> Not only that but also transparently disingenuous
I notice you didn't mention Parler, though. That one's a bit harder to dance around. The "Premier Global Free Speech App". Surely that should allow all legal speech, right?
I notice you didn't mention Parler, though. That one's a bit harder to dance around. The "Premier Global Free Speech App". Surely that should allow all legal speech, right?
Not even remotely. I didn't agree or disagree with your statement on Twitter allowing all legal posts. I expressly chose not to.
What I'm asking you is if you think that those forums should also be required to say "Legal (Y/N)?" and if not, why not?
What I'm asking you is if you think that those forums should also be required to say "Legal (Y/N)?" and if not, why not?
Twitter is full of awful people too. They’re just on the other end of the political spectrum.
What about “this pattern of tweets is sufficiently correlated with declining user engagement”. Should Twitter make decisions based on the health of the business?
[deleted]
I would stay well within the law if I would reply to your post with "oh fuck off you retarded cunt!!!"
This would obviously fall well within the protections of free speech for many countries, certainly those of the U.S. And if you really wanted to you can go much nastier than that.
But I don't think it should be allowed here, or even on Twitter. Even using as an example here already feels iffy, but I feel adding it makes the point clearer.
This would obviously fall well within the protections of free speech for many countries, certainly those of the U.S. And if you really wanted to you can go much nastier than that.
But I don't think it should be allowed here, or even on Twitter. Even using as an example here already feels iffy, but I feel adding it makes the point clearer.
But you are not making any points here, just basically a stunt.
If Twitter is the de facto standard and akin to an utility why should they make decisions on what's allowed beyond lawfulness?
If Twitter is the de facto standard and akin to an utility why should they make decisions on what's allowed beyond lawfulness?
> But you are not making any points here, just basically a stunt.
My point is that allowing "anything that's within the law" will lead to some pretty unpleasant stuff.
> If Twitter is the de facto standard and akin to an utility why should they make decisions on what's allowed beyond lawfulness?
I don't think Twitter is the "de-facto standard" or akin to an utility, and the problem is that by allowing such content you would drive away a lot of people who would rather not be buried with insults and nastiness every time they post something.
There are loads of places where speech is regulated in some way, and you can't just go off on a expletive-laden rant at any moment. If I go to a Biden or Trump Q&A townhall meeting and start shouting abuse at him I will be removed as well.
My point is that allowing "anything that's within the law" will lead to some pretty unpleasant stuff.
> If Twitter is the de facto standard and akin to an utility why should they make decisions on what's allowed beyond lawfulness?
I don't think Twitter is the "de-facto standard" or akin to an utility, and the problem is that by allowing such content you would drive away a lot of people who would rather not be buried with insults and nastiness every time they post something.
There are loads of places where speech is regulated in some way, and you can't just go off on a expletive-laden rant at any moment. If I go to a Biden or Trump Q&A townhall meeting and start shouting abuse at him I will be removed as well.
You're still attempting to take my comments to the extreme instead of making a substantial reply on any of my points (unfortunately).
In addition, whether a certain moderation approach would "drive away people" is a strawman. This is not the question.
In addition, whether a certain moderation approach would "drive away people" is a strawman. This is not the question.
> You're still attempting to take my comments to the extreme instead of making a substantial reply on any of my points (unfortunately).
That was not my intention; I'm genuinely trying to engage constructively and in good faith.
You stated that "anything that's within the law should be allowed", and I'm trying to examine what that would mean and what effects it would have. With an extreme example, yes, but that is the sort of stuff that would be allowed under your proposed policy. Now, if you think that's an acceptable trade-off: fair enough, I can't argue with that. But I don't think it can merely be brushed aside with "that's extreme", because in my experience things like that will be posted, usually by a small (but very active) group of people.
> In addition, whether a certain moderation approach would "drive away people" is a strawman. This is not the question.
The question is what effect this policy would have. This is, in my opinion, one of them.
That was not my intention; I'm genuinely trying to engage constructively and in good faith.
You stated that "anything that's within the law should be allowed", and I'm trying to examine what that would mean and what effects it would have. With an extreme example, yes, but that is the sort of stuff that would be allowed under your proposed policy. Now, if you think that's an acceptable trade-off: fair enough, I can't argue with that. But I don't think it can merely be brushed aside with "that's extreme", because in my experience things like that will be posted, usually by a small (but very active) group of people.
> In addition, whether a certain moderation approach would "drive away people" is a strawman. This is not the question.
The question is what effect this policy would have. This is, in my opinion, one of them.
Do you have any example of an open forum that only removes illegal content and nothing else that isn't also a complete cesspool?
Unsuspended and Kanye's happened before he got there precisely for this framing if I had to guess. Likely a malicious employee.
It seems the "private company can do what they want" argument is becoming quite unpopular all of a sudden :^)
Is it? I haven't seen that yet, did someone put out a poll recently?
That happened before elon officially took over. He replied to a question about it on Twitter and i really don’t see him lying about it.
Im not a elon fan. At all. but the knee jerk reaction he gets at this point is kind of deserved… however you’re better off not falling into that trap.
Im not a elon fan. At all. but the knee jerk reaction he gets at this point is kind of deserved… however you’re better off not falling into that trap.
FireBeyond(1)
I'm mostly curious what will happen to this account: https://twitter.com/ElonJet
> Ye’s account was restored by Twitter before the acquisition. They did not consult with or inform me.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586073042534297601
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586073042534297601
There have to be grades between banning and free for all.
If we're dreaming big here, how about a slider that users can adjust for how much free speech they want to be exposed to? Or perhaps separate toggles for if they want to opt-in to seeing election misinformation, antivax conspiracies, bigotry against various groups, etc.
According to sources he was unbanned before Musk got there
What sources?
Source: Elon Musk
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586073042534297601
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586073042534297601
Perhaps someone has independent corroboration?
He's been dishonest (in both small, and large things) with such frequency, that we're going to need independent verification before anything he says can be believed.
I would imagine the committee is not bound by past decisions, so it would follow that we'd see accounts getting unbanned at first.
[deleted]
Were they? I know I can see their pages, but I don't see any new content from them. realdonaldtrump is still suspended, I imagine we'll just have to wait to see what happens.
Many of the “unbanned” accounts weren’t banned before and that didn’t change.
They were in Twitter jail (or whatever the term is). The account is there but they couldn’t publish new tweets.
That’s the change to watch for.
He could unban Trump, say he kept his promise, but keep the account locked so that Trump couldn’t actually tweet.
As a hypothetical example.
They were in Twitter jail (or whatever the term is). The account is there but they couldn’t publish new tweets.
That’s the change to watch for.
He could unban Trump, say he kept his promise, but keep the account locked so that Trump couldn’t actually tweet.
As a hypothetical example.
It's called a temporary suspension. Twitter asks you to acknowledge your tweet was bad by deleting it yourself. If you do, you get a time-out in the naughty corner for 12 hours, or a week, or whatever, and then you can tweet again. If you don't, you stay in the naughty corner. Whoever designed this process could stand to learn how to treat people like adults, in my opinion.
> Whoever designed this process could stand to learn how to treat people like adults, in my opinion.
So, simply shadow ban them, then?
So, simply shadow ban them, then?
If you're referring to HN policy then for an established account it's not really shadowbanning, because dang will tell you that you're banned and why. Being treated as a useless noob until proven otherwise is being treated as an adult.
Twitter is different (although perhaps more different than it needs to be). Seeing as you ask, here is how to handle content deletion on Twitter without infantilizing users.
Don't ask a user to "delete" a tweet – something which has no effect on that tweet's visibility anyway. Just hide it and tell him why. If the user chooses to appeal, that appeal can go forward without restricting the use of the account. Give time-outs sparingly. They should be more of a final warning than a routine measure. If it's necessary to give a time-out, start the clock immediately, not when the user takes some action.
Twitter is different (although perhaps more different than it needs to be). Seeing as you ask, here is how to handle content deletion on Twitter without infantilizing users.
Don't ask a user to "delete" a tweet – something which has no effect on that tweet's visibility anyway. Just hide it and tell him why. If the user chooses to appeal, that appeal can go forward without restricting the use of the account. Give time-outs sparingly. They should be more of a final warning than a routine measure. If it's necessary to give a time-out, start the clock immediately, not when the user takes some action.
[deleted]
She has already been fired so the lesson is moot.
Why is banned vs Twitter jail (or whatever the term is) a meaningful distinction?
It only matters when you're trying to determine if Musk or someone else at Twitter actually un-banned or un-twitter-jailed someone. If the account was merely restricted then it's possible the account owner themselves did whatever is required to un-restrict their own account (i.e., deleted some offending tweet).
Babylon Bee was never unbanned (because they were never banned in the first place, just suspended and continue to be suspended) and Ye was unbanned before Elon Musk ever took over.
Babylon Bee's Seth Dillon put it[0] this way:
> "The Babylon Bee was tossed in Twitter jail 7 months ago for a joke that referred to an adult male as a man. We could have restored our account at any time by deleting the tweet, but we refused. It was the right call. Never censor yourself, and never apologize for speaking truth."
[0]: https://twitter.com/SethDillon/status/1585633678977544192?s=...
> "The Babylon Bee was tossed in Twitter jail 7 months ago for a joke that referred to an adult male as a man. We could have restored our account at any time by deleting the tweet, but we refused. It was the right call. Never censor yourself, and never apologize for speaking truth."
[0]: https://twitter.com/SethDillon/status/1585633678977544192?s=...
That's not the topic I'm talking about. I'm talking about the factual events of what occurred. The comment is neutral on whether it should have been suspended or not. The comment is just stating that Babylon Bee was never banned, the account still exists and it's status has not changed since that initial event and Elon Musk has had nothing to do with it.
Isn't that how it works Pre-Elon, Twitter had protected classes and ideological profiling of enemies.
[deleted]
> The Babylon Bee
What's wrong with unbanning a satirical account?
What's wrong with unbanning a satirical account?
Whereas the previous crew were magnanimous?
[deleted]
bergenty(1)
You're hired!
So, create a court system basically that decides on free speech issues. Got it. Likely will arrive at the same conclusion as the legal system that’s been operating for over 200 years.
There’s a reason the legal system said free speech is out to the point of direct imminent harm. It was the arrogance of 20 year old programmers in silicon valley who thought they could create a better legal system.
There’s a reason the legal system said free speech is out to the point of direct imminent harm. It was the arrogance of 20 year old programmers in silicon valley who thought they could create a better legal system.
That's one big problem with these (US based) companies. They don't apply the spirit of the laws in their own home country that allowed/allows them to exist.
Zuckerberg has even claimed that fb is a "digital town square".
They don't mind enforcing speech laws of other countries, lowest common denominator.
No tears would be shed if they were broken up, nationalized, etc.
They don't mind enforcing speech laws of other countries, lowest common denominator.
No tears would be shed if they were broken up, nationalized, etc.
The legal system largely doesn't have to worry about advertisers and users fleeing the country.
”(probably less action on more contentious issues, but you still can't use racial epithets and call for violence)”
This hasn’t been the case until now. Just as an example lot of radical leftists, BLM activists etc. have openly called for extermination of white people and contantly used racist rhetoric without any consequences. Meanwhile a lot of convervatives, libertarians etc. have been banned/suspended from Twitter due to false ”hatespeech” reporting.
No one has ever asked for ”hounds to be released”. No one sane wants Twitter to become another 8chan. What people want is the one-sided 1984 experiment to end.
This hasn’t been the case until now. Just as an example lot of radical leftists, BLM activists etc. have openly called for extermination of white people and contantly used racist rhetoric without any consequences. Meanwhile a lot of convervatives, libertarians etc. have been banned/suspended from Twitter due to false ”hatespeech” reporting.
No one has ever asked for ”hounds to be released”. No one sane wants Twitter to become another 8chan. What people want is the one-sided 1984 experiment to end.
I got a 7 day ban for a tweet that included “political suicide pact” as an idiom.
I then got permanently banned for including the line, “sending their children to die in Ukraine” in a tweet.
The “appeal” button causes me to get a denied email within one minute. This tells me no humans are in the loop on any of this.
I don’t think these tweets were controversial or require any diversity of viewpoints. They just require appreciation that you cannot automatically moderate anything accurately unless you are prepared to be very very VERY relaxed about the rules.
I’m not sure Elon is even interested in fixing this kind of problem. He seems focused on the politics and “cancel culture” type issues (whether they’re real or imagined).
I then got permanently banned for including the line, “sending their children to die in Ukraine” in a tweet.
The “appeal” button causes me to get a denied email within one minute. This tells me no humans are in the loop on any of this.
I don’t think these tweets were controversial or require any diversity of viewpoints. They just require appreciation that you cannot automatically moderate anything accurately unless you are prepared to be very very VERY relaxed about the rules.
I’m not sure Elon is even interested in fixing this kind of problem. He seems focused on the politics and “cancel culture” type issues (whether they’re real or imagined).
On the other hand, I’ve reported posts for using racial slurs (you know the one) and for calling for genocide … and been cheerfully told they didn’t break any rules but that I can block the user if my feelings were hurt. These sites aren’t moderated ideologically, they’re moderated randomly
And really, random moderation is inevitable at scale. It's always going to be a judgment call made by different people in different moods.
You can spend more money to reduce the std deviation, and spend less while increasing it, but you can't eliminate the randomness.
You can spend more money to reduce the std deviation, and spend less while increasing it, but you can't eliminate the randomness.
Every time I've reported something it's taken well over a week for Twitter to respond; all denied, and all of them were very clear-cut cases IMO (I don't have the exact phrasings at hand, but all involved people fantasising about smashing someone's face in with a brick because they didn't like something they said).
I don't expect moderation to be 100% consistent or 100% perfect, but now it just seems like such a random unpredictable crapshoot that it's pretty broken IMO.
I don't expect moderation to be 100% consistent or 100% perfect, but now it just seems like such a random unpredictable crapshoot that it's pretty broken IMO.
I'm not sure what country you're in, or what the law is in the US, but I think there's a difference between saying "I want to to smash their face in with a brick" and "someone should smash their face in with a brick"
It seems to me that the call to action or lack thereof is salient.
That being said I have no idea if this was the reason why it was allowed. There's no transparency.
It seems to me that the call to action or lack thereof is salient.
That being said I have no idea if this was the reason why it was allowed. There's no transparency.
I agree there's a (subtle) difference, and legally this difference may certainly matter, but everyone knows what's intended and IMO neither have their place on a platform where "people have a free and safe space to talk" (from Twitter's "About" page).
I got a 48 hour ban recently for sharing a quote from an article we were discussing. The quote was nothing special, just a statement from a spokesperson for a company. The "problem" was that I included the name+title of the person I quoted, and that somehow got flagged as me "doxxing" that person and their place of work. Whose job it was was to be a public spokesperson for this company..
It wasn't any political or contentious topic, so no idea what set it off. Basically along the lines of "as X working at Y said in the article, they want to do Z soon".
It wasn't any political or contentious topic, so no idea what set it off. Basically along the lines of "as X working at Y said in the article, they want to do Z soon".
My SIL got permanently suspended for posting pitbull attack statistics. Some pitmommy group (what they called themselves) found her tweets and mass-reported her.
I doubt a human was ever in the loop, if you get enough reports off with your head.
I doubt a human was ever in the loop, if you get enough reports off with your head.
Twitter ignored multiple reports of personal threats directed at me specifically (involving concentration camps and general death threats, etc.) "This tweet doesn't violate Twitter rules." People I didn't know, who I had zero negative interactions with before. That was way before Musk.
You just can't have human moderation at that scale. They have to brainstorm how to prevent these tweets in the first place, rather than how to catch and delete them.
You just can't have human moderation at that scale. They have to brainstorm how to prevent these tweets in the first place, rather than how to catch and delete them.
> Twitter ignored multiple reports of personal threats directed at me specifically (involving concentration camps and general death threats, etc.) "This tweet doesn't violate Twitter rules."
I want a site where I can see all these screenshots of tweets with Twitters "This tweet doesn't violate Twitter rules" in the shot.
Pair it with another site that has screenshots of tweets that were banned, that obviously don't violate the rules as shown in the first site.
I want a site where I can see all these screenshots of tweets with Twitters "This tweet doesn't violate Twitter rules" in the shot.
Pair it with another site that has screenshots of tweets that were banned, that obviously don't violate the rules as shown in the first site.
That’s awful. And I’ve also witnessed the same kind of abuse that goes ignored.
Has any large social media site ever solved this?
4chan does by having no rules: if you show up, expect the absolute worst of humanity.
Reddit does by having countless volunteer moderators who basically do 98% of the moderation.
Facebook suffers from the same problems as Twitter.
Has any large social media site ever solved this?
4chan does by having no rules: if you show up, expect the absolute worst of humanity.
Reddit does by having countless volunteer moderators who basically do 98% of the moderation.
Facebook suffers from the same problems as Twitter.
The way I'd solve it is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33377423
Basically, more siloed converations would ironically create a better "public town square", because it would reduce the need for moderation and allow freer speech.
> That’s awful. And I’ve also witnessed the same kind of abuse that goes ignored.
Honestly, it wasn't. Maybe due to my temperament (and I certainly received far less hate than high-profile people do) but I could never empathize with the "online bullying" concerns. It's the nature of the internet, and you just develop the mental strength to tune it out, or use it to your advantage as fuel. Even after those experiences I'd still be much happier with Musk's content policies, or Dorsey'd blockchain-free-for-all with users being able to choose the moderation algorithm they want. I have friends who were suspended for BS reasons and that's a far bigger concern to me.
Basically, more siloed converations would ironically create a better "public town square", because it would reduce the need for moderation and allow freer speech.
> That’s awful. And I’ve also witnessed the same kind of abuse that goes ignored.
Honestly, it wasn't. Maybe due to my temperament (and I certainly received far less hate than high-profile people do) but I could never empathize with the "online bullying" concerns. It's the nature of the internet, and you just develop the mental strength to tune it out, or use it to your advantage as fuel. Even after those experiences I'd still be much happier with Musk's content policies, or Dorsey'd blockchain-free-for-all with users being able to choose the moderation algorithm they want. I have friends who were suspended for BS reasons and that's a far bigger concern to me.
Hmmm. Would you consider that to be similar to the Reddit model of cloistering themes so that unlike-minded people aren’t artificially pushed together?
The problem is that reddit clusters based on topic, rather than social group. If I'm a bad state actor who wants to influence America on a mass-scale, I buy a bunch of accounts, and buy upvotes, and can shift the hivemind. Or I just infiltrate the mod team. Obviously you'd need to be relatively sophisticated to not get caught.
But Twitter is based on social circles, not topics; those concerns don't apply. Instead of having an entire topic/subreddit be biased one way or another, you'd have small friends groups and small communities, that have social dynamics that are as close to real life as possible. Hence all the scale-related problems don't occur. The radicalization rabbit hole? Doesn't happen with siloes. Harassment? There'll be much less with siloes, where someone needs to "add" you (like on Facebook) to interact with you, rather than a drive-by quote-tweet. Ideological censorship? Again, with siloes, there's less need for moderation, so people who aren't harming any others get to communicate with each other. It's more organic.
Obviously implementing that isn't as easy, but there's good ideas for clustering in this thread.
But Twitter is based on social circles, not topics; those concerns don't apply. Instead of having an entire topic/subreddit be biased one way or another, you'd have small friends groups and small communities, that have social dynamics that are as close to real life as possible. Hence all the scale-related problems don't occur. The radicalization rabbit hole? Doesn't happen with siloes. Harassment? There'll be much less with siloes, where someone needs to "add" you (like on Facebook) to interact with you, rather than a drive-by quote-tweet. Ideological censorship? Again, with siloes, there's less need for moderation, so people who aren't harming any others get to communicate with each other. It's more organic.
Obviously implementing that isn't as easy, but there's good ideas for clustering in this thread.
TBH I don't think clustering on social groups is the panacea that you hope. Misinformation spreads insanely fast on WhatsApp, even after limiting Group thread size and # of forwards.
We'll never get back to the way things were before the internet became ubiquitous. Back then, we had a limited number of sources, and normal people had very limited reach. But now, it's too easy for individuals to pass information along, and with more sources of it the juiciest / most outrageous information will always go the furthest.
We'll never get back to the way things were before the internet became ubiquitous. Back then, we had a limited number of sources, and normal people had very limited reach. But now, it's too easy for individuals to pass information along, and with more sources of it the juiciest / most outrageous information will always go the furthest.
May not be a panacea, but it's the healthiest option.
> Misinformation spreads insanely fast on WhatsApp, even after limiting Group thread size and # of forwards.
That's true, but it's relatively easier to solve: really viral messages are a minuscule minority, and can set off internal alerts and be reviewed by humans; to prevent hysteria and murderous rhetoric.
And the problem also existed with word-of-mouth, centuries ago, before the masses ever startied reading "the press"; rumors could spread across entire nations. Fake stuff will spread, and people will become more skeptical and adapt, as they did before. Skin in the Game makes a related point.¹
The whole problem with censoring "disinformation" is that it removes society's self-healing mechanisms. Public discourse has always been messy. Louis Farrakhan is labelled hateful, but he ran the Million Man March and is credited getting many African-American men to register to vote. Malcolm X would have been considered an extremist and banned. But it would have been wrong; he may have been flawed on the micro level (that's subjective), but he was beneficial and heroic on the macro level. Censorship has huge second order effects, including self-censorship, introducing status-quo bias. It also promotes conspiratorial thinking, since people who think information is being hidden from them are more likely to seek fringe sources.
How do you censor real disinformation, without ending up with things like the Hunter Biden story being censored too? It also allows governments to lie with impunity, because accusations that the government is lying are treated as disinformation, while actual government lies (like the intel agency staffers who said the Hunter laptop was a Russian psyop) are spread everywhere.² People need to be able to spread "conspiracies", since while they may be factually incorrect, they may be directionally correct, while the "official" narrative may be total BS. Note I couldn't care less about Hunter or his laptop, but it's a clear recent example.
¹ https://medium.com/incerto/the-facts-are-true-the-news-is-fa...
² https://greenwald.substack.com/p/biden-the-media-and-cia-lab...
> Misinformation spreads insanely fast on WhatsApp, even after limiting Group thread size and # of forwards.
That's true, but it's relatively easier to solve: really viral messages are a minuscule minority, and can set off internal alerts and be reviewed by humans; to prevent hysteria and murderous rhetoric.
And the problem also existed with word-of-mouth, centuries ago, before the masses ever startied reading "the press"; rumors could spread across entire nations. Fake stuff will spread, and people will become more skeptical and adapt, as they did before. Skin in the Game makes a related point.¹
The whole problem with censoring "disinformation" is that it removes society's self-healing mechanisms. Public discourse has always been messy. Louis Farrakhan is labelled hateful, but he ran the Million Man March and is credited getting many African-American men to register to vote. Malcolm X would have been considered an extremist and banned. But it would have been wrong; he may have been flawed on the micro level (that's subjective), but he was beneficial and heroic on the macro level. Censorship has huge second order effects, including self-censorship, introducing status-quo bias. It also promotes conspiratorial thinking, since people who think information is being hidden from them are more likely to seek fringe sources.
How do you censor real disinformation, without ending up with things like the Hunter Biden story being censored too? It also allows governments to lie with impunity, because accusations that the government is lying are treated as disinformation, while actual government lies (like the intel agency staffers who said the Hunter laptop was a Russian psyop) are spread everywhere.² People need to be able to spread "conspiracies", since while they may be factually incorrect, they may be directionally correct, while the "official" narrative may be total BS. Note I couldn't care less about Hunter or his laptop, but it's a clear recent example.
¹ https://medium.com/incerto/the-facts-are-true-the-news-is-fa...
² https://greenwald.substack.com/p/biden-the-media-and-cia-lab...
Fairly moderating a single massive global community is an unsolvable problem for both scale and cultural reasons. The current dominate model for social media will not work in the long run. Breaking down the task into sub-communities that are given moderator power helps with both the scale and cultural problems. Reddit however seems to be moving away from this model by deemphasizing the autonomy and identity of individual communities for a broader, singular reddit community.
4chan has rules, albeit incredibly lax and with biased enforcement, but they are enforced (see /bans) eventually. Many of the larger boards seem perpetually and woefully understaffed which gives the impression that it's a lawless website to a casual observer, but depending on the time of day it's likely just the case that there's an insufficient amount of jannies to deal with the volume of posts, with posts being deleted upwards of an hour after being posted.
One of the more notable examples of rules being enforced on 4chan was its stance and subsequent banning of anything relating to Gamergate, causing a large part of the community to leave for 8chan. Or more recently the removal of the /qa/ board for cross board raiding.
One of the more notable examples of rules being enforced on 4chan was its stance and subsequent banning of anything relating to Gamergate, causing a large part of the community to leave for 8chan. Or more recently the removal of the /qa/ board for cross board raiding.
> 4chan does by having no rules
It does have rules. Lots of them. To the point the place changed significantly over the years. You probably mean 8chan which had exactly one rule: don't do anything considered illegal in the USA.
It does have rules. Lots of them. To the point the place changed significantly over the years. You probably mean 8chan which had exactly one rule: don't do anything considered illegal in the USA.
4chan does have rules. Low quality posts, spam, racism and nsfw are against the rules on most boards.
Make people pay for a subscription and use some of the money to fund moderation?
Oooh I forgot! The Something Awful forums approach. I think this is the best one.
> You just can't have human moderation at that scale
Effective human moderation - or at least, followup to moderation - should be the necessary cost of scale. If you can't operate at a certain number of users under that constraint then you shouldn't.
Effective human moderation - or at least, followup to moderation - should be the necessary cost of scale. If you can't operate at a certain number of users under that constraint then you shouldn't.
"You just can't have human moderation at that scale"
oh you definitely can. It's just not remotely cost effective and would ruin the bottom line of any tech company.
oh you definitely can. It's just not remotely cost effective and would ruin the bottom line of any tech company.
Naive comment ignoring other obvious problems with human moderation: https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2022-10-20/beh...
I'm not advocating for human moderation so much as pointing out that the profits obtained by these social media organizations that eschew what would be reasonable moderation in any other medium come from their externalization of this cost.
Yeah buggy ais plague twitter and facebook. Something similar happened to me on facebook, apparently i violated a french law when using a harmless idiom. Was unbanned within the hour tho because it was obvious i wouldn't really sell my own kidney to buy ethereum if it dropped at 200 usd despite its ai thinking i am involved in human traffiking. They even apologised which was nice.
Having said that i think relying solely on the judgement and discretion of rich powerful ceos to regulate political discourse is dangerous. Its how oligarchies are born. We need clear laws on how such platforms and news sources or distribution mediums work.
Having said that i think relying solely on the judgement and discretion of rich powerful ceos to regulate political discourse is dangerous. Its how oligarchies are born. We need clear laws on how such platforms and news sources or distribution mediums work.
I reported a tweet where somebody threatened to kill somebody. One day later they came back to say that it's fine, actually.
Yeah, people self-censor nowadays. Common to see TikTok videos where a benign use of the word "kill" is crossed out or spelled differently just to avoid running afoul of automatic filters. You do what you gotta do.
I got a permanent ban for quoting a video which contained "when do start killing white people" and said that this was bad. Banned for inciting violence, upheld on appeal and told it would not be looked at again. Twitter's current moderation policy is extremist ideological garbage.
A few years ago I tried to reply to a discussion with a link to the Anti-Federalist Papers, and my tweet was censored/blocked. If I recall correctly, it was labeled as misinformation or something. The censorship on Twitter goes far beyond hate speech or threats of violence.
> This tells me no humans are in the loop on any of this.
At that scale, it's very hard to achieve. 500M tweet a day. Let's suppose 1% of the tweets are flagged by users or by keyword, that would be 5M of tweets a day to review. Let suppose that one person can review 1000 tweets a day, that would be 5000 people working full time. And even with humans, there'll always be some flagging that will be contested.
Besides, different countries have different legislation regarding what can be be published on the web. It's a hard problem to solve, even with the best intent.
I don't think Musk is going to fix this. I think it'll be more about reinstating people like Trump on the platform.
At that scale, it's very hard to achieve. 500M tweet a day. Let's suppose 1% of the tweets are flagged by users or by keyword, that would be 5M of tweets a day to review. Let suppose that one person can review 1000 tweets a day, that would be 5000 people working full time. And even with humans, there'll always be some flagging that will be contested.
Besides, different countries have different legislation regarding what can be be published on the web. It's a hard problem to solve, even with the best intent.
I don't think Musk is going to fix this. I think it'll be more about reinstating people like Trump on the platform.
Where I'm from, minimum wage is around 15k per year. So hiring 5k people would cost 75M in salaries, and let's just double it for other operation costs, 150M. People don't work 24/7, so we must quadruple it for triple shifts + weekends. That leaves us at around 600M: yes, that's terribly expensive. 1
But maybe we don't need to review all the reports! What if we rank them? Correct reports grand a user positive 'report karma', and they climb higher. Posts that are 'trending' in reports should also climb higher. New posts take priority over old posts, ie let's police new content, not everything that has been ever written. And of course, we can also use modern techniques, ie AI to score the reports.
If Twitter did that and could review the top 10% of reports, at 60M per year, would that be worth it? If successful, I think so.
1: this number is biased because it assumes all reports are independent, but I suspect a significant amount of reports would concern a low number of posts, eg controversial or political posts from accounts with a large follow count.
But maybe we don't need to review all the reports! What if we rank them? Correct reports grand a user positive 'report karma', and they climb higher. Posts that are 'trending' in reports should also climb higher. New posts take priority over old posts, ie let's police new content, not everything that has been ever written. And of course, we can also use modern techniques, ie AI to score the reports.
If Twitter did that and could review the top 10% of reports, at 60M per year, would that be worth it? If successful, I think so.
1: this number is biased because it assumes all reports are independent, but I suspect a significant amount of reports would concern a low number of posts, eg controversial or political posts from accounts with a large follow count.
Did you have a lot of followers? Im guessing manual and auto moderation approach differ based on follower count?
Potentially of intellectual interest: Some people here might be wondering about speech that is "harmful," with the famous quote about "you can't yell fire in a crowded theater." That quote from the Supreme Court is commonly used to justify why there need to be restraints on free speech.
This is actually a popular misconception. The decision where "you can't yell fire in a crowded theater" was from was actually overturned in almost entirety in Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969. And even then, it was only an analogy, and never actually was the law. You actually, theoretically, CAN yell fire in a crowded theater. Websites on both sides of the isle have admitted it is a terrible analogy for defending censoring certain content for being potentially harmful. It is, quite literally, a legal myth. A legal myth that still affects our Congress today while they examine how to prevent the spread of misinformation [1].
https://abovethelaw.com/2021/10/why-falsely-claiming-its-ill...
https://reason.com/2022/10/27/yes-you-can-yell-fire-in-a-cro...
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/shouting-f...
https://www.whalenlawoffice.com/legal-mythbusting-series-yel...
https://www.thefire.org/you-can-shout-fire-in-a-burning-thea...
[1] For an example (out of many) of why regulating misinformation is legally almost impossible, see United States vs Alvarez, which ruled that the Stolen Valor Act of 2005 (which criminalized faking having a military honor) is legally protected speech and the act was a violation of the constitution. Since then it has been extended with a new 2013 act which requires intent to gain something by fraud, which hasn't been struck down (yet).
This is actually a popular misconception. The decision where "you can't yell fire in a crowded theater" was from was actually overturned in almost entirety in Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969. And even then, it was only an analogy, and never actually was the law. You actually, theoretically, CAN yell fire in a crowded theater. Websites on both sides of the isle have admitted it is a terrible analogy for defending censoring certain content for being potentially harmful. It is, quite literally, a legal myth. A legal myth that still affects our Congress today while they examine how to prevent the spread of misinformation [1].
https://abovethelaw.com/2021/10/why-falsely-claiming-its-ill...
https://reason.com/2022/10/27/yes-you-can-yell-fire-in-a-cro...
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/shouting-f...
https://www.whalenlawoffice.com/legal-mythbusting-series-yel...
https://www.thefire.org/you-can-shout-fire-in-a-burning-thea...
[1] For an example (out of many) of why regulating misinformation is legally almost impossible, see United States vs Alvarez, which ruled that the Stolen Valor Act of 2005 (which criminalized faking having a military honor) is legally protected speech and the act was a violation of the constitution. Since then it has been extended with a new 2013 act which requires intent to gain something by fraud, which hasn't been struck down (yet).
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There is clearly speech that is harmful without considering that case. Basically the entire concept of “conspiracy” is harmful speech. That said, Twitter is a private company and the First Amendment isn’t the holding factor.
When did "The United States government is watching and logging everything you do" change from conspiracy to common knowledge? I'll admit they use third party contractors for storage and some log collecting instead of doing so in-house, but the question remains.
Too many people seem to believe that real conspiracies don't exist. They certainly do, and we can't stifle conversation that proposes the possibility.
Meta did this in 2019[0]. I guess Elon realized that it's better to copy the largest social media company out there?
[0] https://www.facebook.com/journalismproject/facebook-oversigh...
[0] https://www.facebook.com/journalismproject/facebook-oversigh...
Everyone seems to say there’s no moderation policy that will please everyone. Sounds right. But the real physical world has freedom of speech and it works pretty well. There’s a KKK meeting going on somewhere right now and yet none of us are bothered. Is the issue really freedom of speech or is it that Twitter puts people who would absolutely hate each other into the same room? What if you just fix that second part instead of worrying about the first?
> the real physical world has freedom of speech and it works pretty well
If someone were to enter a privately owned "public square" in the physical world and start yelling racial slurs, they'd be removed by the cops.
If someone were to enter a privately owned "public square" in the physical world and start yelling racial slurs, they'd be removed by the cops.
Fascinating, I didn't know that ruling.
However, to the larger point, in pre-internet times if you were to enter a public forum and shout racial obscenities it wouldn't be possible to do so anonymously, I imagine you'd get cited for creating a public disturbance (possibly thrown out on appeal if you bought an expensive lawyer?), and you'd suffer multiyear reputational damage [at least in small town].
These mechanisms seem to work - I scarcely ever seen in-person behavior that sinks to the level of online behavior. And I think we're all happier for it, imagine if the public playground allowed strangers from all over the world to shout whatever phrase they want anonymously with no transportation cost.
However, to the larger point, in pre-internet times if you were to enter a public forum and shout racial obscenities it wouldn't be possible to do so anonymously, I imagine you'd get cited for creating a public disturbance (possibly thrown out on appeal if you bought an expensive lawyer?), and you'd suffer multiyear reputational damage [at least in small town].
These mechanisms seem to work - I scarcely ever seen in-person behavior that sinks to the level of online behavior. And I think we're all happier for it, imagine if the public playground allowed strangers from all over the world to shout whatever phrase they want anonymously with no transportation cost.
No, that is protected and has been for decades:
Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Center
Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Center
That ruling is (a) only relevant in California, (b) has been significantly narrowed since it was issued in the 1970s, and (c) involved political solicitation, not simply yelling slurs.
> and yet none of us are bothered
What? I think a lot of people are very bothered by that... especially the victims.
What? I think a lot of people are very bothered by that... especially the victims.
what victims? Are Christians victims because satanists are gathering privately somewhere else to have their own ceremonies?
Christianity and Satanism aren't inherently and (usually) intentionally harmful. The KKK is literally a terrorist organization meeting for the purpose of conspiring to commit acts of terror and spread racism, with the explicit intention, that that propaganda has the specific effect of harming people. That's what their goal is, to hurt people, for the benefit of their own in-group.
> What if you just fix that second part instead of worrying about the first?
I think that's an entirely different product. Something closer to Discord or Telegram. Would be interesting to see a pivot along these lines.
I think that's an entirely different product. Something closer to Discord or Telegram. Would be interesting to see a pivot along these lines.
AI / GPT3 / sentiment analysis is probably roughly at the point where they could just _not_ show you posts you're likely to strongly disagree with. I know there's other issues around echo chambers, though, I just think if someone thought about this for a long time, they may be able to figure something out. Back when Google+ was being planned, they took it as a given that not everything should be said to everyone.
This cross-post seems pretty relevant to have here given the amount of discussion about this whole acquisition -- one of the key points in the submitted article is that "content moderation is the product":
- HN Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33371297
- Submitted article: https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/28/23428132/elon-musk-twitt...
- HN Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33371297
- Submitted article: https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/28/23428132/elon-musk-twitt...
This is going to be an interesting claim considering that he's pro letting Trump back on the platform.
That guy, despite being the president, repeatedly said things that got other people banned with their rules. Some how other leaders claimed this was a said day that he finally got punished for it.
That guy, despite being the president, repeatedly said things that got other people banned with their rules. Some how other leaders claimed this was a said day that he finally got punished for it.
I think Twitter should have a concept of silent ban i.e. only people that are following the account can see someone's tweet and other's could see that only by opening full link and not through search. While it was obvious that Trump's tweet was causing negative emotions in people, it is also clear that Trump had other sources in which he could express opinions and it was liberal newspaper who are the first to report that he said something wrong.
As far as I understand all the major platforms do this all the time, and it’s called a shadow ban.
Often they even stop showing to followers, you just get blended out of the algorithm
Often they even stop showing to followers, you just get blended out of the algorithm
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Advertisers are going to be pretty concerned when their paid content is showing up in screenshots mixed in with "questionable" content.
Advertising and freedom-for-jackasses doesn't mix well.
Advertising and freedom-for-jackasses doesn't mix well.
> Advertisers are going to be pretty concerned when their paid content is showing up in screenshots mixed in with "questionable" content.
Are you aware Twitter already allows all sort of depraved porn on their platform already? Did Advertisers leave the platform as a result of this already?
Maybe Twitter should get rid of the hardcore pornography first.
Are you aware Twitter already allows all sort of depraved porn on their platform already? Did Advertisers leave the platform as a result of this already?
Maybe Twitter should get rid of the hardcore pornography first.
What’s wrong with hardcore pornography?
> What’s wrong with hardcore pornography?
What's wrong with what Twitter progressives deem questionable opinions?
What's wrong with what Twitter progressives deem questionable opinions?
Hard to say with how vague that is, can you give concrete examples of these things that Twitter progressives deem questionable opinions?
"Men can't be women and vice-versa".
But you knew that was the answer.
But you knew that was the answer.
It's not exactly shocking, but there's plenty of 'right wing stances' it could be. A lot of this going around (cw racism, slurs) for example https://www.reddit.com/gallery/yfxkbf
I think it’s about context. I’m of the persuasion that it should not exist within mainstream society. It should be sent to the margins and not integrated into normal life. We shouldn’t have strip clubs or brothels in the town square for example. Out to the borders where it’s there if you need it but it isn’t casual.
Free speech absolutism, eh? It only sounds good until the reality hits. There already exist platforms which have it. Twitter becoming one of them is not compatible with keeping ad revenue (and probably carries legal risks on top of that).
> Free speech absolutism, eh? It only sounds good until the reality hits.
Musk already said that it couldn't be free for all. Of course, it should be removed if it is against the laws. But moderation should be minimum or less than what it is today.
But you don't seem to care; you parrot misconception which is akin to fake news, which I thought we didn't like.
Musk already said that it couldn't be free for all. Of course, it should be removed if it is against the laws. But moderation should be minimum or less than what it is today.
But you don't seem to care; you parrot misconception which is akin to fake news, which I thought we didn't like.
There is another word for absolutism: extremism.
The real question is what will happen to this account: https://twitter.com/ElonJet
I believe he only bought Twitter to nuke this account./s
Well, Twitter is a private company and can ban whomever they want... according to the trump banning situation back then.
Guess his fans celebrating their newly acquired “free speech” by spamming the n-word were wrong
This was never about that.
Except very few fringe people (and progressives towards black people leaving the plantation) nobody wants to use or see racial slurs on social media. That shit doesn't even fly on Zerohedge and most are absolutely fine with that.
What we want is to be able to say "okay dude" and "only women can get pregnant" without being banned.
Except very few fringe people (and progressives towards black people leaving the plantation) nobody wants to use or see racial slurs on social media. That shit doesn't even fly on Zerohedge and most are absolutely fine with that.
What we want is to be able to say "okay dude" and "only women can get pregnant" without being banned.
Are you sure? Because it looks like a lot of these guys wanted to use and see racial slurs on social media...
Borrowing the best failed ideas of Mark Zuckerberg
https://radiolab.org/episodes/facebooks-supreme-court
https://radiolab.org/episodes/facebooks-supreme-court
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rw operatives at fb were allowed to bypass their "court's" oversight
since i'm getting heavily downvoted, here are sources to this FACT of rw bias: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/mark-zuckerberg... https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-joel-kaplan-washington-...
The hatred exhibited in all these Twitter-related threads, both here and elsewhere is truly something to behold.
In a free society everyone should be for the protection of free speech. Note that this does not mean unmitigated slinging of fecal matter. It does, however, mean that platforms with significant reach should not be engaged in explicitly favoring one side or another. They need to enabled open and "color blind" discussion. And, yes, while moderation is necessary even in places like HN, it cannot, should not, be ideological. That's how you end-up with China, North Korea, Iran, etc.
Cue arguments about the first amendment only being applicable to government. That isn't what this is about. At all.
Imagine an extreme case where all social media outlets, news stations, newspapers and even universities are controlled by, say, the Chinese Communist Party or some other extreme. Yes, a crazy out-there hypothetical. Sometimes exaggeration is able to lend clarity that is hard to convey in other ways.
Well, that's the kind of thing we have had for years now. Don't believe me? Kindly present a list of right wing, left wing and independents who have been banned from places like Twitter and Facebook. One side of that list will be almost empty. And that, precisely, is the problem Elon wants to solve. He isn't interested in tilting it in the opposite direction. He wants that list, when it comes to Twitter, to be equitable and, more than likely, as small as absolutely necessary.
What is wrong with that? Why the hatred?
In a free society everyone should be for the protection of free speech. Note that this does not mean unmitigated slinging of fecal matter. It does, however, mean that platforms with significant reach should not be engaged in explicitly favoring one side or another. They need to enabled open and "color blind" discussion. And, yes, while moderation is necessary even in places like HN, it cannot, should not, be ideological. That's how you end-up with China, North Korea, Iran, etc.
Cue arguments about the first amendment only being applicable to government. That isn't what this is about. At all.
Imagine an extreme case where all social media outlets, news stations, newspapers and even universities are controlled by, say, the Chinese Communist Party or some other extreme. Yes, a crazy out-there hypothetical. Sometimes exaggeration is able to lend clarity that is hard to convey in other ways.
Well, that's the kind of thing we have had for years now. Don't believe me? Kindly present a list of right wing, left wing and independents who have been banned from places like Twitter and Facebook. One side of that list will be almost empty. And that, precisely, is the problem Elon wants to solve. He isn't interested in tilting it in the opposite direction. He wants that list, when it comes to Twitter, to be equitable and, more than likely, as small as absolutely necessary.
What is wrong with that? Why the hatred?
Protection of free speech, its intent atleast, is to protect citizens from governments.
Not to give citizens a free for all tongue wagging that can harm others or incite violence.
Free speech is to be used against tyrannical governments.
If someone is saying "jews are vermin", they absolutely have to be gagged.
Not to give citizens a free for all tongue wagging that can harm others or incite violence.
Free speech is to be used against tyrannical governments.
If someone is saying "jews are vermin", they absolutely have to be gagged.
This excerpt from Elon's statement to advertisers pretty much lays down the intent:
"it is important for the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence. There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide society.
In the relentless pursuit of clicks, much of traditional media has fueled and catered to those polarized extremes, as they believe that is what brings in the money, but, in doing so, the opportunity for dialogue is lost."
That is commendable. That's what we should all want.
Will it happen?
That remains to be seen. Mass hatred towards someone (and his platform) with the above stated goals is nothing less than nonsensical. This is something that should be universally celebrated.
"it is important for the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence. There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide society.
In the relentless pursuit of clicks, much of traditional media has fueled and catered to those polarized extremes, as they believe that is what brings in the money, but, in doing so, the opportunity for dialogue is lost."
That is commendable. That's what we should all want.
Will it happen?
That remains to be seen. Mass hatred towards someone (and his platform) with the above stated goals is nothing less than nonsensical. This is something that should be universally celebrated.
> Not to give citizens a free for all tongue wagging that can harm others or incite violence.
Absolutely agreed. And that should be applied EQUALLY, which has not and does not happen.
That is the problem. Hatred from the left has had a free pass in social media and the 90% of media outlets that support the ideology. People even cheer them on, not realizing just how much damage they are causing and how ugly the slipper slope actually is.
As an independent, that is what is deeply disturbing to me. My vote is already irrelevant in California. It has been for decades. I am taxed. I am not represented. And my voice? If I dare side with republicans in a public way, my life could be absolutely ruined by the violent left.
Here's what's interesting:
I have actually lived under military regime. So has my entire family. We absolutely cannot believe how the left in the US has become very much the kind of thing anyone who has lived under oppressive regimes will recognize as such.
The left, in this nation, has done an amazing job of taking over educational institutions and indoctrinating young ignorant minds. That's what we are battling. It isn't about wanting to go full-tilt-right, that is also a horrible reality that nobody wants to live under. Neither extreme should have control of a nation, because they are both detrimental to society.
> If someone is saying "jews are vermin", they absolutely have to be gagged.
No. That's wrong. You want to know who they are.
You want human garbage like that in the open. You don't want them hiding. As the descendant of genocide survivors, I want assholes like in plain view. I want them to be well-lit, not in the shadows.
So, yeah, forgive me for thinking that moderation and rules applied EQUALLY to all sides is actually better for not only this nation, but humanity as well. Notice I said "moderation". Nobody with two connected neurons wants a free-for-all or thinks that is a good thing. Elon certainly does not and has been very clear about this.
The hatred for Elon/Twitter is only coming from the left, because of the potential of having to live by the same rules on a single platform. This should cause everyone pause. This is no different from a totalitarian regime feeling like they are losing control and moving to suppress all ideas and media not in alignment with them.
It will be very interesting to watch this develop. If our government gets involved and treats Twitter with a heavy hand, well, I have lived in places resembling where this is going. You won't like it.
Absolutely agreed. And that should be applied EQUALLY, which has not and does not happen.
That is the problem. Hatred from the left has had a free pass in social media and the 90% of media outlets that support the ideology. People even cheer them on, not realizing just how much damage they are causing and how ugly the slipper slope actually is.
As an independent, that is what is deeply disturbing to me. My vote is already irrelevant in California. It has been for decades. I am taxed. I am not represented. And my voice? If I dare side with republicans in a public way, my life could be absolutely ruined by the violent left.
Here's what's interesting:
I have actually lived under military regime. So has my entire family. We absolutely cannot believe how the left in the US has become very much the kind of thing anyone who has lived under oppressive regimes will recognize as such.
The left, in this nation, has done an amazing job of taking over educational institutions and indoctrinating young ignorant minds. That's what we are battling. It isn't about wanting to go full-tilt-right, that is also a horrible reality that nobody wants to live under. Neither extreme should have control of a nation, because they are both detrimental to society.
> If someone is saying "jews are vermin", they absolutely have to be gagged.
No. That's wrong. You want to know who they are.
You want human garbage like that in the open. You don't want them hiding. As the descendant of genocide survivors, I want assholes like in plain view. I want them to be well-lit, not in the shadows.
So, yeah, forgive me for thinking that moderation and rules applied EQUALLY to all sides is actually better for not only this nation, but humanity as well. Notice I said "moderation". Nobody with two connected neurons wants a free-for-all or thinks that is a good thing. Elon certainly does not and has been very clear about this.
The hatred for Elon/Twitter is only coming from the left, because of the potential of having to live by the same rules on a single platform. This should cause everyone pause. This is no different from a totalitarian regime feeling like they are losing control and moving to suppress all ideas and media not in alignment with them.
It will be very interesting to watch this develop. If our government gets involved and treats Twitter with a heavy hand, well, I have lived in places resembling where this is going. You won't like it.
> Protection of free speech, its intent atleast, is to protect citizens from governments.
I believe you are describing the 1st amendment.
Freedom of speech exists as a philosophical concept outside of the 1st amendment. The 1st amendment is simply the application of that concept to the American constitution.
I believe you are describing the 1st amendment.
Freedom of speech exists as a philosophical concept outside of the 1st amendment. The 1st amendment is simply the application of that concept to the American constitution.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/1/21544501/facebook-rules-p...
As always the right wing is better at working the refs
>Over the past several months, conservative groups— including associates of President Trump— were often not penalized by Facebook for violating its rules because people at the company worried about the perception of anti-conservative bias, The Washington Post reported.
As always the right wing is better at working the refs
>Over the past several months, conservative groups— including associates of President Trump— were often not penalized by Facebook for violating its rules because people at the company worried about the perception of anti-conservative bias, The Washington Post reported.
If they wanted to really add value, they could write their decisions like SCOTUS does, as the reasoning in the decisions would be available to all involved, and they would be taking ownership of their assessments, with Elon as a tiebreaker for them.
The discourse around those decisions itself would add value to the platform and the internet. The "public editor" role at newspapers is close, but it's still one person, and they're usually just sustaining critical narrative anyway, but run it like SCOTUS instead. I'd like to see the arguments and rationale of the people who prevail, and the ones who dissent, as it demonstreates the integrity and legitimacy necessary to wield this kind of power, imo.
The main tension in the culture comes down to really old dichotomies between material vs. essential, and the material has prevailed so much that language itself has been subordinated to exigent material ends. The balance I would strike on a board like that would be any decision would need to sit on a foundation of open principles and axioms, many of which could seem to be in conflict with each other, and then the given situation would indicate which principle prevails in a given decision.
That way, even if you get ruled against, or a policy comes out that sweeps you up in it, you have been given your just due.
The discourse around those decisions itself would add value to the platform and the internet. The "public editor" role at newspapers is close, but it's still one person, and they're usually just sustaining critical narrative anyway, but run it like SCOTUS instead. I'd like to see the arguments and rationale of the people who prevail, and the ones who dissent, as it demonstreates the integrity and legitimacy necessary to wield this kind of power, imo.
The main tension in the culture comes down to really old dichotomies between material vs. essential, and the material has prevailed so much that language itself has been subordinated to exigent material ends. The balance I would strike on a board like that would be any decision would need to sit on a foundation of open principles and axioms, many of which could seem to be in conflict with each other, and then the given situation would indicate which principle prevails in a given decision.
That way, even if you get ruled against, or a policy comes out that sweeps you up in it, you have been given your just due.
The departure from that analogy is the fact that we the people do not really have influence over who gets elected to this counsel. Power in the wrong hands is just as dangerous
But I thought we were supposed to go along with "Private corporation, they can do whatever" line? See Cloudflare/Kiwifarms incident.
With facebook dying, twitter getting bought out, reddit's eutrophication, and tiktok on the rise, it seems like things have unsettled quite a bit
The next couple years are going to be very interesting. Facebook will probably get bought out or something. For twitter, I can't really say. Reddit is probably going to become even more repulsive (and hopefully gets replaced). Hopefully tiktok goes away also :/
Also interesting to see the phrase "diversity of viewpoint" catching on so quickly
The next couple years are going to be very interesting. Facebook will probably get bought out or something. For twitter, I can't really say. Reddit is probably going to become even more repulsive (and hopefully gets replaced). Hopefully tiktok goes away also :/
Also interesting to see the phrase "diversity of viewpoint" catching on so quickly
“Eutrophication is the process by which an entire body of water, or parts of it, becomes progressively enriched with minerals and nutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus. It has also been defined as "nutrient-induced increase in phytoplankton productivity"
What is happening to Reddit?
What is happening to Reddit?
Toxic algal blooms like crimson tide can tend to choke off and kill all other life in a body of water that experiences eutrophication. It's actually such a regular thing in the Salton Sea from nearby fertilizer runoff that you could drive by and see rotting fish carcasses littering the shoreline. Probably means something analogous to that.
One missing part of the definition is that the increased nutrients cause algae to overgrow and reduce oxygen supply in the water, killing the fish
The process is similar to what's happened to reddit: new users come in like agricultural runoff, which leads to overgrowth of more suffocating aspects of the site culture
The process is similar to what's happened to reddit: new users come in like agricultural runoff, which leads to overgrowth of more suffocating aspects of the site culture
It seems like if these general purpose social networks aren’t resilient to the population growing and diversifying…. I mean, I’m not saying there isn’t plenty of evidence to suggest this is hard if not impossible (ahem twitter) but it also seems like a real crisis to wha the internet should be.
On the one hand a social network that appeals to everyone will appeal to no one, on the other hand an internet built on the idea of exclusivity just seems. Incompatible? I’m not sure what the word is but there’s a paradox here somewhere.
On the one hand a social network that appeals to everyone will appeal to no one, on the other hand an internet built on the idea of exclusivity just seems. Incompatible? I’m not sure what the word is but there’s a paradox here somewhere.
Is HN next?
An easy place to see this is reddit.com/r/ar_mr_xr it used to be a lot of people in the field with great info in the comment sections, but now it's a bunch of vrchat kids who fanboy zuck like some kind of messiah.
It's been around for a while. "Viewpoint diversity" has been on the rise since the early 2010s at least, especially among thinktank Republicans and the intellectual/philosophical fringe of the liberal elite.
I recall hearing the phrase a lot in the context of overbearing DEI initiatives (now commonplace) that were criticized for being too superficial in their concern with diversity of "race" rather than diversity of opinion.
I recall hearing the phrase a lot in the context of overbearing DEI initiatives (now commonplace) that were criticized for being too superficial in their concern with diversity of "race" rather than diversity of opinion.
"Forming a committee", the slowest, most expensive way to say "we have nooooo idea how to solve this".
The second part of the Tweet is equally interesting.
> No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.
This gives him at least a temporary respite from the Trump question.
> No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.
This gives him at least a temporary respite from the Trump question.
but what about "full self moderating?!"
jokes aside. there actually could be some opportunity to do some really cool stuff like some kind of experimental political science. like, mechanisms for population clustering and distribution of representation.
like, running human clustering algorithms and then using the size of those clusters to allocate representation. a blueprint for future attempts at stable democracy that don't rely on gerrymanderable geographic hand drawn borders or hand picked classifications.
jokes aside. there actually could be some opportunity to do some really cool stuff like some kind of experimental political science. like, mechanisms for population clustering and distribution of representation.
like, running human clustering algorithms and then using the size of those clusters to allocate representation. a blueprint for future attempts at stable democracy that don't rely on gerrymanderable geographic hand drawn borders or hand picked classifications.
Twitter isn't a government entity. If anything, simply removing algorithms and stop suggesting content and let people set rules on how much or what type of content by other users is seen is sufficient.
content moderation in any form is policy, is political, is governance. they're talking about setting up a council with diverse viewpoints, that's an attempt at representative government!
they already support blocklists and most of the content it suggests is directly related to your activity on the site. it seems they have a small random factor, but it's pretty easy to ignore or block if you don't like it.
but honestly, that's not really the issue. i think it's more a matter of a change in the fabric of how humans communicate and organize. everyone can see that it's powerful, nobody is quite sure or agrees on what the adoption curve looks like. some think you just throw it out there and wait for the dust to settle, others think that's a path to armageddon and that a dampened rollout is necessary. who knows what's right, but there's a good chance we're about to find out.
they already support blocklists and most of the content it suggests is directly related to your activity on the site. it seems they have a small random factor, but it's pretty easy to ignore or block if you don't like it.
but honestly, that's not really the issue. i think it's more a matter of a change in the fabric of how humans communicate and organize. everyone can see that it's powerful, nobody is quite sure or agrees on what the adoption curve looks like. some think you just throw it out there and wait for the dust to settle, others think that's a path to armageddon and that a dampened rollout is necessary. who knows what's right, but there's a good chance we're about to find out.
No there isn't. Twitter isn't the bastion of communication for human connection. It is a place for people seeking attention to spew their PR snippets. For God's sake, please go out into nature and then take a walk somewhere with people before suggesting that Twitter is the place for humans to communicate and organize.
i didn't say it was a bastion of communication for human connection, i said it (the internet) represents "a change in the fabric of how humans communicate and organize."
the number of edges per node in the walk in the woods with friends graph is much smaller than the number of edges per node in the social media universe, with twitter being a crazy power law distribution.
the number of edges per node in the walk in the woods with friends graph is much smaller than the number of edges per node in the social media universe, with twitter being a crazy power law distribution.
By going private he doesn’t need to show numbers to investors every quarter to justify himself. He can play a longer game if he’s competent enough to
Might theoretically work as long as you have no Trumpers/MAGA types on the council.
If you put them on the council they'll try to ban their political opponents and allow every kooky antivax and racist far right tweet.
If you put them on the council they'll try to ban their political opponents and allow every kooky antivax and racist far right tweet.
Kooky antivax = the people who have been correctly calling COVID for the past three years
Racist = like calling Kanye West the n-word on twitter. Oh wait that was one of your blue checks.
Racist = like calling Kanye West the n-word on twitter. Oh wait that was one of your blue checks.
Might probably happen.
But what DID happen though, is the opposite team doing the same and banning anything or anyone right-wing.
But what DID happen though, is the opposite team doing the same and banning anything or anyone right-wing.
You think there is nothing right wing on Twitter?
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/28/eu-official-warns-musk-hell-...
will still have to oblige. Definitely no "hate speech, incitement to terrorism and child sexual abuse."
For his part, Musk has said he wouldn’t allow illegal content on the platform.
will still have to oblige. Definitely no "hate speech, incitement to terrorism and child sexual abuse."
For his part, Musk has said he wouldn’t allow illegal content on the platform.
At least in the US, there's a lot of noxious speech that's legal. The US has very permissive free speech laws overall.
And conversely the US is one of the most restrictive nations on earth when it comes to speech that supposedly infringes Copyrights or can be interpreted as defamation/slander. The premise that US has anything resembling freedom of speech is completely untrue.
> the most restrictive nations on earth when it comes to speech that supposedly infringes Copyrights
That's absolutely true.
> or can be interpreted as defamation/slander
That's absolutely false. The United States tends to be much harder to press a defamation/slander case than many other territories. Perhaps you're thinking of the United Kingdom? They have much looser libel laws than the United States.
That's absolutely true.
> or can be interpreted as defamation/slander
That's absolutely false. The United States tends to be much harder to press a defamation/slander case than many other territories. Perhaps you're thinking of the United Kingdom? They have much looser libel laws than the United States.
Libel/slander are famously hard to prove in the US. Sure you're not thinking of the UK?
Are peer nations substantially more liberal on copyright infringement than the US? I haven't really heard of that. Really, it seemed like other countries like Japan and Germany were stricter.
Are peer nations substantially more liberal on copyright infringement than the US? I haven't really heard of that. Really, it seemed like other countries like Japan and Germany were stricter.
Didn’t an entertainer in the US recently get sued for millions of dollars over Defamation simply for repeating a popular internet conspiracy theory on his show-that some public figures were supposedly “crisis actors”? (Peoples who’s names he never even mentioned, at that..)
If calling public figures actors is all it takes for them to successfully sue for millions, the bar seems incredibly low.
If calling public figures actors is all it takes for them to successfully sue for millions, the bar seems incredibly low.
> Didn’t an entertainer in the US recently get sued for millions of dollars over Defamation simply for repeating a popular internet conspiracy theory on his show-that some public figures were supposedly “crisis actors”?
No.
First, the Sandy Hook parents were not public figures.
Second, Jones and Infowars did significantly more than just make claims about people being crisis actors (though, that in itself absolutely can be defamatory in that it was a false statement of fact). There were also claims that some parent's fabricated their daughter's identify and then faked her death in order to steal money from hard-working Americans.
Third, this was not a matter of Jones simply making an assertion once. He repeated these claims for years, which led to a significant and ongoing harassment of the family.
The original complaint is here, though I'll note that it's from 2018 and much more evidence was discovered since the complaint was filed: https://civilinquiry.jud.ct.gov/DocumentInquiry/DocumentInqu....
Fourth, Jones refused to participate in the lawsuit itself, deliberately and repeatedly not complying with repeated discovery orders. This led to a default judgement against him.
Fifth, an entire trial was held on how much damage Jones' defamatory statements and unfair trade practices caused. A jury of his peers determined that Jones' defamatory actions caused $965 Million dollars in damages.
So, I think your characterization of it as "an entertainer simply repeating a popular internet conspiracy theory on his show" is an absolutely incomplete summary of what happened, and why he was found to be liable for his actions.
Which jurisdiction(s) do you think would have afforded more protections to Jones' defamatory conduct?
The entire docket can be found here: https://civilinquiry.jud.ct.gov/CaseDetail/PublicCaseDetail....
No.
First, the Sandy Hook parents were not public figures.
Second, Jones and Infowars did significantly more than just make claims about people being crisis actors (though, that in itself absolutely can be defamatory in that it was a false statement of fact). There were also claims that some parent's fabricated their daughter's identify and then faked her death in order to steal money from hard-working Americans.
Third, this was not a matter of Jones simply making an assertion once. He repeated these claims for years, which led to a significant and ongoing harassment of the family.
The original complaint is here, though I'll note that it's from 2018 and much more evidence was discovered since the complaint was filed: https://civilinquiry.jud.ct.gov/DocumentInquiry/DocumentInqu....
Fourth, Jones refused to participate in the lawsuit itself, deliberately and repeatedly not complying with repeated discovery orders. This led to a default judgement against him.
Fifth, an entire trial was held on how much damage Jones' defamatory statements and unfair trade practices caused. A jury of his peers determined that Jones' defamatory actions caused $965 Million dollars in damages.
So, I think your characterization of it as "an entertainer simply repeating a popular internet conspiracy theory on his show" is an absolutely incomplete summary of what happened, and why he was found to be liable for his actions.
Which jurisdiction(s) do you think would have afforded more protections to Jones' defamatory conduct?
The entire docket can be found here: https://civilinquiry.jud.ct.gov/CaseDetail/PublicCaseDetail....
Jones didn't bother to show up to court to defend himself, so the plaintiffs won by default.
Wait, doesn't the US generally have really high standards for what can meet defamation/slander? Esp. compared with other western countries?
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The USA has the concept of both fair use and public domain, which is lacking in many other countries copyright laws. The idea that the USA is uniquely IP owner friendly is commonplace in the tech community but wrong.
"Very permissive" seems an odd way to put it. It's a human right. The way this is stated is just as if giving women the right to do everything men can do was "very permissive."
We're not just talking about basic political speech freedoms, there's plenty of gray area about.
For example, the US and UK both have laws on libel/slander (I think most countries do), but the US is much more permissive than the UK, in the sense that it's a lot harder to prove that someone committed libel/slander.
Is it a "human right" to maliciously and publicly lie about whether some other person, say, killed a child for fun? You could certainly argue "people should be able to say whatever they want whenever they want", but I think most people would agree that some restrictions on that kind of speech is reasonable, because it ends up harming others.
For example, the US and UK both have laws on libel/slander (I think most countries do), but the US is much more permissive than the UK, in the sense that it's a lot harder to prove that someone committed libel/slander.
Is it a "human right" to maliciously and publicly lie about whether some other person, say, killed a child for fun? You could certainly argue "people should be able to say whatever they want whenever they want", but I think most people would agree that some restrictions on that kind of speech is reasonable, because it ends up harming others.
Before we can call free speech a human right we have to have a working definition of free speech, which is not actually easy
It’s definitely not “anyone can say anything any time”, even this is not allowed in the USA. Libel, defamation, lying under oath, these things are not covered under free speech, nor should they be.
In my opinion, there’s no such thing as freedom of speech. It’s like freedom in general. Freedom from choice is also one.
It’s definitely not “anyone can say anything any time”, even this is not allowed in the USA. Libel, defamation, lying under oath, these things are not covered under free speech, nor should they be.
In my opinion, there’s no such thing as freedom of speech. It’s like freedom in general. Freedom from choice is also one.
The EU doesn't have worldwide jurisdiction over prohibited speech. Why should an American company have to take down anything that's legal here, even if it wouldn't be there?
If twitter does want to be a public square and truly attempt to be neutral (as far as that is possible or realistic without letting it become a dumpster fire) should it have someone to act as a sort of an ombudsman? Is this what Musk is suggesting here? I guess the details will reveal that, one hopes that this group's decisions will be independent of the business implications or aspire to be.
There is Chinese leverage over Musk and the Saudis, so, it is diverse indeed.
[deleted]
So he’s not a free speech absolutist.
Which is a sane viewpoint.
Isn that how it should have been from the start...
I can't help but think this model will lead to over-representation of fanatical or fringe viewpoints.
Gay marriage is a fringe view point. Interracial marriage is a fringe viewpoint. Women voting is a fringe viewpoint. Abolishing slavery is a fringe viewpoint.
Every social progress that has ever occurred started out as a fringe viewpoint.
Every social progress that has ever occurred started out as a fringe viewpoint.
We had a referendum in Ireland on gay marriage. Over 62% of voters voted in favour of a constitutional change to allow it with a turnout of 61%. Hardly fringe to us. You're correct though it did start out that way.
I would imagine a uniform distribution of people from across racial, political, age, and socio-economic classes would be a good start. The theory is that if a moderation council is mostly well-off, white liberals, then their decisions will more likely contain bias from those sorts of people. A moderation council needs people of various ages, races, and political backgrounds so that the net bias in their decisions is reduced.
I would also imagine that a dozen people isn't enough to achieve a good enough distribution over these variables. They might need a more scaled moderation approach that involves potentially hundreds of individuals, like a jury, but much bigger.
I would also imagine that a dozen people isn't enough to achieve a good enough distribution over these variables. They might need a more scaled moderation approach that involves potentially hundreds of individuals, like a jury, but much bigger.
We have arrived at the peak of capitalism where corporations are as powerful as governments
I think they've been more powerful for decades now...
In such a diverse council, which in theory is good, you'll find that moderation policy will be dominated by whatever the "marginalized" members say. Which quite likely is the way it already works.
> I would also imagine that a dozen people isn't enough to achieve a good enough distribution over these variables. They might need a more scaled moderation approach that involves potentially hundreds of individuals, like a jury, but much bigger.
I like that; add in "banning decisions must be unanimous" and I think you'll have better decisions.
I like that; add in "banning decisions must be unanimous" and I think you'll have better decisions.
Elon Musk repeated Jonathan Greenblatt’s line “I believe in freedom of speech, but I don’t believe in freedom of reach.” (which is not very journalistic of them) on a leaked phone call with Twitter management a few months back, so even Musk knows whose really in charge here: the ADL. So don’t worry too much about Twitter. PayPal re-reintroduced their $2,500 fine for misinformation just as the Twitter deal went through, so that’s the backup plan for censorship advocates.
Fundamentally twitter didn't twirl their moustache and aim to shutdown conservatives. There was no conspiracy as it were but they didn't consider the consequences of decisions, ultimately culminating in shutting down conservatives.
If Elon ran roughshot in making decisions without considering consequences, he ends up in the same fundamental root cause problem twitter is already in. He understands this and hence why he's not making changes on read-only friday.
If Elon ran roughshot in making decisions without considering consequences, he ends up in the same fundamental root cause problem twitter is already in. He understands this and hence why he's not making changes on read-only friday.
I wonder who will decide what diverse viewpoints means exactly.
Yes - the boundaries on it. I’m sure the most woke collective believes they are diverse. So what does diverse mean? What’s included in that?
Far left anarchists? Far right fascists? Do Furries get a voice in the council?
Far left anarchists? Far right fascists? Do Furries get a voice in the council?
I don't think it's that hard.
The laws are the boundaries of it.
Then, you form the council but err on the side of not banning.
The laws are the boundaries of it.
Then, you form the council but err on the side of not banning.
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Yes, with luck we can get both Hannity AND Colmes.
Can't you solve the moderation problem by simply having the default view be the social graph of depth N of people you subscribe to?
In that case, unwanted comments actually provide useful information about your social graph.
In that case, unwanted comments actually provide useful information about your social graph.
The end result will be the emergence of a filter bubble industry - something you select, and choose to put up around your own feeds - as predicted by Neal Stephenson in Fall, or Dodge in Hell
Should have bought Reddit
Imagine for a moment how Musk responds to pressure from the Chinese government.
edit: Not to single out the chinese there is Germany, India, Iran and the rest of the Middle East.
Как тебе такое, илона маск?
edit: Not to single out the chinese there is Germany, India, Iran and the rest of the Middle East.
Как тебе такое, илона маск?
I’m excited to see the anarchists, marxist leninists, and police abolitionists be brings onto this diverse council
EM is going to bring technology from Tesla over to help, and Twitter instead will become fully self-moderating.
I hope this is sarcasm. Nothing in Tesla's stack can come close to fully auto-moderating online speech.
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So basically it's not the limiting of free speech, but who is doing it that was the problem.
Sounds like a spectacular waste of time that will never agree on anything, so why even bother?
"The election was stolen by Italian spy satellites" is not a viewpoint.
This is good news isn’t it, twitter has been this biased this can only do good
as long as it's not homogenously american it'll be a good thing
americans are pretty heterogenous, in all ways relevant to this situation.
What makes you say that? You can not possibly argue that 1 region in the world has people with all worldviews covered.
There are many more viewpoints than the American's.
Cannibalism? Shocking or untapped resource? Not all viewpoints are equal
It would be amazing if a council with diverse viewpoints could even sit together without killing each other in this day and age. Does this exist anywhere?
Yes, this is how social interaction in the real world, or even smaller online communities, has worked for ages.
It's only on pseudonymous mega-sites like Twitter, Reddit and HN where jumping down people's throats for having an opposing viewpoint is even a thing.
It's only on pseudonymous mega-sites like Twitter, Reddit and HN where jumping down people's throats for having an opposing viewpoint is even a thing.
Boy oh boy, I should take you to some Board of Education meetings.
These are actually fine in most places.
You only see videos of the out of control ones because they're the weird ones.
If you only view the world through the snippets that are noteworthy enough to make headlines or get a lot of votes on Reddit, you end up with a very skewed view of what the world is like.
You only see videos of the out of control ones because they're the weird ones.
If you only view the world through the snippets that are noteworthy enough to make headlines or get a lot of votes on Reddit, you end up with a very skewed view of what the world is like.
> If you only view the world through the snippets that are noteworthy enough to make headlines or get a lot of votes on Reddit, you end up with a very skewed view of what the world is like.
I think this very much depends on where you live. I'm not responding to reddit videos, I'm responding to events that my family and some friends who are in public education.
I think this very much depends on where you live. I'm not responding to reddit videos, I'm responding to events that my family and some friends who are in public education.
cm42(1)
No it isn't. Small online communities are generally run as a dictatorship. If you disagree with the mods, well screw you.
In the real world it's a bit more nuanced because people care more about conflict in the real world. But even so there's usually a core group of people with similar beliefs and outsiders are pushed away.
In the corporate world conflicting viewpoints in e.g. religion or politics are generally dealt with by making talking about them taboo or explicitly banning it.
When you don't do that you get the mess that Google has found itself in several times recently where someone makes some comment that the majority disagree with (positive discrimination is bad, AI is sentient, etc) and other employees call for them to be fired.
I can't think of many groups that actually manage to get people with opposing viewpoints to get on with each other without just banning talking about them. Universities maybe. The army perhaps?
In the real world it's a bit more nuanced because people care more about conflict in the real world. But even so there's usually a core group of people with similar beliefs and outsiders are pushed away.
In the corporate world conflicting viewpoints in e.g. religion or politics are generally dealt with by making talking about them taboo or explicitly banning it.
When you don't do that you get the mess that Google has found itself in several times recently where someone makes some comment that the majority disagree with (positive discrimination is bad, AI is sentient, etc) and other employees call for them to be fired.
I can't think of many groups that actually manage to get people with opposing viewpoints to get on with each other without just banning talking about them. Universities maybe. The army perhaps?
Facebook seems to be the most politically divisive to me and it's not pseudonymous.
So it seems people don’t say in public what they really think? Would that explain why we have very different votes during democratic elections compared to what media wants?
You know, there are best practices for moderating discussions.
https://coralproject.net/blog/five-myths-of-community-design...
https://coralproject.net/blog/five-myths-of-community-design...
the hypothesis that attaching real names to posts improves civility is over ten years out of date
"With real names" is not the same as "in the real world."
There is a massive difference between me seeing a stranger's real name next to a Facebook post about how abortion is evil, and me having a conversation with a good friend of 10 years, or my mom, and it comes up that they're pro-life.
We might have a long debate, but in the end, they're still my friend or family.
There is a massive difference between me seeing a stranger's real name next to a Facebook post about how abortion is evil, and me having a conversation with a good friend of 10 years, or my mom, and it comes up that they're pro-life.
We might have a long debate, but in the end, they're still my friend or family.
Have you been anywhere near a university lately? There’s a contingent of super militant students, supported by certain faculty, that spend their time policing who is allowed to have a “platform” and what’s acceptable speech.
Tbh, it's worse in the real world, at least in the U.S., with the Democratic-Republican divide. I've personally witnessed extreme rage, foul language yelled at very loud voices, when folks from these two sides met (and talked about anything that was even slightly contentious).
In the real world, sure. The Internet would have us believe that civil war is imminent. We need to stop letting the 1% of people who bother to post online drive our national dialog. We have put the crazies in charge of the asylum.
> The Internet would have us believe that civil war is imminent.
The person who could arguably be considered the third most powerful politician in the US just had their own broken into and their spouse assaulted in a suspected act of domestic terrorism. I wouldn't say "imminent" but if you don't think the possibility is at least somewhere on the table I would consider that being naive.
The person who could arguably be considered the third most powerful politician in the US just had their own broken into and their spouse assaulted in a suspected act of domestic terrorism. I wouldn't say "imminent" but if you don't think the possibility is at least somewhere on the table I would consider that being naive.
American society was far closer to breaking down in 1968 than it is today. Riots in multiple cities, political assassinations, the polarization over the war in Vietnam, violence in the south over segregation and civil rights, crime waves in most large cities, and urban decay that was so bad people don't believe it when they see the photos today...
There's merit in that comparison but there was nothing like an armed group storming the Capitol with a goal of preventing a fair and honest election. What makes the civil war questions more worrisome to me is how bare-knuckle politics has become so accepted by mainstream Republicans: when Nixon's misconduct came out, his party support eventually declined and had he not resigned, most members of his party would almost certainly have voted for impeachment. Today we're seeing the results of a generation of ideological purges where more significant acts have been met instead with near-unanimous agreement to hold the line and the few dissenters have been evicted from the party.
In 2020 in Ottawa, a man rammed through the gates of the Prime Minister's residence with a vehicle. He was in body armour and carrying multiple firearms. He claims he just wanted to meet with the PM, who thankfully wasn't home at the time. Is Canada on the verge of civil war?
Multiple US presidents have been assassinated! Political violence is shocking but not actually so rare that we should latch on to any specific incident with particular meaning. It's particularly meaningless when it is the act of a single person who is somewhat deranged. If an organized group takes out a politician or other official, and this act had some support with the public, then we should start worrying.
Multiple US presidents have been assassinated! Political violence is shocking but not actually so rare that we should latch on to any specific incident with particular meaning. It's particularly meaningless when it is the act of a single person who is somewhat deranged. If an organized group takes out a politician or other official, and this act had some support with the public, then we should start worrying.
In Arizona, bands of visibly-armed thugs are parking themselves around mail-in voting points taking videos and pictures...and even following people in their cars to see where they go. There's a 75 foot distance law, but that doesn't mean much.
What happens if the also-armed liberals get sick of this crap, and the confrontations escalate?
It's not civil war, but it can lead to ugly conflicts.
What happens if the also-armed liberals get sick of this crap, and the confrontations escalate?
It's not civil war, but it can lead to ugly conflicts.
The thing isn't so much that there are incidents of violence, but rather that there are ideas where violence is both logical and even moral.
Let's take Trump's election fraud claims for example; if you genuinely believe that the election was stolen then violence would be a very reasonable and even moral action in literal defence of democracy. I sure hope a lot of people would rise up if such an event would ever actually happen. Of course, Trump's claims are a load of utter nonsense, but my point is that people seem to genuinely believe it and that violence is a logical and moral result.
This is what worries me. That there's the occasional nutjob or conflict that gets out of hand: yeah, that's "normal". But these kind of ideas ... I'd say not so much. That we haven't seen more violence leads me to suspect many "election deniers" don't actually believe Trump's claims as strongly as they say they do.
Let's take Trump's election fraud claims for example; if you genuinely believe that the election was stolen then violence would be a very reasonable and even moral action in literal defence of democracy. I sure hope a lot of people would rise up if such an event would ever actually happen. Of course, Trump's claims are a load of utter nonsense, but my point is that people seem to genuinely believe it and that violence is a logical and moral result.
This is what worries me. That there's the occasional nutjob or conflict that gets out of hand: yeah, that's "normal". But these kind of ideas ... I'd say not so much. That we haven't seen more violence leads me to suspect many "election deniers" don't actually believe Trump's claims as strongly as they say they do.
> Is Canada on the verge of civil war?
So, the difference between the two countries is that this viewpoint in Canada is a fringe one, while in the United States, it enjoys popular support among mainstream politicians and media. Oh, they don't directly endorse violence, but they are very happy to call for someone to 'remove this turbulent priest'.
That's the difference between fringe lunacy (present in every country, shit happens, you deal with it and move on), and the peaceful political process unraveling.
Just a reminder - one of the presidential candidates in the past two elections has yet to concede that he lost the popular vote in 2016, as well as the popular vote and the electoral college in 2020[1]. This sort of insanity is so far beyond the political pale in Canada, I can't even envision it.
[1] My state's gubernatorial candidate has also yet to concede that he lost 43-56 in 2020. Why even have elections if the losers don't accept the results?
So, the difference between the two countries is that this viewpoint in Canada is a fringe one, while in the United States, it enjoys popular support among mainstream politicians and media. Oh, they don't directly endorse violence, but they are very happy to call for someone to 'remove this turbulent priest'.
That's the difference between fringe lunacy (present in every country, shit happens, you deal with it and move on), and the peaceful political process unraveling.
Just a reminder - one of the presidential candidates in the past two elections has yet to concede that he lost the popular vote in 2016, as well as the popular vote and the electoral college in 2020[1]. This sort of insanity is so far beyond the political pale in Canada, I can't even envision it.
[1] My state's gubernatorial candidate has also yet to concede that he lost 43-56 in 2020. Why even have elections if the losers don't accept the results?
Also a reminder - a left-wing nut shot Scalise during a baseball game. Rand Paul was attacked at his home and had his ribs broken. There was an assassination plot against a conservative-leaning Supreme Court justice.
The right does not own the monopoly on violent nutjobs among their ranks. Sadly, they exist everywhere, left, right, and center.
The right does not own the monopoly on violent nutjobs among their ranks. Sadly, they exist everywhere, left, right, and center.
In Rand Paul's case it was just a conflict with his neighbour over leaves in the garden or some such incredibly stupid thing like that, right? I don't believe there was a political motive behind that one.
Yep. The extremes have gotten crazier. Hence the thought that civil war or at least a really nasty escalation could happen.
No, they haven't. The left used to have people like the Weathermen, the civil rights movement used to have the Black Panthers. Nowadays, there aren't any groups with their reach or methods, whereas their equivalents on the right have exploded in popularity, mindshare, and political reach.
That explosion is what made Jan 6th possible two years ago, and what will give legs to the next try.
That explosion is what made Jan 6th possible two years ago, and what will give legs to the next try.
In my lifetime, no one on the left tried to assassinate a conservative Supreme Court justice until the last few years. It’s gotten more extreme.
The left might not be as crazy as they were in the 60s or whatever, but things are more heated today than at any point in my 30 year memory.
The left might not be as crazy as they were in the 60s or whatever, but things are more heated today than at any point in my 30 year memory.
Ironically, the suspect in the Pelosi terrorist act was born in Canada...
I don't want to call it insignificant, but the US has a long history of more significant political violence that did not signal impending civil war. With a nation of 330M people, there are going to be a rather large number (in absolute numbers) that are unhinged.
If anything, it's kind of amazing that the combination of a large population, low regulation, and easy access to firearms hasn't resulted in more violence than it has.
If anything, it's kind of amazing that the combination of a large population, low regulation, and easy access to firearms hasn't resulted in more violence than it has.
And you've got MAGA "prophets" out there "prophesying" about the "Angel of Death" visiting their political opponents before the end of 2022.
And you have Bernie supporters shooting up GOP softball games, democrats setting fire to court houses, and radical groups running over Christmas parades attendees because they were white.
Still not as bad or unstable as the 1960s.
Still not as bad or unstable as the 1960s.
There’s a key difference: Darrell Brooks didn’t launch his attack for Democratic goals and no Democrat supports his actions. The protesters in Portland did not have the support of Democratic leaders and tended to criticize them almost as heavily they do Republicans. James Hodgkinson was definitely a leftist but his actions got immediate and complete rejection from Democratic leaders, including Bernie Sanders unequivocal condemnation.
Contrast this with the way Republican politicians and media are hesitant to condemn the January 6th attack or cross Trump on almost any topic, and calls for political violence have been the subject of jokes and outright support from leaders & candidates for years. Those topics poll favorably with far too many Republicans to consider them fringe issues.
That’s scary for anyone who believes in fair elections or the rule of law because, as we’ve seen, those people feel emboldened and are expanding. There are a large number of election deniers running for office this year and they’re all members of one party, with almost no internal pushback.
Contrast this with the way Republican politicians and media are hesitant to condemn the January 6th attack or cross Trump on almost any topic, and calls for political violence have been the subject of jokes and outright support from leaders & candidates for years. Those topics poll favorably with far too many Republicans to consider them fringe issues.
That’s scary for anyone who believes in fair elections or the rule of law because, as we’ve seen, those people feel emboldened and are expanding. There are a large number of election deniers running for office this year and they’re all members of one party, with almost no internal pushback.
Now do all the crazy shit that democrats were saying during the "mostly peaceful" BLM riots that did $2,000,000,000 in damage, hurt thousands of cops, hurts thousands of civilians, destroyed thousands of buildings, tens of thousands of cars, and wrecked thousands of American lives - many of them the minorities that BLM claim to support - even though they spent millions on questions "jobs" for family members and millions more on lavish mansions. All of the prominent democrats were behind the BLM violence 100%. Even our VP was bailing out bad actors who would just end up getting arrested again.
Ah election deniers...
Like:
Joe Biden, 2019: “I absolutely” agree that Trump is an “illegitimate president.”
Hillary Clinton, 2019: The election was “stolen.”
Jimmy Carter, 2019: “Trump didn’t actually win the election in 2016. He lost the election and was put into office because the Russians interference on his behalf.”
Kamala Harris, 2019: “Absolutely right” that Trump “didn’t really win.”
Karine Jean-Pierre, 2016: It was a “stolen election.”
Jerry Nadler, 2017: It was a “tainted” and “illegitimate” election.
Ah election deniers...
Like:
Joe Biden, 2019: “I absolutely” agree that Trump is an “illegitimate president.”
Hillary Clinton, 2019: The election was “stolen.”
Jimmy Carter, 2019: “Trump didn’t actually win the election in 2016. He lost the election and was put into office because the Russians interference on his behalf.”
Kamala Harris, 2019: “Absolutely right” that Trump “didn’t really win.”
Karine Jean-Pierre, 2016: It was a “stolen election.”
Jerry Nadler, 2017: It was a “tainted” and “illegitimate” election.
You have GOP party members actively supporting a coup. And intend to do so again.
Worse than the 1960s.
Worse than the 1960s.
I really don't think there's a straight line from this kind of lone-wolf domestic terrorism to civil war. A civil war happens when people who aren't mentally unstable, normal people just like you and I, decide that suchandsuch political objective is so important that our fellow citizens have to be shot in order to achieve it. If that seems like a crazy idea to you (it certianly does to me!) then a civil war isn't yet on the table.
A period of severe unrest like we had in the 60s? That's definitely a possibility.
A period of severe unrest like we had in the 60s? That's definitely a possibility.
It's not lone wolf terrorism though, it's an organized + well funded movement to end US democracy. They control a bit over 50% of the Republican party, and a growing percentage of the courts (including the supreme court).
Heck; Biden is would be considered right wing in most developing countries, and here's his take:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/20...
> Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.
Now, I want to be very clear — (applause) — very clear up front: Not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology.
I know because I’ve been able to work with these mainstream Republicans.
But there is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country.
These are hard things.
But I’m an American President — not the President of red America or blue America, but of all America.
And I believe it is my duty — my duty to level with you, to tell the truth no matter how difficult, no matter how painful.
And here, in my view, is what is true: MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people.
They refuse to accept the results of a free election. And they’re working right now, as I speak, in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself.
(Sept 1, 2022)
Heck; Biden is would be considered right wing in most developing countries, and here's his take:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/20...
> Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.
Now, I want to be very clear — (applause) — very clear up front: Not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology.
I know because I’ve been able to work with these mainstream Republicans.
But there is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country.
These are hard things.
But I’m an American President — not the President of red America or blue America, but of all America.
And I believe it is my duty — my duty to level with you, to tell the truth no matter how difficult, no matter how painful.
And here, in my view, is what is true: MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people.
They refuse to accept the results of a free election. And they’re working right now, as I speak, in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself.
(Sept 1, 2022)
> (including the supreme court)
This seems like paranoid thinking. The Supreme Court has shifted ideologically to the right, but I haven’t seen any evidence they are part of a conspiracy to end democracy.
This seems like paranoid thinking. The Supreme Court has shifted ideologically to the right, but I haven’t seen any evidence they are part of a conspiracy to end democracy.
Here's some evidence.
They ruled to allow state legislatures to override voters by changing state law to allow that:
https://news.yahoo.com/analysis-supreme-court-tilted-electio...
and an upcoming case to watch, where they're expected to further undermine laws:
https://www.npr.org/2022/06/30/1106866830/supreme-court-to-t...
They ruled to allow state legislatures to override voters by changing state law to allow that:
https://news.yahoo.com/analysis-supreme-court-tilted-electio...
and an upcoming case to watch, where they're expected to further undermine laws:
https://www.npr.org/2022/06/30/1106866830/supreme-court-to-t...
> Here's some evidence.
These are opinion pieces.
> They ruled to allow state legislatures to override voters by changing state law to allow that
No they didn’t. Nothing in the pieces linked states this.
> and an upcoming case to watch, where they're expected to further undermine laws:
This isn’t a meaningful sentence.
These are opinion pieces.
> They ruled to allow state legislatures to override voters by changing state law to allow that
No they didn’t. Nothing in the pieces linked states this.
> and an upcoming case to watch, where they're expected to further undermine laws:
This isn’t a meaningful sentence.
OK, if you don't believe commentators or legal analysts, then read the actual supreme court rulings and the case matter for the upcoming case. They are public record.
"These are opinion pieces."
That refer to facts such as throwing out the voting rights act, and the decision on gerrymandering? Maybe try reading the opinion pieces??
That refer to facts such as throwing out the voting rights act, and the decision on gerrymandering? Maybe try reading the opinion pieces??
Nobody has ‘thrown out’ the voting rights act. That’s an opinion. Part of it has not been upheld as constitutional.
The decision on gerrymandering is real.
But you seem to be thinking this is evidence of a conspiracy to end democracy rather than just normal bias. Even that piece admits that gerrymandering was invented by the democrats. This is just normal US politics at work.
The decision on gerrymandering is real.
But you seem to be thinking this is evidence of a conspiracy to end democracy rather than just normal bias. Even that piece admits that gerrymandering was invented by the democrats. This is just normal US politics at work.
"Nobody has ‘thrown out’ the voting rights act. That’s an opinion. Part of it has not been upheld as constitutional."
Semantics.
"The decision on gerrymandering is real."
Yes. It is.
"But you seem to be thinking this is evidence of a conspiracy to end democracy rather than just normal bias. Even that piece admits that gerrymandering was invented by the democrats. This is just normal US politics at work."
Do you not understand the difference between democratic and Democratic? Otherwise, what's the relevance of gerrymandering having been invented by Democrats. The court upholding it is anti democratic
Semantics.
"The decision on gerrymandering is real."
Yes. It is.
"But you seem to be thinking this is evidence of a conspiracy to end democracy rather than just normal bias. Even that piece admits that gerrymandering was invented by the democrats. This is just normal US politics at work."
Do you not understand the difference between democratic and Democratic? Otherwise, what's the relevance of gerrymandering having been invented by Democrats. The court upholding it is anti democratic
> Do you not understand the difference between democratic and Democratic? Otherwise, what's the relevance of gerrymandering having been invented by Democrats.
That it's a normal part of US politics engaged in by all political parties.
> The court upholding it is anti democratic.
Is it? If it's a normal part of US politics, that is far from clear.
The point is that it's not evidence of a conspiracy to end democracy.
That it's a normal part of US politics engaged in by all political parties.
> The court upholding it is anti democratic.
Is it? If it's a normal part of US politics, that is far from clear.
The point is that it's not evidence of a conspiracy to end democracy.
Hmm, why don't you wait until they let state legislatures throw out elections to be so sure?
You mean they haven’t actually done anything to undermine election results?
I meant exactly what I wrote. Feel free to let me know if there is something about it you don't understand.
They did already? There was a court case when the legislatures gave themselves the power to throw out elections. It went to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court ruling lets them throw out elections.
Prior attempts by states to do this in 2020 and 2000 failed in court, or led to the winning candidate (Gore) conceding, respectively. The 2020 standards that caused the election results to be upheld no longer apply in the states that changed their laws to take advantage of the new supreme court ruling.
What am I missing?
Prior attempts by states to do this in 2020 and 2000 failed in court, or led to the winning candidate (Gore) conceding, respectively. The 2020 standards that caused the election results to be upheld no longer apply in the states that changed their laws to take advantage of the new supreme court ruling.
What am I missing?
Again, this sounds very different from a scenario where a civil war is on the table. Biden's concern with "MAGA Republicans" is that they might win political power locally and use it to subvert national election results, not that they might shoot him and seize power by force. (Scare quotes because I find the term unhelpful, not because I disagree that such a group exists.)
Read the whole speech:
> They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.
They look at the mob that stormed the United States Capitol on January 6th — brutally attacking law enforcement — not as insurrectionists who placed a dagger to the throat of our democracy, but they look at them as patriots.
And they see their MAGA failure to stop a peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election as preparation for the 2022 and 2024 elections.
They tried everything last time to nullify the votes of 81 million people. This time, they’re determined to succeed in thwarting the will of the people.
That’s why respected conservatives, like Federal Circuit Court Judge Michael Luttig, has called Trump and the extreme MAGA Republicans, quote, a “clear and present danger” to our democracy.
> They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.
They look at the mob that stormed the United States Capitol on January 6th — brutally attacking law enforcement — not as insurrectionists who placed a dagger to the throat of our democracy, but they look at them as patriots.
And they see their MAGA failure to stop a peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election as preparation for the 2022 and 2024 elections.
They tried everything last time to nullify the votes of 81 million people. This time, they’re determined to succeed in thwarting the will of the people.
That’s why respected conservatives, like Federal Circuit Court Judge Michael Luttig, has called Trump and the extreme MAGA Republicans, quote, a “clear and present danger” to our democracy.
I just read about this, its crazy. "diverse" viewpoints indeed
> In the real world, sure.
Can you point at one? A council with "widely diverse viewpoints" that is actually an effective, tie-braking decision maker?
Can you point at one? A council with "widely diverse viewpoints" that is actually an effective, tie-braking decision maker?
Judge panels (like SCOTUS), county boards, city councils, school boards, non-profit boards and councils, corporate boards.
I actually don't think this is the case. Almost all of these in the US are largely bipartisan, not nonpartisan. In some cases they also tend to self select for people that favor certain viewpoints. NIMBYism is prevalent in local government, for example.
They're optimized to serve the interests of the two prevailing parties in the US, which aren't the only two legitimate viewpoints.
They're optimized to serve the interests of the two prevailing parties in the US, which aren't the only two legitimate viewpoints.
I’ve had better experiences and I also find that issues that aren’t neatly D or R weigh more heavily on them in smaller or more local jurisdictions. I think there is a good case to be made for a similar dynamic on a social media’s board, where the mechanics of good moderation and guidance, combined with cordial operating principles, should be too front-and-center to ignore.
I am not super familiar with US judicial bodies and what their mandate actually entails, but, in general, what judges do fundamentally revolves around interpreting laws and/or constitutions.
Twitter does, of course, also have to comply with law. In regards to this council we are however specifically focusing on an area, that is not already decided by law. Coming up with a decision in a "wildly diverse group" without the need to argue along law (because that is not what your mandate asks for), is a very, very different setup.
I feel the other examples are problematic for other reasons, i.e. "city councils": In the EU people get elected into these positions and no one mechanism will be placed for them to have "wildly different viewpoints". They get elected to get something done, which will then revolve around making compromises, or just not being involved in the process.
Twitter does, of course, also have to comply with law. In regards to this council we are however specifically focusing on an area, that is not already decided by law. Coming up with a decision in a "wildly diverse group" without the need to argue along law (because that is not what your mandate asks for), is a very, very different setup.
I feel the other examples are problematic for other reasons, i.e. "city councils": In the EU people get elected into these positions and no one mechanism will be placed for them to have "wildly different viewpoints". They get elected to get something done, which will then revolve around making compromises, or just not being involved in the process.
Interesting. In the US councils represent different areas of their city or county, and those areas have different political party leanings as well as different economic and community goals, and that’s what brings the diversity to the governing body. There are cities that are too uniform for this to work well, of course.
Supreme Court justices, despite their huge partisan differences and passionate disagreements on many individual cases, often talk about how they personally enjoy working with each other. My impression is that this is true of many Congressional committees as well, although it's less legible there because most congressmembers find it politically advantageous to talk about how mad they are at the other party.
There's a huge amount of history there, though. It didn't just get formed this week. It's got some members who have been on the court since the early 90s. Some since the late 90s and others in the aughts. The SCOTUS has long-lived institutional memory and norms of behavior. It's members also tend to become somewhat isolated from what's going on in the culture outside.
Every institution was new at some point.
Sure. The Oversight Board. Facebook did exactly this years ago.
oversightboard.com/decisions
oversightboard.com/decisions
Interesting! Glancing at the board, there is a clear makeup of highly educated, decorated, democratic, liberal-ish people. I would be hard pressed to call this setup one that focuses on "wildly diverse viewpoints".
[deleted]
Surprisingly enough, the need for such things has been perceived and addressed before. A recent method that's widely used for organizing such things is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert%27s_Rules_of_Order
Yes, and it's been written up. It doesn't have a moderating effect, at least on its own: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/02/upshot/these-...
(It was covered by the Times but paid for by a non-partisan group, with researchers participating)
(It was covered by the Times but paid for by a non-partisan group, with researchers participating)
The article you linked seems to show that it did, in fact, have a moderating effect?
> NORC surveyed the group before the conference, and again on the same questions at the end; the results were compared with a similar panel of voters who did not get an intense dose of deliberative democracy in the interim. Voters at the event on both the left and the right appeared to edge toward the center. Democratic support receded for a $15 federal minimum wage and for “Medicare for all”; Republican support grew for rejoining the Paris climate agreement and for protecting from deportation immigrants brought to the United States as children.
> NORC surveyed the group before the conference, and again on the same questions at the end; the results were compared with a similar panel of voters who did not get an intense dose of deliberative democracy in the interim. Voters at the event on both the left and the right appeared to edge toward the center. Democratic support receded for a $15 federal minimum wage and for “Medicare for all”; Republican support grew for rejoining the Paris climate agreement and for protecting from deportation immigrants brought to the United States as children.
526 people is not what I’d consider a “council”. That’s the size of a large high school graduating class.
In the real world, sane people have diverse opinions and are civil all the time.
It's the politicians and similar race-baiters who benefit from convincing citizens that they should hate eachother.
It's the politicians and similar race-baiters who benefit from convincing citizens that they should hate eachother.
Maybe that's part of the plan. They can livestream the council meetings on Twitter's new streaming service. That's their first show. Every season starts in the boardroom but ends on Twitter Island. It's a real life hybrid of The Hunger Games and Squid Game.
The future of entertainment is a modern twist on old school gladiators. Elon Musk is our Augustus.
The future of entertainment is a modern twist on old school gladiators. Elon Musk is our Augustus.
Diverse is pretty vague, maybe it’s just Elon and not Elon.
Twitter moves way faster than any council possibly could. By the time a council decides some content is bad the damage has been done and people have moved on.
Unbanning all the extreme right accounts will blow up twitter.
I would love to see some testing.
For two weeks: ban every Blue checkmark. Evaluate.
The next two weeks: ban every reporter. Evaluate.
The next two weeks: ban every politician. Evaluate.
The next two weeks: ban anyone without a Ukraine flag, vaccine, or mask on their profile. Evaluate.
The next two weeks: ban everyone with a Ukraine flag, vaccine, or mask on their profile. Evaluate.
Make it interesting and never tell people what you will ban for two weeks this time, but leave it up to them to figure out.
Run enough tests and you'll find the magical blend. Or conclude that the best course of action is simply to ban everyone.
For two weeks: ban every Blue checkmark. Evaluate.
The next two weeks: ban every reporter. Evaluate.
The next two weeks: ban every politician. Evaluate.
The next two weeks: ban anyone without a Ukraine flag, vaccine, or mask on their profile. Evaluate.
The next two weeks: ban everyone with a Ukraine flag, vaccine, or mask on their profile. Evaluate.
Make it interesting and never tell people what you will ban for two weeks this time, but leave it up to them to figure out.
Run enough tests and you'll find the magical blend. Or conclude that the best course of action is simply to ban everyone.
Good. Most such councils are echo chambers, because people who want to be on such councils are activists who want to destroy "the other".
Which makes for a stable state of echo chamber extremists.
Which makes for a stable state of echo chamber extremists.
Well you have to keep people in the uniparty otherwise they vote for extreme candidates.
The problem if living conditions don't improve, things get extreme regardless.
The problem if living conditions don't improve, things get extreme regardless.
typed while reclining on the best living conditions in the history of the planet
You mean genuine diversity (of thinking) instead of the fake, superficial kind (skin color, gender, sexual orientation etc)?
Sounds like a good idea to me..
Sounds like a good idea to me..
Probably a honeypot from Elon. He will solicit volunteers to self identify across the company and then fire them.
The Ministry of Truth?
This can only be good than bad. Twitter had let it loose for too long.
[deleted]
Delay decisions, set up a committee... wow, that was fast, he's already becoming Jack.
[EDIT:] The problem is that a "council with widely diverse viewpoints" is not going to come to consensus on moderation. They're inevitably going to disagree, just like in politics. So then what? How is lack of consensus not the inevitable outcome of a widely diverse committee?
[EDIT:] The problem is that a "council with widely diverse viewpoints" is not going to come to consensus on moderation. They're inevitably going to disagree, just like in politics. So then what? How is lack of consensus not the inevitable outcome of a widely diverse committee?
> How is lack of consensus not the inevitable outcome of a widely diverse committee?
That sounds fine to me if there’s actually a diverse set of view points. Getting censored should require a wide swathe of agreement. Not just a vocal minority.
That sounds fine to me if there’s actually a diverse set of view points. Getting censored should require a wide swathe of agreement. Not just a vocal minority.
I feel like this "content moderation council" would be a fine idea if there weren't a large segment of the US population (the country which will almost certainly dominate the council) still living in a complete fantasy land where Trump won the 2020 election by a landslide and explaining the continuing effects of racist policies of the past is secretly a plot to kill off white people.
Those people might not be a majority, but they certainly aren't a "vocal minority" that can safely be ignored, either.
Those people might not be a majority, but they certainly aren't a "vocal minority" that can safely be ignored, either.
They could implement quadratic voting which may solve the challenge of getting people to more-correctly express their intensity of concern.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadratic_voting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadratic_voting
Imagine trying to explain this complex of a voting system to the folks whose argument the election was rigged sometimes boiled down to "I saw more Trump signs, so Biden can't have gotten votes".
The more complex the system, the less it'll be trusted; something with "quadratic" in the name is gonna make eyes glaze over.
The more complex the system, the less it'll be trusted; something with "quadratic" in the name is gonna make eyes glaze over.
How do you decide which diverse view points are worthy of including and which aren't? Do we need a neo-nazi, an ISIS supporter, a 9/11 truther, a creationist, and a flat earther on the committee for the sake or intellectual diversity? I guess people will want conservatives on the committee, but are you happy with a normie Reagan republican or do we have to add a QAnoner and JFK Jr guy for the sake of representation?
This makes sense, but only in a world where we can trust that almost everyone is operating in good faith. Does that sound like contemporary American political discourse to you?
Those from “our side” on the committee can just unite to block anyone from “our side” from being banned. And those on “their side” can do the same. In fact, anyone who doesn’t do this will probably be branded a sellout. I just don’t see how to do this in a way that actually functions and also promotes broad-based faith that it’s a fair system.
Those from “our side” on the committee can just unite to block anyone from “our side” from being banned. And those on “their side” can do the same. In fact, anyone who doesn’t do this will probably be branded a sellout. I just don’t see how to do this in a way that actually functions and also promotes broad-based faith that it’s a fair system.
[deleted]
The tweet also mentions account reinstatements, so it goes both ways.
[deleted]
A whole swathe of agreement will be difficult if your diverse viewpoints include racists and bigots.
The best theory is that this analogous to Facebook's Oversight Committee, whose purpose in practice is to serve as a scapegoat for the really tough or unpopular moderation decisions. (e.g. Trump reinstatement, which ironically the Facebook Oversight Committee refused to rule on)
Hard problems, they are hard.
“I can build a twitter clone in a weekend” is famous for a reason.
“I can build a twitter clone in a weekend” is famous for a reason.
Of course any senior dev can. Isn’t being able to design Twitter a prerequisite to passing a System Design interview at any BigTech company?
Edit: I was being sarcastic. I meant to add /s
Edit: I was being sarcastic. I meant to add /s
I think what the parent comment is talking about and what you might have missed out on (though maybe your remark is tongue in cheek as well) is the challenge isn't building something with Twitter's functionality, but building something with its feature fit, timing, and growth. The core platform (while impressive engineering helps keep it running) is a fairly rudimentary idea, but execution is always a totally different story.
You were probably including the following in your meaning for "feature fit, timing, and growth", but just to echo / amplify your comment: two extremely difficult things in building a community of Twitter's size (neither of which are technical / implementation in nature) are a) achieving network effects [1], and b) solving the Eternal September problem [2]. Both these hurdles are much more strategic than technical in nature. Andrew Chen's "The Cold Start Problem" goes into some fascinating detail about this [3].
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September 3. https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Start-Problem-Andrew-Chen/dp/006...
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September 3. https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Start-Problem-Andrew-Chen/dp/006...
I forgot to add the /s
You vote. Have an odd number of voters, and either majority or plurality gets their way.
wouldn't be surprised if he went to jack for ideas, we've seen how he texts, and not that long ago he didn't even appear to have a concrete plan on how to improve twitter
[deleted]
Musk is way over his head.
If you view the 4chan forums, they're already plotting racist, anti-semitic content and rejoicing. Advertisers will not be happy real quick.
If you view the 4chan forums, they're already plotting racist, anti-semitic content and rejoicing. Advertisers will not be happy real quick.
Right wing provocateurs are already having their supporters posting the n-word, racist and anti LGBTQ content since Elon took over.
It is going to be fun watching it implode.
It is going to be fun watching it implode.
You may not have noticed, but they've been posting that for years.
There has been a significant uptick today[1].
[1] https://twitter.com/ncri_io/status/1586007698910646272
[1] https://twitter.com/ncri_io/status/1586007698910646272
Fair enough. I still think conservatives (and liberals, for different reasons) are vastly overestimating how much Musk will protect free speech. Slurs will obviously still be banned (likely automatically; I don't see why the platform relies on human moderation in those cases). These people are just getting a fast-track ticket to not-allowed-on-Twitter.
none of this is fun
Twitter was a bad idea - a global town square - humanity is not ready for such a concept.
A small minority will always be the one to fark up things for others - see griefing in MMO and why moderators and banning is needed.
A small minority will always be the one to fark up things for others - see griefing in MMO and why moderators and banning is needed.
I wish that Twitter - or some other social network - would experiment with the type of moderation seen on HN. Some would maybe call it heavy handed but I think of HN as a place that is mercifully relatively free of trolling, outrage culture, political bullshit and other toxic behaviors.
In my experience there's no place like HN on the internet, and that's due I suspect to having a highly professional moderator (@dang) who uses top level communication skills to firmly but politely pull people into line.
That in turn creates a virtuous circle where users socially moderate each other.
It's hard to describe just how relaxing and pleasant it is browsing HN. It's always jarring to read the comments on e.g some Facebook groups I belong to, which feel like they're authored by a bunch of teenagers that have just found the key to their parents liquor cabinet.
If Twitter was like HN I would spend time there.
In my experience there's no place like HN on the internet, and that's due I suspect to having a highly professional moderator (@dang) who uses top level communication skills to firmly but politely pull people into line.
That in turn creates a virtuous circle where users socially moderate each other.
It's hard to describe just how relaxing and pleasant it is browsing HN. It's always jarring to read the comments on e.g some Facebook groups I belong to, which feel like they're authored by a bunch of teenagers that have just found the key to their parents liquor cabinet.
If Twitter was like HN I would spend time there.
HN still suffers from what I call the "Everyone is an idiot but me" mentality. There is also a bit of outrage from time to time about small things. But the fact that it is the worst that happens here is saying a lot though. HN really is very well moderated and the guidelines are concise, reasonable, and simple to understand. It really helps that HN has a narrow set of topics. No idea how this could possibly scale to the size of twitter.
HN doesn't scale because at the end of the day we can fall back to tech and moderate everything else out of existence.
Politics poof gone.
Celebrities poof gone.
Sports poof gone.
Religion poof gone.
HN simply doesn't have to deal with the above in a general manner which removes a massive number of issues.
Politics poof gone.
Celebrities poof gone.
Sports poof gone.
Religion poof gone.
HN simply doesn't have to deal with the above in a general manner which removes a massive number of issues.
Certainly as soon as you move away from talking about programming there aer a bunch of people here who talk like they're experts but are absolutely incorrect. Which is a worry because I only notice it for things I already know about (process engineering and railway design/operation).
>"Everyone is an idiot but me" mentality
That is not unique to HN. That is all social media.
That is not unique to HN. That is all social media.
I like HN and the moderators, but this isn't how HN mods imo. People aren't just politely reprimanded and falling into line...
People get accounts banned every day here. Moderation on HN is imo heavier than it is on twitter. Topics and discussion are heavily controlled and removed if they become at all sensitive or aggressive. You can't call people names or make crass offtopic jokes (like people on twitter do constantly).
Moderation is quick and personal, but that doesn't scale to a site with the volume of twitter.
People get accounts banned every day here. Moderation on HN is imo heavier than it is on twitter. Topics and discussion are heavily controlled and removed if they become at all sensitive or aggressive. You can't call people names or make crass offtopic jokes (like people on twitter do constantly).
Moderation is quick and personal, but that doesn't scale to a site with the volume of twitter.
> You can't call people names or make crass offtopic jokes (like people on twitter do constantly).
I'm not sure how they could pull it off, but if Twitter wants to be a real town hall for the world then these are the things that DO need to be removed.
But if twitter wants to be the place were anyone can scream into the void, then they can't do this.
The weird thing is, I want both. My favorite part of twitter is both of these things.
I'm not sure how they could pull it off, but if Twitter wants to be a real town hall for the world then these are the things that DO need to be removed.
But if twitter wants to be the place were anyone can scream into the void, then they can't do this.
The weird thing is, I want both. My favorite part of twitter is both of these things.
> I'm not sure how they could pull it off, but if Twitter wants to be a real town hall for the world then these are the things that DO need to be removed.
I don't think you can be a town hall for the world. There are too many differences between societies, communities, and factions across such a large number of people. Sufficient context is difficult to impossible to establish if you have to include both your neighbor and someone from Austria in your audience. Doing so in 280 characters is impossible. So every conversation devolves to the lowest coming denominator - whether that's nastiness or having to write a tons of disclaimers before saying something for fear of older tweets coming back to bite you.
The reason HN or smaller fora work is because they can maintain their own community with certain expectations and established context while aggressively banning anyone who doesn't fall in line. How do you do that on a site as large as Twitter with any sort of consistency, especially across language boundaries?
I don't think you can be a town hall for the world. There are too many differences between societies, communities, and factions across such a large number of people. Sufficient context is difficult to impossible to establish if you have to include both your neighbor and someone from Austria in your audience. Doing so in 280 characters is impossible. So every conversation devolves to the lowest coming denominator - whether that's nastiness or having to write a tons of disclaimers before saying something for fear of older tweets coming back to bite you.
The reason HN or smaller fora work is because they can maintain their own community with certain expectations and established context while aggressively banning anyone who doesn't fall in line. How do you do that on a site as large as Twitter with any sort of consistency, especially across language boundaries?
I honestly don’t understand the consistent (self) praise for HN comments. Perhaps the mods make valiant efforts to enforce some vague standard of decorum and it would be worse without that thankless work, but any topic that doesn’t lend itself to software industry anecdote sharing is filled with the same vacuous, uninformed polemic as any other generalist social media site, just with a thin veneer of politeness. And even that supposed politeness is missing if I happen to open the comments section at the wrong time (presumably before a mod could clean them up, but isn’t that enough of a sign it doesn’t scale particularly well?)
You have a much different experience on general social media sites than I do. When I open a twitter thread that isn't sandboxed to nerds geeking out with other nerds about cool stuff, half the stuff I see is flamebait or just nasty adhominem vitriol. But, I think it just goes with the territory, if HN was a place for politics/culture wars/etc. it would probably devolve into the filth despite Dang's best efforts. This and stackoverflow are the only sites that I actively want to read comments, instead of mindlessly scrolling down to them and regretting it.
Agreed. HN is one my fave places for hardly strictly tech discourse. But its commenters have that unfortunate undying love for the American Democratic Party where any purely factual dissent is thumbed down with no explanation. I'm personally "far left" (more accurately: believe what the mainstream American wants from their govt) and twice I mentioned something negative about some MSDNC person and got negative a million points.
Other than that, I learn a lot every day from y'alls!
Other than that, I learn a lot every day from y'alls!
That might be it - I’m just using the “saner” parts of the Internet as my reference (at least compared to Politics On Twitter), which usually means “smaller scope of community and discussion / human moderation”, much like HN on a good day. So HN wouldn’t feel special in that light.
Too true -- as topics get less technological and more political, comments here become increasingly naive without any corresponding reduction in certainty.
The problem I see with that is that it doesn't scale to the size Twitter is.
HN works because it exists to talk about tech and startup topics. Every time the topics veer off that course, the threads turn into dumpster fires EVEN THOUGH everyone is well aware that moderation is fairly strict. For something like twitter? That's impossible.
The HN community is filled with a bunch of geeky, technical know-it-alls... but I probably wouldn't have it any other way.
The moderation and thoughtful approach to community is undoubtedly the best I have seen on the Internet.
It's not for everyone, but it is for me, which is why I refresh the page more times than any other page during the course of the day.
I can't imagine another community that isn't specialist getting close to be honest.
But I would love it if the rest of the Internet were as intellectually curious - this is the core of HN.
The moderation and thoughtful approach to community is undoubtedly the best I have seen on the Internet.
It's not for everyone, but it is for me, which is why I refresh the page more times than any other page during the course of the day.
I can't imagine another community that isn't specialist getting close to be honest.
But I would love it if the rest of the Internet were as intellectually curious - this is the core of HN.
Twitter is more of a platform imo, that has to have more permissive policies than a niche forum like HN. Benevolent dictatorships (especially opt-in ones) are great for smaller discussions. And people literally can go have their own discussion about celebrity gossip or whatever that would get killed on HN, in another forum.
Twitter is more like a utility, and if it wants to occupy that position it should be more open to content that people disagree with or don't like.
Twitter is more like a utility, and if it wants to occupy that position it should be more open to content that people disagree with or don't like.
HN is a small and uniform community, twitter is basically a group messenger -- I don't think it'd be reasonable to try to apply the same standards.
(dang does do a great job, and it's really remarkable how well HN has maintained its quality over many years. That it is not a commericial enterprise also helps a lot, I think.)
dang, if you're reading this, what's your motivation? It seems like a lot of work and somewhat thankless.
(dang does do a great job, and it's really remarkable how well HN has maintained its quality over many years. That it is not a commericial enterprise also helps a lot, I think.)
dang, if you're reading this, what's your motivation? It seems like a lot of work and somewhat thankless.
HN is pretty much like any subreddit. And there is a line of prevailing thought that you can't go against.
I guess it depends on the subreddit and mods, but most subreddits I've been to are littered with jokes, memes, and various levels of anger. They are usually hilarious but not what I want to wade through most of the time. It hides the useful info.
What’s the prevailing thought you can’t go against here? I tend to be a right-leaning libertarian, but am liberal on some issues. I see conservative comments. I see liberal comments. I see plenty of “Something bad happened? That’s because of capitalism” comments. I see plenty of pro-capitalist comments. It seems to me that the moderation here is pretty balanced.
Eh, I think not showing 'downvotes' really helps. Reddit really has a confirmation bias when it comes to upvotes/downvotes so its harder to get inertia to downvote dump on someone.
I think a lot of it has to do with the topics that are allowed here. We don't have politics (and in the rare cases we do it often devolves into name calling) and we don't have a lot of other controversial topics.
The most controversial topic here is emacs vs vi.
The most controversial topic here is emacs vs vi.
Yup. Twitter moderation policy could just be Dang. And we’d be fine.
[deleted]
terrible idea, HN moderates tone too much.
You can’t clone dang (yet).
[deleted]
We'll have both kinds of music, country AND western!
I'm curious what diverse viewpoints even means. Is it "diverse" for twitter?
Is that even diverse?
In the US there's a very defined almost meme level concept of right or left and folks absolutely want to toss people into those buckets and make all the usual assumptions. Online it's almost impossible for me not to be told what group I fit into ... I'm often told one way one day, the other the next.
Is that all there will be? What happens if say 6 people perceived as on the left and 3 on the right and 4 other people are on there? Will it be credible, or does this al have to match some twitter-ish concept of "diverse"?
A rando executive making decisions and some twitter-ish idea of "diverse" doesn't seem any more likely to be "fair".
Is that even diverse?
In the US there's a very defined almost meme level concept of right or left and folks absolutely want to toss people into those buckets and make all the usual assumptions. Online it's almost impossible for me not to be told what group I fit into ... I'm often told one way one day, the other the next.
Is that all there will be? What happens if say 6 people perceived as on the left and 3 on the right and 4 other people are on there? Will it be credible, or does this al have to match some twitter-ish concept of "diverse"?
A rando executive making decisions and some twitter-ish idea of "diverse" doesn't seem any more likely to be "fair".
[deleted]
Twitter is not a megaphone. So tired of news sites using that analogy. I can choose what I see on Twitter.
I only follow about 25 people on Twitter, Elon Musk is not one of them. Yet the first tweet in my feed when I just opened up the homepage is Elon Musk said "let the good times roll" 8 hours ago.
I keep mine on chronological sort so I only see people I follow.
Now they added the similar tweets section under tweeg replies.
Its always confusing for me when I am just scrolling through replies then see something totally irrelevant.
Though I gotta hand it to them, the tweets suggested are often related, and it will resort to funny tweets when it can't find something similar.
Though I gotta hand it to them, the tweets suggested are often related, and it will resort to funny tweets when it can't find something similar.
Just because you chose to leave the vicinity of the megaphone doesn't mean the megaphone stops existing. I'd bet more than 90% of twitter users keep their feed on the default sort.
[deleted]
I would amend GPs statement to say “Twitter doesn’t have to be a megaphone” but then I guess their only/biggest revenue stream would dry up if people truly could curate their feed to only show what they actually wanted to see.
Why haven't you muted Elon Musk yet? Do you want to see or not see Elon Musk's tweets? If you don't want to see Elon Musk's tweets, mute him right now. If you want to see Elon Musk's tweets, it's mighty strange to complain.
that's one of the things i never understood. twitter gives you SO MANY TOOLS to avoid seeing what you don't want to see. you can lock your account, lock replies, block accounts, mute accounts, filter keywords and that's not without mentioning the granularity of notifications.
i, myself, almost never see what i consider hateful content.
i, myself, almost never see what i consider hateful content.
Maybe I’m just not willing to put in as much effort as you, but despite everything I tried I could not stop unwanted content from meeting my eyes. Except for the step of not using it any longer, of course.
I feel like "unwanted" and "hateful" content are potentially two very different circles in a Venn diagram.
So? That's beside the point we're talking about. If I can't hide content I don't want to see, what difference does it make what kind of content it is? How do you know the unwanted content I'm talking about wasn't hateful?
Am I missing something? I guess with a custom browser, but I can’t close the “what’s happening” box and I often see retweets and likes from the people I follow. You can individually turn off retweets but that’s hate-UX, is there a way to do this in bulk? (I already changed the “show me tweets in order” setting or whatever.
Not only that, such services - unlike a megaphone or the agora - are a) incentivised to keep you there, b) algorithmically curate the content that you view, and c) are businesses and their responsibility is first and foremost the shareholders and not the public.
I think it is for journalists because that seems to be why they're there.
Nice to see inaction being taken against hacked verified accounts promoting scams:
https://twitter.com/carlyodellnews/status/158610304420216832...
https://twitter.com/SSSINGHDHIRAJ/status/1586070067476840453
https://twitter.com/IllingworthCC/status/1586086464730824707
https://twitter.com/TishaCustodio/status/1586103112263094272
https://twitter.com/chscott8/status/1586102966582661120
https://twitter.com/AlianaNieves/status/1586086297906446336
right on musk's post. This person is hacking into 10+ verified accounts/day. Did it yesterday too
some things never change
https://twitter.com/carlyodellnews/status/158610304420216832...
https://twitter.com/SSSINGHDHIRAJ/status/1586070067476840453
https://twitter.com/IllingworthCC/status/1586086464730824707
https://twitter.com/TishaCustodio/status/1586103112263094272
https://twitter.com/chscott8/status/1586102966582661120
https://twitter.com/AlianaNieves/status/1586086297906446336
right on musk's post. This person is hacking into 10+ verified accounts/day. Did it yesterday too
some things never change
[deleted]
So if I go off about how awful the Jews and the gays are, is that a "diverse viewpoint"?
Why not? In my country, these opinions are uttered so openly and commonly that it does not even raise an eyebrow. Infact these are cherished religious beliefs, even.
Yet, there are viewpoints that would be considered so utterly innocent in the west as to be as unnoticeable as punctuation, that have led to actual mob violence and lynchings, and I am talking this decade, not some old era bygones.
Such speech is considered equivalent to yelling "Fire" in an open theater, to use a common internet retort on free speech, because of the effect it has on the masses, and we have laws on blasphemy specifically for this.
You would think, oh surely I would never say anything offensive to any group, but for Funzies, have a scroll here: https://twitter.com/search?q=blasphemy%20(from%3ASAMRIReport...
So, whose blasphemies are considered sacred, mine or yours?
Be careful when asking for diversity. You might get it.
----
Americans do seem to take free speech for granted.
Yet, there are viewpoints that would be considered so utterly innocent in the west as to be as unnoticeable as punctuation, that have led to actual mob violence and lynchings, and I am talking this decade, not some old era bygones.
Such speech is considered equivalent to yelling "Fire" in an open theater, to use a common internet retort on free speech, because of the effect it has on the masses, and we have laws on blasphemy specifically for this.
You would think, oh surely I would never say anything offensive to any group, but for Funzies, have a scroll here: https://twitter.com/search?q=blasphemy%20(from%3ASAMRIReport...
So, whose blasphemies are considered sacred, mine or yours?
Be careful when asking for diversity. You might get it.
----
Americans do seem to take free speech for granted.
> In my country, these opinions are uttered so openly and commonly that it does not even raise an eyebrow
I don't think we should frame free speech standards based on Pakistan, if your bio is correct.
I don't think we should frame free speech standards based on Pakistan, if your bio is correct.
I am indeed in Pakistan, and the point I am trying to make is, why not? "Diverse" council, right? My region comprises of a BILLIONS people, and twitter is a global website, why do you expect Twitter to ban hate speech acc to what average American internet person wants, but not acc to rules of other countries?
Remember, I am not talking merely about legally limited speech, I am talking about stuff that causes societal discomfort.
If it's a "diverse" council, then there are bound to be people from this part of the world. And if they give, with a straight face, the examples you see in the funzies link as example of hate speech they would like to be moderated....
How would you feel, if your tweet was blocked, and the reason given is something you, and any body from your part of the world, would personally consider to be as offense as not ending your sentence with a fullstop would be to a grammar nazi...but to the council it was considered as offensive as perhaps saying the N-word?
I am talking from a purely academic point of view, but you have to realise the scope of these matters. Pakistan might not be able to affect Twitter moderation, but India? definitely, too big a market to ignore. The Gulf Countries are already investors alongside Musk, so them too. EU has already given the halt signal.
Remember, I am not talking merely about legally limited speech, I am talking about stuff that causes societal discomfort.
If it's a "diverse" council, then there are bound to be people from this part of the world. And if they give, with a straight face, the examples you see in the funzies link as example of hate speech they would like to be moderated....
How would you feel, if your tweet was blocked, and the reason given is something you, and any body from your part of the world, would personally consider to be as offense as not ending your sentence with a fullstop would be to a grammar nazi...but to the council it was considered as offensive as perhaps saying the N-word?
I am talking from a purely academic point of view, but you have to realise the scope of these matters. Pakistan might not be able to affect Twitter moderation, but India? definitely, too big a market to ignore. The Gulf Countries are already investors alongside Musk, so them too. EU has already given the halt signal.
> India? definitely, too big a market to ignore
My personal opinion and absolutely dissociated from my employer: I am not going to talk about economic decisions or market pressure, but free speech standards should also be not framed around India's standards. A diverse council shouldn't have to include viewpoints that are wrong. Defining wrong is certainly a difficult measure to elaborate, but free speech standards that include some religious persecution are definitely in that wrong category. Bigots will always say that they aren't bigots.
My personal opinion and absolutely dissociated from my employer: I am not going to talk about economic decisions or market pressure, but free speech standards should also be not framed around India's standards. A diverse council shouldn't have to include viewpoints that are wrong. Defining wrong is certainly a difficult measure to elaborate, but free speech standards that include some religious persecution are definitely in that wrong category. Bigots will always say that they aren't bigots.
Isn't that the point they're making? Not that the specific utterances matter but that the freedom to utter them matters, any or all of them, your blasphemies and mine. Then we can try to have a grown up conversation about it because we've taken oppression/suppression and hence violence off the table.
Real progress can then be made.
Real progress can then be made.
Free speech does not mean everyone deserves a soap box. Nobody has the inherit right for their views to be publicized by a private company.
Try forcing your way in front of a camera at your nearest news station and see how that works out for you.
Try forcing your way in front of a camera at your nearest news station and see how that works out for you.
but that's absolutely the wrong example, to take your analogy, YOU are the news station, YOU are the content generator, and Twitter is perhaps like.... the cable company?
Twitter isn't providing you and a platform for free; it sells ads alongside it. And if its moderation is too strict, then it's not an effective platform.
which goes to my original question, strict according to whom?
Twitter isn't providing you and a platform for free; it sells ads alongside it. And if its moderation is too strict, then it's not an effective platform.
which goes to my original question, strict according to whom?
Nope. News stations don't generate content, they report it. If you think YOU are the news station because you generate content you're watching too much Fox News.
Yeah it’s almost like moderation is a really hard problem that requires serious people to think deeply about it, not something that can be solved with vague platitudes about freedom.
> Such speech is considered equivalent to yelling "Fire" in an open theater, to use a common internet retort on free speech, because of the effect it has on the masses, and we have laws on blasphemy specifically for this.
Just FYI, the "fire in a crowded theater" is actually a widely-spread yet terrible example, as it was actually overturned in Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969. So, yelling fire in a crowded theater is actually legally not addressed by either decision and the famous quote is part of an overturned ruling.
Just FYI, the "fire in a crowded theater" is actually a widely-spread yet terrible example, as it was actually overturned in Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969. So, yelling fire in a crowded theater is actually legally not addressed by either decision and the famous quote is part of an overturned ruling.
It's actually not a _terrible_ example it was partially overturned in brandenurg v ohio. It's still applicable if it actually inspires lawless action.
It will be, if Elon implements effective agent-based clustering, such as with K-Means Clustering.
"Solving" content moderation is a losing battle -- there is no way to humanly moderate anything at the rate it can be produced, and Elon knows this. It's insane, so he probably won't do it.
But, allowing content to be produced, but making sure no real person ever sees it, until the content producer earns their way into "your" group -- now that can be automated. Also, then the police and FBI could use all the evil content to "do their job" (but, I'm not holding my breath).
Elon has access to Exascale hardware, so K-means Clusters with arbitrarily large dimensionality is at his disposal. The algorithms are linear in complexity, so should be parallelizable.
I figure he might have thought this through...
"Solving" content moderation is a losing battle -- there is no way to humanly moderate anything at the rate it can be produced, and Elon knows this. It's insane, so he probably won't do it.
But, allowing content to be produced, but making sure no real person ever sees it, until the content producer earns their way into "your" group -- now that can be automated. Also, then the police and FBI could use all the evil content to "do their job" (but, I'm not holding my breath).
Elon has access to Exascale hardware, so K-means Clusters with arbitrarily large dimensionality is at his disposal. The algorithms are linear in complexity, so should be parallelizable.
I figure he might have thought this through...
I'd be interested to learn how you think kmeans helps either diversity or hate speech detection.
I don't think it helps with any of either, as people's behavior, the context, the language used and sensibilities change across cultures and over time. What you call hate speech now may not be in the future and may not have been in the past.
The best you could hope for is creating a fuzzy representation of the most visible problematic behavior and try to outrun model-world dealignment by constantly updating it.
I don't think it helps with any of either, as people's behavior, the context, the language used and sensibilities change across cultures and over time. What you call hate speech now may not be in the future and may not have been in the past.
The best you could hope for is creating a fuzzy representation of the most visible problematic behavior and try to outrun model-world dealignment by constantly updating it.
The clustering responds to which tweets are up- and down-voted by the agent.
And, the agent is moved closer to the clusters they like tweets from, and further from the clusters they dislike tweets from.
The more diverse your likes (likes tweets in many other clusters), the broader and less restrictive your cluster weighting is -- the more variety you see. The more restrictive your selection, the less variety.
You decide how much of an "echo chamber" you're in. But, if you don't like $BAD_THING, and you downvote enough tweets of $BAD_THING, the less you'll see tweets by people in groups where they like $BAD_THING.
And, the agent is moved closer to the clusters they like tweets from, and further from the clusters they dislike tweets from.
The more diverse your likes (likes tweets in many other clusters), the broader and less restrictive your cluster weighting is -- the more variety you see. The more restrictive your selection, the less variety.
You decide how much of an "echo chamber" you're in. But, if you don't like $BAD_THING, and you downvote enough tweets of $BAD_THING, the less you'll see tweets by people in groups where they like $BAD_THING.
Recommender systems for news and social media have been tried, and I don't doubt that there may be niches where they succeed.
But large platforms have two massive problems:
(1) what people want is popular content, sometimes even content they would downvote. This destroys clustering by creating fuzzy centralized bridges and erodes the usefulness of recommenders
(2) people over time have lost trust and interest in highly personalized feeds, see facebook or the revolt against instagram's feed sorting.
Two cases that seem to work for now are music recommendation and tiktok. I'm not holding my breath though, because spotify might end up driving people away with too many monetized podcasts and tiktok could succumb to the generational migration. But we'll see!
But large platforms have two massive problems:
(1) what people want is popular content, sometimes even content they would downvote. This destroys clustering by creating fuzzy centralized bridges and erodes the usefulness of recommenders
(2) people over time have lost trust and interest in highly personalized feeds, see facebook or the revolt against instagram's feed sorting.
Two cases that seem to work for now are music recommendation and tiktok. I'm not holding my breath though, because spotify might end up driving people away with too many monetized podcasts and tiktok could succumb to the generational migration. But we'll see!
Sentiment analysis can solve the first. If the algo notices that someone only engages negatively with another cluster, cut it off; they're not entitled to pollute that.
And the second point was a mostly abstract intellectual debate in the early 2010s, but people have proven that they absolutely prefer to stick with their own, and have close-to-zero tolerance for dissent or disagreement (see, "the hivemind"). Twitter is far more prone to this than Facebook, since it's founded on communities (i.e. clusters) rather than just friends. Twitter just needs to stop putting junk into people's feeds; and silo them better to reduce harassment.
That would also reduce polarization, since a yuge cause for polarization (far-right, antifa) is a knee-jerk reaction to the very worst content from the other side. Stop promoting that, and you'll stop the "Brainwashing Of My Dad" effect (the film), where a conservative from Texas gets upset because of bathroom laws in California, or where a liberal gets upset because of a few 4chan trolls.
It's the psychological phenomenon of "enmeshment": remove the boundaries between people, and you make their relationship very toxic and conflictual. Enforce better boundaries, and their relationship will be far healthier. Twitter promoted the former; Musk can avoid most of the upcoming "hell" being predicted by doing the latter.
And the second point was a mostly abstract intellectual debate in the early 2010s, but people have proven that they absolutely prefer to stick with their own, and have close-to-zero tolerance for dissent or disagreement (see, "the hivemind"). Twitter is far more prone to this than Facebook, since it's founded on communities (i.e. clusters) rather than just friends. Twitter just needs to stop putting junk into people's feeds; and silo them better to reduce harassment.
That would also reduce polarization, since a yuge cause for polarization (far-right, antifa) is a knee-jerk reaction to the very worst content from the other side. Stop promoting that, and you'll stop the "Brainwashing Of My Dad" effect (the film), where a conservative from Texas gets upset because of bathroom laws in California, or where a liberal gets upset because of a few 4chan trolls.
It's the psychological phenomenon of "enmeshment": remove the boundaries between people, and you make their relationship very toxic and conflictual. Enforce better boundaries, and their relationship will be far healthier. Twitter promoted the former; Musk can avoid most of the upcoming "hell" being predicted by doing the latter.
How does this work with things like "ratio-ing" or "dunking" or libsoftiktok that intentionally take clusters of media from one group and shoving it into their group explicitly to hate them?
I'm not sure that shaking your head and laughing at someone's crazy-talk is "hating" them... Perhaps that's part of the problem.
If you don't want people chuckling at you, don't talk crazy.
If you really, really get annoyed at something and mash the downvote button, it'll eventually go away, and you'll be left in your warm, cozy bubble.
Everyone wins!
If you don't want people chuckling at you, don't talk crazy.
If you really, really get annoyed at something and mash the downvote button, it'll eventually go away, and you'll be left in your warm, cozy bubble.
Everyone wins!
Isn't this just shadow-banning, which is already a thing people believe is the same as censorship and enumerate numerous conspiracies about?
If you choose to downvote lots of $SOMETHING, you'll move further away from groups where they like $SOMETHING, and see less tweets about it probably.
Your delicate sensitivites about $SOMETHING don't affect anyone else.
Your delicate sensitivites about $SOMETHING don't affect anyone else.
If anything is clear from the texts that came up during discovery, it's that Elon Musk hasn't thought anything through with this deal.
Long Covid brain fog? Marijuana-induced schizophrenia? Has he just been stupid and lucky all along? I haven't spent enough time thinking about this to figure out why.
Long Covid brain fog? Marijuana-induced schizophrenia? Has he just been stupid and lucky all along? I haven't spent enough time thinking about this to figure out why.
How does that help? The whole problem is that twitter provides a platform to legitimize hate speech by spreading it to like-minded people and thereby emboldening them. clustering does exactly that, but shields bad actors with a cloak of secrecy.
There's no secrecy. The FBI can (and should) infiltrate these groups (just like their tweets, and you're in), and then arrest them for their illegal behavior. And, limited in-real-life moderation of illegal posts can be focused on where the crazy people hang out. It should be a win.
Advertisers don't want placement next to "bad" content, whether or not the in-group likes that content.
(That's probably a big reason why he wants subscription fees to take over advertiser revenue dominance.)
(That's probably a big reason why he wants subscription fees to take over advertiser revenue dominance.)
Of course. A wise advertiser would select a subset of the K-Means Clusters to advertise to. Like, probably the "not insane" ones.
oh no, not k-means clustering
My life was going fine until my tweet got too close to Agent K's centroid.
I think it'll work more like this.
There are people who enjoy reasoned debate, even if they don't agree with the counterparty. They won't downvote those tweets. Their cluster weight will be gently moving in the direction of others like them, and its weight will let through a wide variety of other gently weighted groups.
Others are compelled to screech and foam at the mouth if someone argues for a $WRONGTHINK - even in jest or as a devil's advocate, and will downvote them instantly. Their weightings will be heavy, and will exclude most other groups. They will see only what they want to see, and won't see what they don't want to see -- reasoned debate from groups they disagree with, for example.
This is a personal choice, and mirrors physical group dynamics.
If someone "in your group" starts talking crazy, they will begin to separate from the group (by mutual down-voting), and migrate to a different group. You (and the rest of your group) won't be affected much.
There are people who enjoy reasoned debate, even if they don't agree with the counterparty. They won't downvote those tweets. Their cluster weight will be gently moving in the direction of others like them, and its weight will let through a wide variety of other gently weighted groups.
Others are compelled to screech and foam at the mouth if someone argues for a $WRONGTHINK - even in jest or as a devil's advocate, and will downvote them instantly. Their weightings will be heavy, and will exclude most other groups. They will see only what they want to see, and won't see what they don't want to see -- reasoned debate from groups they disagree with, for example.
This is a personal choice, and mirrors physical group dynamics.
If someone "in your group" starts talking crazy, they will begin to separate from the group (by mutual down-voting), and migrate to a different group. You (and the rest of your group) won't be affected much.
Diverse in this context means the different people on the council will have very different viewpoints from each other.
I'm sure that already existed. Unless he intends to expand the diversity into the realm of racism or other types of bigotry or conspiracy beliefs. In my observation, Twitter is extremely permissive in what kind of speech it allows, drawing a line only at abject hate speech, threats or deliberate disinformation. None of that suffers from lack of diversity of viewpoints. Musk is either intending to allow a lot more shit flinging or he's really deluding himself that he can solve this problem. I'd honestly be more optimistic if he was bringing OpenAI in to do moderation.
Right, so the game becomes making your viewpoint as extreme as possible to shift the window of the council in your favour. What could possibly go wrong.
Not all viewpoints are equally valid. Just finding the middle of the viewpoints that exist isn't moderate because you can't just pretend that all sides have equal numbers of extremists and that somehow their views automatically "cancel out".
Not all viewpoints are equally valid. Just finding the middle of the viewpoints that exist isn't moderate because you can't just pretend that all sides have equal numbers of extremists and that somehow their views automatically "cancel out".
> What could possibly go wrong.
Simply stating a council will have diverse views is enough for people to ring the fire alarm these days.
Simply stating a council will have diverse views is enough for people to ring the fire alarm these days.
With the context of Elon saying it, yes. Diverse views where the views are all reasonable is one thing, allowing extremists a platform to misinform and radicalise is not. Elon has made it clear he thinks extremist rhetoric such as Trump's should be allowed.
> Not all viewpoints are equally valid.
What makes you think your viewpoint is valid?
It's intellectually weak and morally dubious to take such a stupid position.
What makes you think your viewpoint is valid?
It's intellectually weak and morally dubious to take such a stupid position.
Yes, according to the newly unbanned accounts that were originally banned for that.
[deleted]
Do you not see how that same type of hate is already directed at white people? Sanity has lost if you have to be some sort of "crazy right winger" to see the blatant hate and racism directed at white people.
I'm writing this from a country that currently has a giant nationwide chain store that has a public "No Whites, Blacks Only" hiring policy.
I'm writing this from a country that currently has a giant nationwide chain store that has a public "No Whites, Blacks Only" hiring policy.
It’s amazing to me that the HN hive mind has decided that somehow one of the most successful people on the planet, who’s built a successful electric car company, a private rocketry company and was part of the people who laid foundation for a “payment system for the internet” is somehow doomed to fail in his new venture.
The excitement for this new move seems not just low here but overwhelmingly negative.
“It can’t be done” is the overall sentiment. Really? Or are we just the people saying an electric car company can’t be done, a private rocketry company can’t be done, etc etc.
This one of the most successful people who has ever lived on this planet. And yet HN doesn’t seem to see any advantage to him leading twitter in a new direction, a company that overwhelmingly could be agreed before had no real direction and wasn’t making any progress anywhere.
But somehow a pretty smart billionaire taking it over doesn’t trigger any outpouring of sympathy and excitement but of disdain and condescension. Really? What happened ? When did we become so calcified against change?
Also; For anyone who says “twitter/facebook gave us trump” well, no. The unleashing of mass cognitive warfare as a consequence of the availability of micro targeting in these platforms gave you Trump/Bolsonaro/Meloni. For all the details on that, read “Mindfuck” by Christopher Wylie and “Targeted” by Brittany Kaiser.
The excitement for this new move seems not just low here but overwhelmingly negative.
“It can’t be done” is the overall sentiment. Really? Or are we just the people saying an electric car company can’t be done, a private rocketry company can’t be done, etc etc.
This one of the most successful people who has ever lived on this planet. And yet HN doesn’t seem to see any advantage to him leading twitter in a new direction, a company that overwhelmingly could be agreed before had no real direction and wasn’t making any progress anywhere.
But somehow a pretty smart billionaire taking it over doesn’t trigger any outpouring of sympathy and excitement but of disdain and condescension. Really? What happened ? When did we become so calcified against change?
Also; For anyone who says “twitter/facebook gave us trump” well, no. The unleashing of mass cognitive warfare as a consequence of the availability of micro targeting in these platforms gave you Trump/Bolsonaro/Meloni. For all the details on that, read “Mindfuck” by Christopher Wylie and “Targeted” by Brittany Kaiser.
Firstly, I don't think it's a hive mind. All of the threads I've read through have been absolutely split between people who broadly think he's over-estimating himelf/underestimating the problem and people who think everyone else is over-estimating the problem and under-estimating him.
I think the crux of it for me, is that whilst Musk comes at this fresh, he's not proposing fresh solutions. He has repeatedly suggested things that people have already tried, and then pivoted away from - realising the mistakes. It's very difficult to see this news today and not say "Oh, ok, so you're going to replicate Facebook's oversight board?"
I agree with you, he's acheived a lot. At the end of the day though 2+2=4 no matter who you are, and if we're shooting for 5, I might hope Elon can produce 5, but if I hope he's going to produce 5, and his big idea is 2+2, then I'm going to be skeptical. it's not that I think he's an idiot, it's that he's proposing things that are well trodden paths.
I think the crux of it for me, is that whilst Musk comes at this fresh, he's not proposing fresh solutions. He has repeatedly suggested things that people have already tried, and then pivoted away from - realising the mistakes. It's very difficult to see this news today and not say "Oh, ok, so you're going to replicate Facebook's oversight board?"
I agree with you, he's acheived a lot. At the end of the day though 2+2=4 no matter who you are, and if we're shooting for 5, I might hope Elon can produce 5, but if I hope he's going to produce 5, and his big idea is 2+2, then I'm going to be skeptical. it's not that I think he's an idiot, it's that he's proposing things that are well trodden paths.
The minute he takes the company private his job there is done. Everything else will follow from the new incentive structure.
I think you need to be more specific than that. Before twitter was private, it was run by a group of people who were generally pro free speech but who had experience to know the real conseuences of inaction, and therefore had put in a framework to ensure that they could stay advertiser friendly. Musk has declared he also wants to be advertiser friendly, but also has big business interests in national defence, and in China. Surely, if anything he's more prone to being influenced than the previous team.
What happened? The "pretty smart billionaire" started calling anyone who slighted him a pedophile. The "pretty smart billionaire" continues to commit fraud with false promises over at Tesla. The "pretty smart billionaire" seems to have a disdain for his lowly peasant employees.
Whi else did he call a pedophile? I know of only one person.
Do you have any proof of fraud? If so, you should turn it into the SEC.
Musk is not known to give hugs. So what?
Do you have any proof of fraud? If so, you should turn it into the SEC.
Musk is not known to give hugs. So what?
Musk already settled with the SEC over his securities fraud: https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-226
Not sure what reporting it again would do.
Edit: I'm guessing GP was referring to the continued potentially fraudulent FSD promises - there was a lot of HN discussion on that yesterday I think.
Not sure what reporting it again would do.
Edit: I'm guessing GP was referring to the continued potentially fraudulent FSD promises - there was a lot of HN discussion on that yesterday I think.
There's also the minor matter of the $258 billion Doge lawsuit.
>It’s amazing to me that the HN hive mind has decided that somehow one of the most successful people on the planet, who’s built a successful electric car company, a private rocketry company and was part of the people who laid foundation for a “payment system for the internet” is somehow doomed to fail in his new venture.
It has been interesting to read it today.
Fundamentally elon has simply called for politically neutral content moderation. I expect he's never going to allow calls to violence or incitement type things; who exactly thinks this is a bad decision? This is to solve the ongoing problem of censorship.
Yet the people see the above as a nightmare scenario. So what exactly are we missing? Is giving the republicans their voice back and allowing them to speak really such a nightmare? I don't think these people are upset about this. I suspect it's not a nightmare scenario if the republicans getting the ability to speak back results in landslide elections in their favour. Like we are potentially seeing now in midterm polling.
What if that's not the case. What if this is indeed a nightmare scenario? What exactly is the unsaid explanation?
I don't see the cause for concern let alone it being a nightmare scenario.
It has been interesting to read it today.
Fundamentally elon has simply called for politically neutral content moderation. I expect he's never going to allow calls to violence or incitement type things; who exactly thinks this is a bad decision? This is to solve the ongoing problem of censorship.
Yet the people see the above as a nightmare scenario. So what exactly are we missing? Is giving the republicans their voice back and allowing them to speak really such a nightmare? I don't think these people are upset about this. I suspect it's not a nightmare scenario if the republicans getting the ability to speak back results in landslide elections in their favour. Like we are potentially seeing now in midterm polling.
What if that's not the case. What if this is indeed a nightmare scenario? What exactly is the unsaid explanation?
I don't see the cause for concern let alone it being a nightmare scenario.
> I expect he's never going to allow calls to violence or incitement type things; who exactly thinks this is a bad decision? … Is giving the republicans their voice back and allowing them to speak really such a nightmare?
Well let’s see… last time the former President was using his voice on Twitter, he was inciting and directing an insurrection against the government. So if Musk wants to reverse that ban, and Trump decides to continue his rhetoric which already caused violence (which he will because he hasn’t stopped since 1/6), then yeah, that’s a nightmare.
Well let’s see… last time the former President was using his voice on Twitter, he was inciting and directing an insurrection against the government. So if Musk wants to reverse that ban, and Trump decides to continue his rhetoric which already caused violence (which he will because he hasn’t stopped since 1/6), then yeah, that’s a nightmare.
>Well let’s see… last time the former President was using his voice on Twitter, he was inciting and directing an insurrection against the government. So if Musk wants to reverse that ban, and Trump decides to continue his rhetoric which already caused violence (which he will because he hasn’t stopped since 1/6), then yeah, that’s a nightmare.
I'm not american and just an outside observer. I believe the republicans/trump would not agree with your assessment. There is certainly a huge irreconcilable divide on how January 6th is viewed on either side.
Here's a left-wing viewpoint on the 'second american civil war': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_American_Civil_War
Which certainly agrees with you. Lets not forget Hillary Clinton has always held Trump stole the election and she even reiterated a few days ago the republicans are planning to do it again: https://twitter.com/IndivisibleTeam/status/15834963547345387...
Lets not forget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_efforts_to_restrict...
425 bills in 49 states the republicans pretty much universally didn't believe a free election occurred; so they want to restrict the vote and prevent people from voting for the democrats.
More importantly the election in mere days will indicate to politicians exactly what the populous believes. When the democrats win midterms easily, it will be the people telling the republicans they aren't popular and democrats genuinely represent the will of the people.
Do we even need to consider what the people are saying in the unlikely event republicans win midterms?
I'm not american and just an outside observer. I believe the republicans/trump would not agree with your assessment. There is certainly a huge irreconcilable divide on how January 6th is viewed on either side.
Here's a left-wing viewpoint on the 'second american civil war': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_American_Civil_War
Which certainly agrees with you. Lets not forget Hillary Clinton has always held Trump stole the election and she even reiterated a few days ago the republicans are planning to do it again: https://twitter.com/IndivisibleTeam/status/15834963547345387...
Lets not forget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_efforts_to_restrict...
425 bills in 49 states the republicans pretty much universally didn't believe a free election occurred; so they want to restrict the vote and prevent people from voting for the democrats.
More importantly the election in mere days will indicate to politicians exactly what the populous believes. When the democrats win midterms easily, it will be the people telling the republicans they aren't popular and democrats genuinely represent the will of the people.
Do we even need to consider what the people are saying in the unlikely event republicans win midterms?
> There is certainly a huge irreconcilable divide on how January 6th is viewed on either side.
Yes, insurrectionists typically see their actions as justified, and will frame them as such. What happened was an insurrection though, and the 1/6 committee and DOJ have done much to prove that.
> Lets not forget Hillary Clinton has always held Trump stole the election
She’s free to feel however she wants. But note she didn’t go to Twitter to foment insurrection.
> she even reiterated a few days ago the republicans are planning to do it again
Probably a safe bet, given Trump hasn’t even given up trying to steal the 2020 election.
Yes, insurrectionists typically see their actions as justified, and will frame them as such. What happened was an insurrection though, and the 1/6 committee and DOJ have done much to prove that.
> Lets not forget Hillary Clinton has always held Trump stole the election
She’s free to feel however she wants. But note she didn’t go to Twitter to foment insurrection.
> she even reiterated a few days ago the republicans are planning to do it again
Probably a safe bet, given Trump hasn’t even given up trying to steal the 2020 election.
>Yes, insurrectionists typically see their actions as justified, and will frame them as such. What happened was an insurrection though, and the 1/6 committee and DOJ have done much to prove that.
I have no skin in this game, just curious what you think.
Why do you think trump said, "I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!"
Kind of a pretty terrible insurrection as well, a bunch of unarmed idiots in costumes ransacked a few offices. Normally an insurrection is more of a 'round up the politicians and execute them' type thing.
Or was it perhaps not an insurrection and it was instead a riot, not unlike the 2 years of racial riots, that got out of hand?
I have no skin in this game, just curious what you think.
Why do you think trump said, "I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!"
Kind of a pretty terrible insurrection as well, a bunch of unarmed idiots in costumes ransacked a few offices. Normally an insurrection is more of a 'round up the politicians and execute them' type thing.
Or was it perhaps not an insurrection and it was instead a riot, not unlike the 2 years of racial riots, that got out of hand?
From inside I feel pretty certain that the Republicans will win decisively. The economy, inflation, and general stress levels are just too high right now for the party in power to stay in office. Not the outcome I'm hoping for, but the world is feeling pretty bitey lately.
Here's a pretty good podcast on the topic, if you're interested: https://slate.com/podcasts/political-gabfest/2022/10/democra...
Here's a pretty good podcast on the topic, if you're interested: https://slate.com/podcasts/political-gabfest/2022/10/democra...
>From inside I feel pretty certain that the Republicans will win decisively. The economy, inflation, and general stress levels are just too high right now for the party in power to stay in office. Not the outcome I'm hoping for, but the world is feeling pretty bitey lately.
So lets say the republicans win decisively as you predict. What does that mean, what do you think the populus is telling the democrats?
Is it the people believe the election was stolen? Much akin to republican's clear response in the one link?
So lets say the republicans win decisively as you predict. What does that mean, what do you think the populus is telling the democrats?
Is it the people believe the election was stolen? Much akin to republican's clear response in the one link?
I don't know what link you’re referring to, but I think it just means that people are afraid they won’t be able to afford food, gas, or rent, and they think voting for the other party will somehow fix it. I definitely don’t think it has to do with bogus claims of a stolen election for anyone but people on the fringe.
What do you think it means?
What do you think it means?
> Is giving the republicans their voice back and allowing them to speak really such a nightmare?
I wasn't aware Republicans were being suppressed for their desire for a more conservative economic policy, smaller government, and lower taxes.
Or...which Republican ideas do you see being suppressed online.
Be specific :)
I wasn't aware Republicans were being suppressed for their desire for a more conservative economic policy, smaller government, and lower taxes.
Or...which Republican ideas do you see being suppressed online.
Be specific :)
>I wasn't aware Republicans were being suppressed for their desire for a more conservative economic policy, smaller government, and lower taxes.
That would be a pretty simplistic view of the republicans. Sure seems to be a faulty generalization fallacy to me.
>Or...which Republican ideas do you see being suppressed online.
Not many anymore. They realized their voices were suppressed and moved to new platforms. Now their voices aren't suppressed and oh boy midterms not going well for the democrats.
That would be a pretty simplistic view of the republicans. Sure seems to be a faulty generalization fallacy to me.
>Or...which Republican ideas do you see being suppressed online.
Not many anymore. They realized their voices were suppressed and moved to new platforms. Now their voices aren't suppressed and oh boy midterms not going well for the democrats.
i've said it before, there's much easier money to be made than better against Musk. When presenting a big idea he's pretty much been laughed out of every room he's ever walked into. Then, much to everyone's dismay, he does it. I'm withholding judgment for a few years...
I too enjoy commuting to work using my city's hyperloop while charging my self-driving cybertruck with my solar roof.
An objective assessment of Musk's batting average requires considering the big ideas that flop, never materialize, or fall far short of what was promised. Once you do that, Twitter seems like it could go either way from here. That's not even considering how split his attention must be at this point.
An objective assessment of Musk's batting average requires considering the big ideas that flop, never materialize, or fall far short of what was promised. Once you do that, Twitter seems like it could go either way from here. That's not even considering how split his attention must be at this point.
To be fair, he hasn't delivered on most of his promises, and it's the trade-off for taking risks.
On the other hand, with that amount of wealth, the average intelligent person probably feels that they could do better, and I'm not sure they'd be completely wrong.
On the other hand, with that amount of wealth, the average intelligent person probably feels that they could do better, and I'm not sure they'd be completely wrong.
Tesla is a battery company, not a car company. GM, Ford, Toyota, and all of the other automakers will be buying batteries from Tesla gigafactories, not the other way around. The bluster around FSD is a smoke screen. I believe that it's just R&D for vehicles operating off planet, like the robots.
SpaceX delivers boost to orbit at a cost that beats every other major player.
Clearly, he's done nothing. /rolls-eyes
SpaceX delivers boost to orbit at a cost that beats every other major player.
Clearly, he's done nothing. /rolls-eyes
I don't think he has presented any big idea regarding Twitter. In case I missed it, I'd be happy to learn what his big idea for Twitter is. By all impressions, he was dragged kicking and screaming into finalizing the deal - that doesn't exactly inspire confidence that he has bold ideas he'd like to try.
It's not that we decided that Elon will fail. It's that there is no agreement on what success looks like. More freedom of speech for some means more abuse and bigotry for others. Both 4chan (no moderation) and HN (moderation) have succeeded by some metric and have a loyal audience. Twitter tried to satisfy too many parties for too long and now is facing a backlash from everyone. If Elon decides to prioritize one of the parties - the other groups will protest. And vice versa.
There is still animus between musk and certain groups of thought. Certain people always see the negative and worst case scenario. Others see opportunities with various levels of risk aversion.
Clearly Musk is in the latter camp.
I said earlier that twitter has been hemorrhaging money to tune of nearly 2 billion over the last 2.5 years.
While possible, its likely that Musk can't possibly do worse than the former leadership.
Obviously it is a gamble, but what isn't a gamble? And what do such men gain without nothing ventured?
Clearly Musk is in the latter camp.
I said earlier that twitter has been hemorrhaging money to tune of nearly 2 billion over the last 2.5 years.
While possible, its likely that Musk can't possibly do worse than the former leadership.
Obviously it is a gamble, but what isn't a gamble? And what do such men gain without nothing ventured?
> Clearly Musk is in the latter camp.
Is he actually thought? If so, why did he try to maneuver out of the deal right up until it was clear he would not be able to?
Is he actually thought? If so, why did he try to maneuver out of the deal right up until it was clear he would not be able to?
Because the tech market crashed right after his pledge and it makes no good financial sense to go through with a deal that includes a massive loss from the outset unless you're absolutely compelled to.
I don't see the causal connection people are drawing between this and his motivations and his vision for twitter, it's purely a financial logical decision to try to renegotiate or cancel the deal given the current market conditions.
I don't see the causal connection people are drawing between this and his motivations and his vision for twitter, it's purely a financial logical decision to try to renegotiate or cancel the deal given the current market conditions.
I'd imagine Twitter withholding data would make any potential buyer have doubts.
He also could have been trying for a better price, which any buyer is foolish not to at least try.
Or he wanted to box them into a deal with a take-away, forcing twitter to publicly state intentions to complete the deal.
All of this, (yours & mine), are still purely speculative.
He also could have been trying for a better price, which any buyer is foolish not to at least try.
Or he wanted to box them into a deal with a take-away, forcing twitter to publicly state intentions to complete the deal.
All of this, (yours & mine), are still purely speculative.
You know why? Because we want to get off this rock... and anything that takes EM's focus off of SpaceX is bad :-)
estebarb(5)
deanCommie(8)
"In Europe, the bird will fly by our rules."
If this is a reference to twitter following European law, I don't see why they wouldn't.
People's complaints about Twitter moderation aren't about the law, they're about governments being able to indirectly make de facto, unconstitutional law through either informal demands and threats to, or overly chummy and profitable relationships with, media companies. It's not hard to figure out why media and payment consolidation and monopolies are allowed/encouraged. They're ideal for government.
I don't understand how orchestrated bans across media companies and payment processors can be allowed when price-fixing isn't. They're behaving as trusts.
People's complaints about Twitter moderation aren't about the law, they're about governments being able to indirectly make de facto, unconstitutional law through either informal demands and threats to, or overly chummy and profitable relationships with, media companies. It's not hard to figure out why media and payment consolidation and monopolies are allowed/encouraged. They're ideal for government.
I don't understand how orchestrated bans across media companies and payment processors can be allowed when price-fixing isn't. They're behaving as trusts.
Let’s see how popular that policy is once they make the site completely unavailable in Europe.
Facebook also touted this. But they would never do it, as it would almost immediately spawn a competing copycat substitute service that would receive a massive userbase for free at its inception, risking creating a formidable competitor.
Or even worse - no substitute service would even spring up, giving a strong signal that people don't actually need the service FB/Twitter offer at all!
They only stand to loose for exiting a market as a protest.
Or even worse - no substitute service would even spring up, giving a strong signal that people don't actually need the service FB/Twitter offer at all!
They only stand to loose for exiting a market as a protest.
It’s not like twitter is rocket science. And Europe is alright at rocket science anyway.
It twitter abandons the European market, people will use something else.
It twitter abandons the European market, people will use something else.
> It twitter abandons the European market, people will use something else.
Yes, and then be disconnected from the rest of the world.
Yes, and then be disconnected from the rest of the world.
Thankfully the world doesn’t run in Twitter.
haha funny.
Given that approximately 5% of Germans use Twitter, I don't think many people would care or even notice.
Honestly that would be wonderful
God, stop, don't give me that much hope. Elon blowing 44 billions on a site worth maybe 5, before making it unavailable to half its userbase ? As well as reducing the amount of russian propaganda (that Elon does like to regurgitate all on his own anyways) that can be spewed on social networks ? This could be the biggest waste of money since the Tumblr acquisition, I'd love to help set records.
Can we nuke Facebook on the way too ?
Can we nuke Facebook on the way too ?
Finally, diversity of ideas, and not diversity of skin color.
Looking forward to the diverse and valuable ideas on whether or not the Earth is round, climate change is real, and jewish people should or should not have people going death con on them.
So is everyone else who understands free speech
Why not diversity of skin color?
Diversity is both of these things. It is true that you can have more diversity in a room of people of one race than a room of people of all different races, but it's more common that you will find diversity across lines like race, gender, age, etc.
Diversity is both of these things. It is true that you can have more diversity in a room of people of one race than a room of people of all different races, but it's more common that you will find diversity across lines like race, gender, age, etc.
I am not against diversity of skin color, but I also don't think that should be the goal. You assemble a group of people that have a diversity of ideas, if the group you end up with happens to be diverse in skin color and sexual orientation, then fine who cares? But those aren't the defining characteristics or the ultimate goal, a broad spectrum of ideas is.
>It is true that you can have more diversity in a room of people of one race than a room of people of all different races
Since it's clear that diversity without race differences can exist, but diversity without different ideas can't exist, then why care about race at all?
Since it's clear that diversity without race differences can exist, but diversity without different ideas can't exist, then why care about race at all?
Because people have major blindspots to experiences they haven't lived through themselves. The sum total of all human experience has not yet been recorded in books, and those hypothetical books are not required reading for all humans, and even if they were, some people just wouldn't absorb the information due to their own biases.
Because being representative of the community you serve is useful in establishing credibility.
You cannot have the former without the latter.
You quite obviously can. For what idea can you not find a person with Black skin who supports it?
You've got Black centre-rightists like me, Far Rightists like Clarence Thomas, Barack Obama in the middle, and quite a range of voices on the Left - I'll pick Ta-Nehisi Coates as a very talented example over there.
You've got Black centre-rightists like me, Far Rightists like Clarence Thomas, Barack Obama in the middle, and quite a range of voices on the Left - I'll pick Ta-Nehisi Coates as a very talented example over there.
There is more to life than a left/right spectrum.
You give the viewpoint, I'll give the Black person who espouses it. What's #1?
As a PoC imo diversity of ideas/viewpoints is much more important
And yet... "As a PoC"
I think it's fair to say that ideas/viewpoints are very important, but to ignore the reality of groups of people frequently targeted is silly.
I think it's fair to say that ideas/viewpoints are very important, but to ignore the reality of groups of people frequently targeted is silly.
> to ignore the reality of groups of people frequently targeted is silly.
He clearly isn’t.
He clearly isn’t.
They are downplaying them, which is clearly my point.
I don’t think so. As a PoC, their comment is by definition a reflection of the reality of a targeted group.
You can have the latter and have a echo chamber of a single narrative, which is exactly twitter was. Then pat your self on the back "OH we are so inclusive look at the the different skin tones!" Yeah but everyone has the same boring ideas so what the fuck does that matter?
If the same boring ideas of that diverse group of men, women, LBGTQ people and PoC are that we need to strive for equality between all of these groups... that is exactly the point.
> that we need to strive for equality between all of these groups
That is fucking terrifying and most centrality undesirable, unless you mean equality of opportunity, then absolutely. But equality of outcome is the worst possible thing anyone could ever strive for.
That is fucking terrifying and most centrality undesirable, unless you mean equality of opportunity, then absolutely. But equality of outcome is the worst possible thing anyone could ever strive for.
Yes, I am saying we need to neurally castrate every intelligent person to be no smarter than the dumbest person. We need to cut the tendons of every person who is more athletically capable than the most disabled person. We need to burn down everyone's houses so that we can all share cardboard boxes alongside the homeless.
Yes. Yes. This is what the position is. Don't let anyone ever try to tell you otherwise.
There is no equality of opportunity for groups of people that have had generation after generation of systemic oppression, exclusion and poverty.
You don't do that to an entire subculture of people for hundreds of years, and then think you can snap your fingers and say "Okay cool, segregation is over so now we all have equal opportunity!"
There is so much that goes into being a successful person that is subtle, environmental, learned through exposure, enabled by connections and passed down through generations. Same goes for the flipside which is called the cycle of poverty.
There's a lot of damage that needs to be undone, which will take active investment on behalf of society at large to accomplish.
I'm too tired to write out an essay on the history of racism in the US and why that history is still a massive burden on the descendants of those people today. This information is widely available if you genuinely want to understand.
Yes. Yes. This is what the position is. Don't let anyone ever try to tell you otherwise.
There is no equality of opportunity for groups of people that have had generation after generation of systemic oppression, exclusion and poverty.
You don't do that to an entire subculture of people for hundreds of years, and then think you can snap your fingers and say "Okay cool, segregation is over so now we all have equal opportunity!"
There is so much that goes into being a successful person that is subtle, environmental, learned through exposure, enabled by connections and passed down through generations. Same goes for the flipside which is called the cycle of poverty.
There's a lot of damage that needs to be undone, which will take active investment on behalf of society at large to accomplish.
I'm too tired to write out an essay on the history of racism in the US and why that history is still a massive burden on the descendants of those people today. This information is widely available if you genuinely want to understand.
Thank you. I hope this is a truly diverse council composed of different races and ages. Maybe Trump, Rubio, Thomas, Crenshaw, Boebert would be diverse enough for you?
Are you saying that ideas depend on skin colors ?
You can't be serious. Ideas are not attached to skin color. That's a regressive, racist belief.
So your interest in elon musk and free speech is just the objectively correct thing to be interested in, and isn't attached to your biography at all?
Can you tell me what me being an arab and a muslim has anything to with my reaction to musk's purchase? Try answering without resorting to racial essentialism
Correct.
Idiot
I may not agree with your assessment of my intelligence, but I defend your right to say it.
Why not?
Because a bunch of white men can't mansplain and understand the challenges women and PoC go through.
This is the most ignorant thing I have read in awhile. Adversity is adversity, white males face it, women face it, PoC face it.
What you don't think there are white kids with single moms? Or white kids that had dads that beat them? Or white kids that were molested? Or white kids that got harassed by police? Or white kids that were told to give up, or that they wouldn't amount to anything?
Your view of white people is completely detached from reality. Anyone who has been through adversity (most people), can empathize with anyone else who has gone through adversity even if the circumstances of that adversity weren't exactly the same.
What you don't think there are white kids with single moms? Or white kids that had dads that beat them? Or white kids that were molested? Or white kids that got harassed by police? Or white kids that were told to give up, or that they wouldn't amount to anything?
Your view of white people is completely detached from reality. Anyone who has been through adversity (most people), can empathize with anyone else who has gone through adversity even if the circumstances of that adversity weren't exactly the same.
What you say is far from being obvious.
What is the ground mechanism that, according to you, will make "adversity recognize adversity even if the circumstances are different"?
In fact, from what I see, it's usually the opposite: people who have faced adversity will have a strong bias to consider their adversity was worse than the adversity of others who face a different kind of adversity.
This is the same kind of bias as "the grass is always greener ...": it is very difficult to understand the bad aspect of the situation when from the outside, and when someone has faced adversity, this will be amplified by that: they had first hand experience vs. an adversity that they need to just imagine.
It reminds me of, for example, those guys who are saying "if women were whistling at me in the street, I would take it as a complement": amongst those guys, a bunch have probably faced strong adversity. Still, they cannot understand why women dislike being whistled at and jump to the conclusion that these women don't know how good they have it. The fact that they have faced adversity amplify the fact that they don't recognize adversity: "why are they telling it's adversity, they are just soft, if they lived what I've lived, they will know what real adversity is".
edit: hm, while I'm not a fan of the "systemic racism" thing, depicting it as a "boogie man in the sky" does not make you look like prone to really open to understand adversity of others. I'm sure you decided that "they are just complaining, they don't know "real adversity"" while you have no idea what it is really like.
edit: hm, while I'm not a fan of the "systemic racism" thing, depicting it as a "boogie man in the sky" does not make you look like prone to really open to understand adversity of others. I'm sure you decided that "they are just complaining, they don't know "real adversity"" while you have no idea what it is really like.
Interesting. I imagine that means you're a real champion of improving opportunities for minorities, and spend a substantial amount of your time taking action to try and solve that problem, since adversity is adversity.
I'll happily oppose any racist law or coporate policy. Do you care to point me to any? And not just some "systemic racist" boogie man in the sky?
To echo the person you're responding to, what have you actually done to date to "improv[e] opportunities for minorities, and spend a substantial amount of your time taking action to try and solve that problem"?
Saying you will take hypothetical action is easy, but all that matters is what you've actually done and are doing.
If you haven't taken any substantial action to date then perhaps consider that may be a sign that you are not as motivated and understanding about the oppression of others as your initial comment may have indicated.
If on the other hand you have been involved in a significant amount of anti-racist activism that's genuinely awesome.
Saying you will take hypothetical action is easy, but all that matters is what you've actually done and are doing.
If you haven't taken any substantial action to date then perhaps consider that may be a sign that you are not as motivated and understanding about the oppression of others as your initial comment may have indicated.
If on the other hand you have been involved in a significant amount of anti-racist activism that's genuinely awesome.
I am not saying I will take hypothetical action. I will take real action. But I need evidence that systemic racism exists, you need to point to something and say “that right there is a racist law/policy”. I have thus far seen no such laws or policies. And please, don’t start with a conclusion (there are only X number of PoC CEO’s or something) and then go on a witch hunt to prove your conclusion. That is not how reason and science works. Until evidence is brought forth I cannot accept the systematic racism theory (and that is all it is without evidence). And since I suspect no such evidence actually exists, and since I am not inclined to go in witch hunts, why is the burden of proof on me? No, you show me the proof, I have enough things to worry about. Not to mention, laws and policies are public information, if there were racist ones it shouldn’t be hard to find and would have likely already come to light, yet no one can point me to one.
This is no different than when someone claims God is real, the burden of proof is on the person making the claim, not the person denying the existence of God.
What you’re doing is essentially demanding I prove God doesn’t exist.
This is no different than when someone claims God is real, the burden of proof is on the person making the claim, not the person denying the existence of God.
What you’re doing is essentially demanding I prove God doesn’t exist.
So you went from saying that those who have experienced adversity can naturally empathize with the adversity others have faced, to now saying you do not accept that systemic racism exists?
Do you see how those two statements strongly contradict one another?
Anyway, if your position is genuinely that systemic racism doesn't exist, given all the information you have access to in this day, then I don't think there's any evidence I could show you that would ever sway you. That said, it's worth a shot, here's a tiny grain of sand on the nearly infinite beach of facts supporting the continued existence of racism - people with white sounding names are 50% more likely to receive a callback for a job interview.[1]
[1]https://archive.is/fdUuy
Do you see how those two statements strongly contradict one another?
Anyway, if your position is genuinely that systemic racism doesn't exist, given all the information you have access to in this day, then I don't think there's any evidence I could show you that would ever sway you. That said, it's worth a shot, here's a tiny grain of sand on the nearly infinite beach of facts supporting the continued existence of racism - people with white sounding names are 50% more likely to receive a callback for a job interview.[1]
[1]https://archive.is/fdUuy
> Do you see how those two statements strongly contradict one another?
Nope, no contradiction at all. You can have adversity and not have systemic racism. I don’t have the foggiest clue how you can think that is a contradiction.
> people with white sounding names are 50% more likely to receive a callback for a job interview.[1]
Fair enough, but how is this remotely “systemic”? Do you really think there are company policies that promote this? Or is this individual (I.e. not systemic) biases?
Unless the company policy is to prefer the resumes with white sounding names then I don’t see how this is systemic.
Nope, no contradiction at all. You can have adversity and not have systemic racism. I don’t have the foggiest clue how you can think that is a contradiction.
> people with white sounding names are 50% more likely to receive a callback for a job interview.[1]
Fair enough, but how is this remotely “systemic”? Do you really think there are company policies that promote this? Or is this individual (I.e. not systemic) biases?
Unless the company policy is to prefer the resumes with white sounding names then I don’t see how this is systemic.
Your logic is weak and inconsistent. You should reflect on yourself and this problem more.
Have you spent any time researching it at all? Do you have any curiosity about it? You're delusional.
Good for you. Do you spend time actually researching systematic racism? Since we’re all just people perfectly capable of advocating for the same justice im sure you do.
Pretty racist to imply that your thoughts and opinion are tied so strictly to your skin color.
"That's ok when WE do it".
"That's ok when WE do it".
Sure you can.
Diversity of viewpoints is good, even if they are all "wrong" with various amounts of "nuggets" of truth. The futile exercise of preventing someone from hurting someone else's feelings, is the main casualty, and that's a very very good thing.
"vaccines cause mild autism"
Misinformation has real world impact
Misinformation has real world impact
"earth is flat" - that misinformation has no impact unless you make a big deal about it, we can simply laugh it off and move on.
I am not sure the last word on that
has been spoken. But you obviously are. You guys are alway so sure that you got the last and final truth, aren't you? How many last and final truths are we up to for COVID btw?
Misinformation is propaganda term that's employed to give the state the power to define what the truth is.
Misinformation is propaganda term that's employed to give the state the power to define what the truth is.
If you are exposed to things on Twitter that are tweeted by people not personally known to you, IMHO you are using Twitter incorrectly. I have no idea why anyone gives a damn what the content moderation policies might be. Speaking for my own account I have never once seen anything said by Trump, Kanye, the pillow guy, any neo nazis, any anti-vaxxers, or anything like that. In what way are people using Twitter that makes them care?
"But for many women, Twitter is a platform where violence and abuse against them flourishes, often with little accountability. As a company, Twitter is failing in its responsibility to respect women’s rights online by inadequately investigating and responding to reports of violence and abuse in a transparent manner.
The violence and abuse many women experience on Twitter has a detrimental effect on their right to express themselves equally, freely and without fear. Instead of strengthening women’s voices, the violence and abuse many women experience on the platform leads women to self-censor what they post, limit their interactions, and even drives women off Twitter completely."
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2018/03/online-vi...
The violence and abuse many women experience on Twitter has a detrimental effect on their right to express themselves equally, freely and without fear. Instead of strengthening women’s voices, the violence and abuse many women experience on the platform leads women to self-censor what they post, limit their interactions, and even drives women off Twitter completely."
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2018/03/online-vi...
Anyone in the world can reply to your tweets. You see replies. Harassment is a huge problem on Twitter.
That's not an actual problem. Just restrict or disable replies.
https://www.techadvisor.com/article/741472/how-to-turn-off-r...
https://www.techadvisor.com/article/741472/how-to-turn-off-r...
This same exact thing was already being discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33377115
No? You can set your tweets to by replied to by only those you follow, or only those you mention.
I think you have to do that manually for each tweet. The setting isn't persistent.
Anyway, you can also make your account protected, so that nobody can see or reply to your tweets unless you approve. However, I would say it's not fair to claim that "you are using Twitter incorrectly" if you don't make your account protected, or if you don't restrict replies to every tweet you write.
Even if you restrict replies, people can still quote-tweet dunk on you.
What's the point of a "social network" if you use all the most "antisocial" settings?
Anyway, you can also make your account protected, so that nobody can see or reply to your tweets unless you approve. However, I would say it's not fair to claim that "you are using Twitter incorrectly" if you don't make your account protected, or if you don't restrict replies to every tweet you write.
Even if you restrict replies, people can still quote-tweet dunk on you.
What's the point of a "social network" if you use all the most "antisocial" settings?
It makes it a social network of your social network. I don't see what's antisocial about that.
How can someone quote tweet dunk you if your tweets are private?
How can someone quote tweet dunk you if your tweets are private?
How do you even acquire an online social network unless you use Twitter "incorrectly" according to the OP?
> How can someone quote tweet dunk you if your tweets are private?
They can't. Taking your account private was supposed to be the reductio ad absurdum conclusion of using Twitter "correctly". I mean that if your account is still public, but you restrict replies, people can still QT.
> How can someone quote tweet dunk you if your tweets are private?
They can't. Taking your account private was supposed to be the reductio ad absurdum conclusion of using Twitter "correctly". I mean that if your account is still public, but you restrict replies, people can still QT.
Your assumption is that legal speech has no negative real-world consequences.
But look at the mass shooter Dylan Roof, among others. They targeted minorities and were solely radicalized in online forums according to their manifestos. Or, look at the strain on hospitals that anti-vaxxers put us through. These people were partly influenced by online misinformation.
Concerns about speech in the age of social media have little to do with A's speech impacting person B. It's A's speech influencing person X, Y and Z which then has an unpredictable negative impact on person B.
This wasn't a big problem 15 years ago before social media. It's a new problem and many people haven't updated their paradigm given the new environment we're now in.
But look at the mass shooter Dylan Roof, among others. They targeted minorities and were solely radicalized in online forums according to their manifestos. Or, look at the strain on hospitals that anti-vaxxers put us through. These people were partly influenced by online misinformation.
Concerns about speech in the age of social media have little to do with A's speech impacting person B. It's A's speech influencing person X, Y and Z which then has an unpredictable negative impact on person B.
This wasn't a big problem 15 years ago before social media. It's a new problem and many people haven't updated their paradigm given the new environment we're now in.
> I have no idea why anyone gives a damn what the content moderation policies might be.
Because falling afoul of them doesn't just make your tweets not show up in Discover to people who don't know you. It means you can't tweet to your friends either.
To be clear, your post has completely valid reasons to not care if moderation is too lax, but you do still need to care if it's too strict.
Because falling afoul of them doesn't just make your tweets not show up in Discover to people who don't know you. It means you can't tweet to your friends either.
To be clear, your post has completely valid reasons to not care if moderation is too lax, but you do still need to care if it's too strict.
Right. The best balance is to be more lenient on speech moderation, but have fewer algorithmic recommendations and push less "controversial" or popular content onto users' feeds.
See, this right here is where you lost me.
> fewer algorithmic recommendations and push less "controversial" or popular content onto users' feeds.
There is not ANY 'algorithmic' content on my Twitter feed. Zero! What are you referring to?!
> fewer algorithmic recommendations and push less "controversial" or popular content onto users' feeds.
There is not ANY 'algorithmic' content on my Twitter feed. Zero! What are you referring to?!
I'm not referring to the "X liked this tweet" feature, which is from my circle.
Twitter added a Topics feature, where it promotes popular tweets. I'll often see random tweets with >100k likes inserted into my feed, though none of the people I follow liked it, and it's not in my interests.
You'll also see such "popular tweets" when you click on any tweet and scroll past the replies. Doesn't always show (especially when there's tons of replies), but it gives you random tweets from outside your circle.
One interesting feature is the "What's happening" (formerly Trends/Hashtags) section on the right, which shows random news stories. They're not determined by popularity, but by fiat; the list is now manually populated by Twitter employees. (They removed plain hashtags and switched to an editorialized list because Trump supporters managed to get "too many" hashtags going during the 2016 campaign. It still shows hashtags occasionally, but they have to get pre-approved before they appear IIRC.) Many of these new Trends don't show all tweets that match a keword; they just show you tweets from a few people selected by Twitter. These[0] is a good example from today. It's a great feature. Musk could create a Twitter News service (like Google News) and expand on that; it would cut off the "cross-silo" communication further, and would reduce polarization and controversy.
[0]: https://twitter.com/i/events/1585823974868414464 and https://twitter.com/i/events/1586015934141153284
Twitter added a Topics feature, where it promotes popular tweets. I'll often see random tweets with >100k likes inserted into my feed, though none of the people I follow liked it, and it's not in my interests.
You'll also see such "popular tweets" when you click on any tweet and scroll past the replies. Doesn't always show (especially when there's tons of replies), but it gives you random tweets from outside your circle.
One interesting feature is the "What's happening" (formerly Trends/Hashtags) section on the right, which shows random news stories. They're not determined by popularity, but by fiat; the list is now manually populated by Twitter employees. (They removed plain hashtags and switched to an editorialized list because Trump supporters managed to get "too many" hashtags going during the 2016 campaign. It still shows hashtags occasionally, but they have to get pre-approved before they appear IIRC.) Many of these new Trends don't show all tweets that match a keword; they just show you tweets from a few people selected by Twitter. These[0] is a good example from today. It's a great feature. Musk could create a Twitter News service (like Google News) and expand on that; it would cut off the "cross-silo" communication further, and would reduce polarization and controversy.
[0]: https://twitter.com/i/events/1585823974868414464 and https://twitter.com/i/events/1586015934141153284
> Twitter added a Topics feature, where it promotes popular tweets.
I have never seen this. It turns out to be buried under a "more" menu, so I maintain that this is a niche feature that you'd need to go out of your way to suffer.
> You'll also see such "popular tweets" when you click on any tweet and scroll past the replies.
No, I don't. I don't see anything like that. I just get to the bottom of the replies. When do you see this? I don't even see it on a tweet with zero replies. No random tweets, just blank space.
I have never seen this. It turns out to be buried under a "more" menu, so I maintain that this is a niche feature that you'd need to go out of your way to suffer.
> You'll also see such "popular tweets" when you click on any tweet and scroll past the replies.
No, I don't. I don't see anything like that. I just get to the bottom of the replies. When do you see this? I don't even see it on a tweet with zero replies. No random tweets, just blank space.
> It turns out to be buried under a "more" menu, so I maintain that this is a niche feature that you'd need to go out of your way to suffer.
I never turned it on or tapped on it, and don't follow any topics. It still intersperses "Comedy", "Crypto", and "Movies" tweets (labelled as such) into my main timeline.
And I don't know why you don't see "popular tweets" (it's actually "More tweets", I misspoke). I've been seeing those for years in the exact same context I described.
I never turned it on or tapped on it, and don't follow any topics. It still intersperses "Comedy", "Crypto", and "Movies" tweets (labelled as such) into my main timeline.
And I don't know why you don't see "popular tweets" (it's actually "More tweets", I misspoke). I've been seeing those for years in the exact same context I described.
Tweets are everywhere, not just on Twitter. Theyre in the news as sources, they're on Instagram, Facebook and reddit.
Twitter can largely be ruled by financial incentives.
1. Add a cost for tweeting, like a gas fee. This fee is paid to Twitter.
2. Add a cost to subscribing to a channel. This fee is paid to the channel owner.
Keep the advertisers happy, but try to reduce the reliance on advertisers. Keep moderating content to reduce abuse, maybe eliminate the high profile banning but a person on the ground will have largely the same experience. (probably less action on more contentious issues, but you still can't use racial epithets and call for violence). Evaluate most employees or teams on the merits, there will be layoffs, probably big layoffs but they'll be managed incremental and strategic. Build more products and pivot the product strongly but again, not in the image of a Parler or a Truth Social. Twitter won't become a cesspool because he understands that people need to be able to control what they see or they'll leave. Essentially try to create more safe spaces on twitter, not less.