4 ms·

> Twitter removes a lot more negative posts from those on the right side of the political spectrum than the left Do you have data showing this? The last thing

> Twitter removes a lot more negative posts from those on the right side of the political spectrum than the left Do you have data showing this? The last thing this debate needs is rumor and speculation.

Karunamon 10y ago
That's a standard of proof that's impossible to meet. Consider: - Twitter is structured in such a way that direct censorship can't be differentiated between somebody's finger on a button and technical difficulties. (Did this hashtag disappear from autocomplete because someone removed it, or because the backend index is messed up?) - Differentiating between "left" and "right" political posts is not possible from an objective, programmatic standpoint. Political identity doesn't work either. Someone who's an unabashed Republican tweeting about, say, abortion, there's a very high likelihood that whatever they say about it is negative regardless of the content of the message, but how do you get a computer to understand that without a lot of false positives? - Nobody from the companies is ever going to admit to hiding/removing content for political reasons. (Barring whistleblowers of questionable veracity, c.f. Facebook) That only leaves generalities and user reports to work from, which have their own reliability problems. We're talking sociology/political science at the end of the day, and it's opinions all the way down, with very little hard data.
- hackuser 10y ago
  I'm not sure you're correct: > Twitter is structured in such a way that direct censorship can't be differentiated between Twitter provides data to researchers, at least in some situations, and may provide data about these events. > Differentiating between "left" and "right" political posts is not possible from an objective, programmatic standpoint. AFAIK, there are well-known methods in political science for defining left and right.
  - kazinator 10y ago
    > > Differentiating between "left" and "right" political posts is not possible from an objective, programmatic standpoint. > AFAIK, there are well-known methods in political science for defining left and right. Small problem: political science isn't computer science.
    - tsmffh 10y ago
      Let alone a 'science'.
  - Nullabillity 10y ago
    > Twitter provides data to researchers, at least in some situations, and may provide data about these events. Small problem: if the data they provide to the public can't be trusted, then why would the data provided to scientists be any better?
    - rcpt 10y ago
      They send tweets in real-time to data miners. The delete requests don't show up until later. All you need to do is break their terms of service by not honoring the deletes
- linkregister 10y ago
  What viewpoint are you endorsing? Given your standard, CM30's assertion is neither verifiable nor refutable. The parent comment is valid. hackuser isn't asking for a double-blind study with p=0.05 and n=[all Tweets ever produced] ; she or he is asking for any evidence whatsoever to substantiate the claim.

Karunamon 10y ago

That's a standard of proof that's impossible to meet. Consider: - Twitter is structured in such a way that direct censorship can't be differentiated between somebody's finger on a button and technical difficulties. (Did this hashtag disappear from autocomplete because someone removed it, or because the backend index is messed up?) - Differentiating between "left" and "right" political posts is not possible from an objective, programmatic standpoint. Political identity doesn't work either. Someone who's an unabashed Republican tweeting about, say, abortion, there's a very high likelihood that whatever they say about it is negative regardless of the content of the message, but how do you get a computer to understand that without a lot of false positives? - Nobody from the companies is ever going to admit to hiding/removing content for political reasons. (Barring whistleblowers of questionable veracity, c.f. Facebook) That only leaves generalities and user reports to work from, which have their own reliability problems. We're talking sociology/political science at the end of the day, and it's opinions all the way down, with very little hard data.

hackuser 10y ago
I'm not sure you're correct: > Twitter is structured in such a way that direct censorship can't be differentiated between Twitter provides data to researchers, at least in some situations, and may provide data about these events. > Differentiating between "left" and "right" political posts is not possible from an objective, programmatic standpoint. AFAIK, there are well-known methods in political science for defining left and right.
- kazinator 10y ago
  > > Differentiating between "left" and "right" political posts is not possible from an objective, programmatic standpoint. > AFAIK, there are well-known methods in political science for defining left and right. Small problem: political science isn't computer science.
  - tsmffh 10y ago
    Let alone a 'science'.
- Nullabillity 10y ago
  > Twitter provides data to researchers, at least in some situations, and may provide data about these events. Small problem: if the data they provide to the public can't be trusted, then why would the data provided to scientists be any better?
  - rcpt 10y ago
    They send tweets in real-time to data miners. The delete requests don't show up until later. All you need to do is break their terms of service by not honoring the deletes
linkregister 10y ago
What viewpoint are you endorsing? Given your standard, CM30's assertion is neither verifiable nor refutable. The parent comment is valid. hackuser isn't asking for a double-blind study with p=0.05 and n=[all Tweets ever produced] ; she or he is asking for any evidence whatsoever to substantiate the claim.