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Jack's continued unwillingness to state in concrete terms what Twitter intends to change sure looks a lot like he's trying to deflect scrutiny around censorship
by happyrock 8y ago
Jack's continued unwillingness to state in concrete terms what Twitter intends to change sure looks a lot like he's trying to deflect scrutiny around censorship while still engaging in it.
- aplummer 8y agoWait, isn’t most of the criticism at the _lack_ of censorship? I personally hate that half the platform is nutty conspiracy bots and hate speech.
- vkou 8y agoThere's a group of people whose value system places "I want everyone to be able to say everything they want, with no repercussions" to be their most important value. From that point of view, Jack is a horrible person, and what he's doing will destroy Twitter. From the point of view of someone who doesn't want to wade into that cesspit, doing nothing will destroy Twitter. The two viewpoints are largely exclusive.
- detaro 8y agoBut for the second category "features that would promote alternative viewpoints in Twitter’s timeline" also isn't a clear good: it could easily mean "show my tweets to more people that don't want to see them and will react badly to it, and show me more tweets from people I want to avoid". Limiting who you interact with is also a feature, not just a bad echo chamber.
- Mindwipe 8y agoQuite. "Inserting tweets into my timeline to turn it into less of an echo chamber" seems like it cannot do anything other than insert tweets from the far right about how people with darker skin colours should be second class citizens (or worse). There is an entirely reasonable reading that Twitter is not competent enough to do this without making the platform more toxic, not less. I'm personally of the opinion that asking Twitter to do more moderation is not a great idea, because it's proven beyond all doubt that Twitter is no good at it and has no mechanism for improvement where it would ever get better. All they're going to do with more moderation is make more mistakes.
- aplummer 8y agoI don’t know if it’s that slippery a slope. Couldn’t you start with conspiracies about child victims of shootings and see how it goes.
- abnry 8y agoWhat do we do when the 1 out of 100th conspiracy theory turns out to be true? Just months ago there were massive conspiracy theorizing about the first lady's absence over a period of days. Should that discussion have just been shut down? It's not a clear judgment call, even for one person, for what to allow and what not to allow. That's the problem.
- happytoexplain 8y agoI agree with your description of what the real, practical problem is, but I'd like to hear your opinion about solutions. Personally, I do think a viable answer could involve rule-makers/enforcers making subjective judgements on sometimes unclear issues (even if that group must be small to feasibly operate). The practice is necessarily common because that's the nature of many of our social systems. We introduce as many abuse-curbing objective elements as possible, but in the end there will always be some amount of human judgement. If the balance tips one way, the system loses effectiveness, and if it tips the other way (the "slippery slope"), it becomes a new problem. Personally, in the example given, I don't think it would be impossible to find a balance that allows the mean-spirited speculation about why the first lady wasn't around, but disallows the borderline calls to violence and direct calls to hatred of people whose children have been murdered. Again, I agree that the problem is "how", but I absolutely am not pessimistic about it. I think we can use content moderation, despite its subjectivity, to find a balance - certainly not a perfect balance, but a better one than exists today.
- busterarm 8y agoNothing is forcing people to wade into that cesspit though. Currently what's actually going on is "Jack, ban the people I don't like or I will leave." That's a really shitty ultimatum.
- happyrock 8y agoBoth are valid criticisms of Twitter. However, Jack could simply state what they intend to do about these problems. Instead he obfuscates, stonewalls, says things that sound vaguely like plans of action, but increasingly look like a tactic to fend off critics while they continue to avoid accountability.
- pavel_lishin 8y agoI think it's because he doesn't know. They're just holding onto the tiger as best as they can.
- lylecubed 8y agoTwitter's getting it with both guns from both sides because Twitter is attempting to operate in American culture, which is currently in the middle of a civil war.
- repolfx 8y agoIt's very unfortunate that people of a certain mindset have taken to describing any users they disagree with politically as "bots". The term bot has a clear meaning. What you're doing here is fantastically dangerous - you are dehumanising people with different politics to yourself. This is exactly how the very worst episodes in history started. Convince yourself that people you don't like are somehow not quite as human as yourself, that they're lower people, that they are best suppressed and shoved under the carpet. Half of Twitter isn't "nutty conspiracy bots", that's clearly itself a ludicrous conspiracy theory. Bots aren't capable of holding even Twitter-level conversations. They're people who believe things you don't.
- Proziam 8y agoI try to be as generous as I can when I hear things like this but I'm inclined to agree with your sentiment here. Perhaps I've become cynical but it just doesn't sit right with me. I've been having the same feelings towards every social media platform as of late and it's starting to make me feel old and jaded.
- vkou 8y agoWithout censorship, Twitter, like any online forum, quickly becomes unusable. Bots, commercial spam, non-commercial spam, users whose sole goal is to drive other users off the platform, extremist groups, et al, will happily take advantage of an unmoderated space. You don't get a thousand flowers blooming, you instead get a thousand Neanderthals with typewriters. You're pretty much left with trying to determine the degree to which, and the content which you're willing to censor.
- mikeash 8y agoYes, people keep acting like this is new and the internet was a complete free-for-all before, but it wasn’t, not even close. In the early days, anything commercial was out of bounds. More recently, most mainstream platforms disallow things like images of people’s genitals or unauthorized reproductions of copyrighted works. This is a minor adjustment to the details, not some big change.
- Proziam 8y agoI am conflicted with this because I fall on both sides of this particular fence. On the one hand, I despise when platforms are over-run by people spouting ridiculous things and driving everything into heated discussions. On the other hand, I place an extremely high value on individual freedom and feel that because platforms like Twitter are SO large and have SO much control over the public narrative that we can't allow the platform to start picking and choosing lest we end up with their version of the "truth" being the only available version. I wish I were smart enough to know the answer to problems like this, but my current rationale is that these platforms should only be banning genuine bots and people spouting hate speech with genuine evil intent IE - "Hang XXX person because of YYY racist/sexist/garbage tier human being reason"
- yifanl 8y agoThe main issue is that it isn't possible to codify what is genuine evil intent as of yet (and perhaps, ever). So until then, everyone has to choose between erring on too much or erring on too little.
- sleepybrett 8y agoHe seems like a man totally paralyzed, unable to actually commit to anything.
- covercash 8y agoIs he still running Square too? Maybe he needs to go all in on one and quit doing this back and forth dance.
- sleepybrett 8y agoWell that or he really doesn't have a mental framework, and intestinal fortitude, to make hard decisions.
- geodel 8y agoI wonder if he can just say "Look guys, I am not looking to block neo-nazis, far-left nutcases or whatever unless they break some law where we operate and law enforcement want us to ban the account" He can sit back and chill. Will the constantly whining no-gooders will leave twitter in hordes? abuse and physically threaten Jack? or just keep whining as if they heard nothing what just being told?
- debacle 8y agoThink about it this way. You're a bagel shop. You don't have the best bagels out there, but your bagels are okay. One day, Tom Hanks starts coming to your bagel shop. Every morning, he comes in, buys a bagel, and eats it at the counter. Suddenly, people are flocking to your bagel shop to see Tom Hanks. But Tom Hanks never cleans up after himself. He never tips. Now you've got plenty of people coming in. They're all here to see Tom Hanks. And they never clean up after themselves. And they never tip. Do you say something? Do you kick people out who leave bagel crumbs all over the floor? If you do, Tom Hanks might stop showing up. If you ban people who make messes, but you don't ban Tom Hanks, it's going to be obvious that you care more about money than principles or being fair. Twitter is being propped up right now in a huge way by Tom Hanks, and they need to tread carefully around the situation less they risk Tom Hanks visiting another bagel shop and potentially taking everyone else with him.
- delinka 8y agoI introduce new bagels with a higher price tag. I phase out less expensive bagels. I continue this practice until the crowd thins itself.