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Quite. "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

Quite. "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 ago
I 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 ago
  What 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 ago
    I 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.

aplummer 8y ago

I 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 ago
What 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 ago
  I 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.