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> Algorithmic censorship has become the new norm. If you have opinions outside the Overton window you will be silently penalized on Twitter, FB, etc, and your p
by vonmoltke 7y ago
> Algorithmic censorship has become the new norm. If you have opinions outside the Overton window you will be silently penalized on Twitter, FB, etc, and your posts will silently not appear. You have to go along with the tribe that you've been gerrymandered into or else you'll be silenced.
Algorithmic censorship, and demand for it, is the problem. However, that has nothing to do with Overton windows. The issue is the prioritization of recall over all else. Various groups (e.g., popular outcry, Legal) demand that as much actual abusive content as possible be flagged and suppressed or removed. In their view, falsely flagging content is acceptable collateral damage as long as the real bad stuff gets caught as well.
The precision in classification isn't there to enforce an Overton window even if that was the goal.
- Mountain_Skies 7y agoSometimes their opinion of what constitutes real bad stuff isn't shared by society at large outside of their particular ideological group. It almost always boils down to punishing wrong think where some self anointed group gets to decide for everyone what is permissible thought. The really stupid part in all of this is the belief that these tools can't be taken away from them and used against them. History shows such power shifts can happen quickly and often with terrible results.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- 50656E6973 7y agoSocial media algorithms of course influence the Overton Window. It doesn't matter if the developers are consciously conspiring to do it or not; algorithmic bias is naturally inherent.
- vonmoltke 7y agoI'm not meaning to suggest that algorithms don't have unconscious (WRT their designers) biases. I'm saying the algorithms used for compliance and compliance-adjacent tasks skew very heavily towards recall, resulting generally in poor precision. In many cases, the precision is so low that it overwhelms any conscious or unconscious bias in the algorithm.