8 ms·
The head of integrity has unabashedly showcased his strong political bias on Twitter, and I suspect things will begin going poorly for either him or Twitter sho
by djohnston 6y ago
The head of integrity has unabashedly showcased his strong political bias on Twitter, and I suspect things will begin going poorly for either him or Twitter shortly.
- adwww 6y agolol what, he is biased for pointing out misinformation from a prominent public figure, after years of Twitter being criticised for allowing false information to proliferate?
- djohnston 6y agoNo no, he is biased from his own Twitter history. It is clear he despises Trump and conservatives more generally. I don't have a dog in this fight, but I would certainly pause to consider the ramifications of this individual being the source of truthiness for Twitter b
- shadowgovt 6y agoWe'll see how it goes. It certainly wouldn't be the first time someone with strong personal biases was put in a position to editorialize on someone else's signal.
- plehoux 6y agoI think he is referencing those tweets: https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/1265457578215124995 https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/126545757821512499...
- radiator 6y agoWow! I would say, unless Twitter has double standards, it should fact-check the tweets of its own "head of integrity".
- shadowgovt 6y agoTwitter obviously has double standards; has for years. Remember when the US elected a troll and Twitter responded to calls they enforce their own TOS by modifying the TOS to have a carve-out for "newsworthiness?"
- adwww 6y agoha oh, in that case that's a bit of an own goal from Twitter. Although I doubt he put that fact checking warning up all on his own, there must have been a policy in place that senior management agreed to, and legal have presumably okayed.
- pbhjpbhj 6y agoThat's attacking the person rather than the action - were the fact checking moderations wrong? Sure, their personal political bias should put them up to a greater level of scrutiny; but it they can still fact check without bias. So, have they?
- free_rms 6y agoThe appearance is disqualifying on its own. They're gonna get dragged for these tweets any time they fact check anything, even if their judgment is always impeccable.
- surfpel 6y ago> They're gonna get dragged for these tweets They’ll get dragged for doing anything that doesn’t align with X party. If not his tweets than something else. Not saying people shouldn’t have common sense about what they post on a public forum tho...
- free_rms 6y agoYeah, but why hand them ammo. Like you say. I'm pretty sure most judges would recuse if they had statements like that surface. Sections (a) (1) and especially (a) (5) here, for example: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_code_of_judicial_conduct/model_code_of_judicial_conduct_canon_2/rule2_11disqualification/ https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibili...
- remarkEon 6y agoI think it's a much greater stretch to pretend that this person's obvious political bias doesn't leak into the "fact checking" they choose to do - or not to do, which is kind of the bigger issue. They may "correctly", ignoring the philosophically charged issue of "correct", fact check a certain politician but choose to ignore a different politician's statements that would otherwise be noted as incorrect under the same or similar standard.
- gonzo41 6y agoEveryone hates change. Twitter wants to live in the future so it has to change and show behaviors more like the news and information service it currently is, And trump and others don't want twitter to change because currently they can communicate with bubbles isolated from reality. I really don't like twitter for all the crap and bots that's on there. I think it's a terrible format. But I think we are in a middle time, were new publishers and formats are rising at the same time as traditional media is falling. Hopefully larger publisher's and media organizations such as Facebook, Google and Twitter take the power and responsibility they have seriously.
- noworriesnate 6y agoIt is not misinformation to be concerned about mail-in ballots. There have been screw ups with mail in ballots in the past. For example: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96437123 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=964371... For more stories just google "Military main-in ballots lost"
- nojito 6y agotwitter is a private organization. Regulating the speech of private organizations is a dangerous slope to be on.
- akhilcacharya 6y agoAs a hill to die on though, it's certainly revealing!
- alharith 6y agoPrivate organization that enjoys the legal protections of a platform. Reclassify them as a publisher. Can't have it both ways.
- bardworx 6y agoMaybe an ignorant question but how would classifying Twitter as a publisher solve the issue? I’m guessing you mean that they should be held accountable for what people post there? Or is there a different angle I’m not seeing?
- alharith 6y agoThis article does a good job of explaining the issue (if you can stomach viewing an article on a conservative site, I know many here can't, but the information is good) https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/social-media-platforms-or-publishers-rethinking-section-230/ https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/social-medi... Here's also some history on the law https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230/legislative-history https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230/legislative-history Also preempting the brigade downvoting anything that has the word 'conservative' in it by pointing out that Joe Biden is actually for this idea as well (middle of article when he starts talking about the Facebook hearings and CDA 230): https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/17/opinion/joe-biden-nytimes-interview.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/17/opinion/joe-b...
- bardworx 6y ago
- epistasis 6y agoSorry, what "bias" is that?
- josefresco 6y agoTurns out, people with important jobs that require impartiality (like judges) have real, personal, opinions and feelings.
- palsir 6y agobut judges are publicly accountable, while corporations (and their agents) can do what they want. Comes back down to the publisher/curator debate.
- gonzo41 6y agoYou can hold private companies accountable via secondary boycott. It's more complicated but it can be done.
- anewdirection 6y ago'Are held' and 'can be done' are obscenely different to conflate them.
- sixstringtheory 6y agoCorrect. Also, you won’t be dragged to a keyboard connected to a computer logged in to Twitter at gunpoint, but you sure will be dragged to court to face a judge at gunpoint. There are different standards of accountability that match the standards of compulsion and violence.
- seerbetter 6y agoHe dismissed the entire Midwest as lunatics to be ignored. There’s a lot of hackers and engineers and amazing companies in the Midwest. He’s mindless in his opinions. He’s not against a policy or a politician. He’s separating society.
- epistasis 6y agoI'm from the midwest. I usually get fucking pissed when people call them flyover states, caused major friction with a cofounder for years. But seeing this mislabeled as "bias" has got to be the silliest and most hyperbolic over-reaction I've ever seen. It's somebody being a minor asshole on Twitter. That is not bias of any substantial sort. Feelings are important, but as somebody who does get his (overly sensitive) feelings hurt by that statement, I'm at least mature enough to place it in context. We need to grow up as a society. There are faaaaaar worse actual biases on display everyday on Twitter, from people with far more power. We have a president who's threatening to use his own political bias to shut down or regulate companies based only in what he perceives as politics.
- jmull 6y agothe real shame is that integrity is a politically biased position now.
- anewdirection 6y agoWhich neither Twitter nor Trump posess in great margin.
- shadowgovt 6y agoIf fact-checking the President when he says untrue things is "strong political bias," there are larger problems than the fate of one employee at Twitter.
- djohnston 6y agoThat isn't the bias, check his Twitter history there are links all over this thread
- im3w1l 6y agoPeople who call Trump a racist tangerine [0] and scream about "ACTUAL NAZIS IN THE WHITE HOUSE" [0] are the exact type of extremists that would support election fraud because "it's justified to stop ACTUAL NAZIS", and use their position of power to cover it up. [0] https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/1265457578215124995 https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/126545757821512499...
- shadowgovt 6y agoWhat's he covering up? Twitter has provided sources for their fact-check. The President is more than welcome to provide sources for his fraud claims any time he chooses. Via Twitter. Same medium that is fact-checking him. The fact he says what he does un-sourced, and people believe him because he speaks from the authority of his office, is the troubling thing.
- im3w1l 6y agoI'm not saying he is covering anything up right now. But as I argued, IF there were anything to cover up, his bias means that he would. Since he's gonna say nothing is up whether it is or isn't I'm just gonna tune it out entirely. It carries no signal.
- shadowgovt 6y agoBiased signal is still signal. A data source that only reports facts that support its theory is still reporting facts. I think, rather than tune it out, combining it with other sources gives a richer picture.