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Free speech has taken quite a beating in recent days. It's weird watching many of my friends and people I respect cheering while it happens. I honestly don't kn

Free speech has taken quite a beating in recent days. It's weird watching many of my friends and people I respect cheering while it happens. I honestly don't know what we do to fix our current situation where lies so easily go viral, but making Twitter arbiters of truth doesn't seem like the best solution.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
You've never had free speech on somebody else's property.
- clusterfish 6y ago
  You also never had the ability to be talking on somebody else's property while sitting in your own home until very recently. Things change. The streets are still public but the streets aren't where we're talking anymore.
krapp 6y ago
No one is making Twitter an arbiter of truth. If you don't like the way Twitter does business, there are other platforms that will cater to your alternative truth needs.
- joshfraser 6y ago
  I'm not seeking alternative truth. Everyone cheers for Twitter because they think they are going to censor people in a way they agree with. But what about the day that changes? What about the day they decide to censor you instead? On one hand, I agree that businesses should be free to operate as they like & you can vote with your feet if you don't like the rules. However, we also have to be realistic about the fact that the largest tech corporations are now more powerful than most countries. Opting out isn't a very practical solution.
  - _qulr 6y ago
    > the largest tech corporations are now more powerful than most countries I think this is fundamentally the problem, and not free speech. Sites like Twitter and Facebook are of unprecedented historical size. Nobody really worried about whether some little discussion forum allows free speech or censors itself. But Twitter and Facebook want to become "the world's discussion forum", and I'm not sure that's even a thing that should exist. You can't really have free speech if there's only a small number of platforms for speech.
  - SQueeeeeL 6y ago
    Then maybe vote in better people who actually give a shit and break up tech monopolies, otherwise we're just gonna live in hell world. The Clinton's should've broken it up in the 90's and Bush's in the 2000's; but they never went all the way and we've seen this behavior continue too the current admin.
  - krapp 6y ago
    >But what about the day that changes? What about the day they decide to censor you instead? What about it? People get banned from Twitter all the time - literally every hosted platform and service moderates and bans content as they see fit. The terms of service you agreed to when using that platform likely includes phrases like "for any reason" and "in perpetuity throughout the universe." So I guess I make another account? Or go somewhere else? That's not exactly the boot of fascism stomping on your face forever. >However, we also have to be realistic about the fact that the largest tech corporations are now more powerful than most countries. No they aren't. Countries have armies and the monopoly on violence. Countries can arrest you, torture you, confiscate your possessions, make your beliefs illegal, and murder you. The only thing Twitter can possibly do to me is delete my account or ban me. They only control their one platform, they don't control the internet or the entirety of media. They're not going to send me to the gulag or throw me into the ovens. They're not going to erase me like Stalin. To say that any social media platform is more powerful than most countries is ridiculous.
    - stale2002 6y ago
      > That's not exactly the boot of fascism stomping on your face forever. Alright. Let's say that all of the major social media platforms ban any discussion of raising their taxes, or enacting more regulation on them, or let's say they straight up ban major politicians from the platform. Oh, and also there is no other significant competitor that matters, and it is unlikely that any competitors will pop up anytime soon. Are you just OK with that? You are just going to say "well, I guess it is their platform, and they can do what they want, and it doesn't matter that no competitor has any significant chance of being successful". > They only control their one platform, they don't control the internet Ok, now what is almost all of the major platforms do it, and there are no serious competitors? Let's expand this out even further. What if Walmart did the same thing? Along with multiple other grocery stores. You want to raise their taxes, well sorry, you probably aren't going to be able to buy food from any major grocery store. Or how about if common carrier laws were removed and your power company did it? Or the water company, now that this is legal? Your passive acceptance of this type of being can be extrapolated out to horrifying results.
- Nuzzerino 6y ago
  Your comment comes across as smug and condescending. Not to mention that moving to another platform doesn't change the secondary and tertiary effects that mass censorship has on society, and therefore you, as a platform user or not.
rabuse 6y ago
I have this gut instinct we're veering towards the way China censors their internet. The great U.S. firewall, to secure our citizens from "disinformation"!
- helen___keller 6y ago
  As far as "great firewall style" American censorship (i.e. state removal of content on a categorical level) the only proposals I'm aware of have been to block TikTok and WeChat on the grounds of "national security".
iamdbtoo 6y ago
Twitter is a community and all communities require some level of moderation. There's never a situation where you let people say whatever they want, whenever they want without any moderation at all and everything goes well. You have to set some of sort of standard. We already do this as a society, so why shouldn't that extend to Twitter?
- _qulr 6y ago
  > Twitter is a community Twitter has 330 million monthly active users and 145 million daily active users. Is that a community? It seems more like an unruly mob. :-) I agree with the point that all online forums should have moderation, but for me the question is, should something like Twitter even exist? A centralized world discussion forum is not necessarily a good and healthy thing. Can humanity handle having Twitter?
  - helen___keller 6y ago
    > Can humanity handle having Twitter? Even if the answer is no, pandora's box is opened. If twitter disappeared, 5 copycat sites/apps would emerge from the ashes overnight.
    - _qulr 6y ago
      > If twitter disappeared, 5 copycat sites/apps would emerge from the ashes overnight. 5 is not necessarily a problem. 1 is a problem. :-) It's not easy to reach "critical mass" though. Many social networks have tried and failed. Certainly the Twitter alternatives (e.g., App Dot Net) tried and failed. And hopefully we've all learned some lessons from Twitter and won't make the same mistakes again. Or if we did make the same mistakes again, then humanity is truly doomed, and there's nothing we can do to stop it...
    - AI_WAIFU 6y ago
      I mean we could just ban twitter like services. You just need a sufficiently vague law.
  - 6y ago
km3r 6y ago
Any platform ought to have the right to prevent falsehoods from being spread on the platform. A platform also should have to right to choose what topic, otherwise a car forum could be overrun by motorcycle enthusiasts. As long as a platform applies its rules in a just and fair way, i see no issue with preventing lies or keeping the topic on track.
- TheSionnach 6y ago
  But who gets to decide what is truth and lies? If twitter was bi-partisan, sure, but the people in charge clearly have a heavily bias.
  - gdulli 6y ago
    > But who gets to decide what is truth and lies? Twitter does. On Twitter. That's practically a tautology. Is your point that you didn't know the answer, or that we should descend into anarchy because attempting to answer difficult questions is tricky? Both sides think Twitter is biased against them. The only reason you think it's biased is because of the same tribalism that you're baselessly accusing them of. It's blatantly obvious that Twitter can never stray far from the middle because it would lose them one half or the other of their audience and business.
  - nobody9999 6y ago
    >But who gets to decide what is truth and lies? If twitter was bi-partisan, sure, but the people in charge clearly have a heavily bias. You believe that and I respect your beliefs. I don't use Twitter, so I'm not really in a position to agree or disagree with you. That said, so what? The shareholders of Twitter own the company. If the company is doing what the shareholders want (within the strictures of the law), then so be it. Free speech cuts both ways. I can say just about anything I want. But Twitter or Facebook or HN, for that matter, is under no obligation to host my speech. The only entities that are forbidden from censoring by the First Amendment are the Federal government,(and through the 14th Amendment) as well as state and local governments. So if Twitter censors (or doesn't censor) content that you think shouldn't (or should) be censored, you are free to argue for your point of view and encourage others to do the same. And Twitter can do the same. Even if (and I take no position one way or another) Twitter is biased and acts upon those biases, so what? That's their right under the First Amendment. It's messy, and it pisses people off, but there's no provision in the First Amendment that speech must be orderly or inoffensive.
eplanit 6y ago
10 years ago, it was most China we spoke about regarding censorship and "social credits". The CCP has made deep inroads into US society during this time. They're succeeding in changing peoples' thoughts and feelings regarding free speech.
- driverdan 6y ago
  Save your outrage for when it's government mandated. Until then Twitter can moderate their platform however they want.
matchbok 6y ago
I'm not sure you understand what "free speech" is, because it doesn't apply to Twitter, at all, in any way.
- joshfraser 6y ago
  Mmmm the dictionary says it means "the right to express any opinions without censorship or restraint"
  - matchbok 6y ago
    Again, you don't understand what that means. They are a private entity - "censorship" has no meaning there. You have exactly 0 rights on the twitter platform, as it's not a government entity.
    - newfriend 6y ago
      There is a difference between "Freedom of Speech" the principle, and "Freedom of Speech" as defined in the 1st Amendment. They are obviously referring to the principle in this case. But maybe you don't understand what that means.
    - Nuzzerino 6y ago
      That's not exactly true. The public has the right to have all laws applied fairly. The social media platforms have enjoyed the rights of a neutral forum without the liabilities that come with being a publisher. Yet the platforms act like a publisher, deciding what is seen or not seen, and the public directly or indirectly suffers as a result. This is a pretty clear case of actual rights being violated, despite the distracting narrative of "muh private company". The tech companies have a clear liberal bias, despite what the media wants you to believe. Tech savvy people tend to be more liberal, and tend to spend more time on social media, so you have a bubble of opinions that drown out the other noise (which already gets downvoted to the bottom, shadowbanned, or censored anyway), resulting in the faux appearance of a consensus that there isn't a real problem here. Anyone with enough influence to have this opinion really noticed in the mainstream media, will be discounted as a "conspiracy theorist".
sixstrings 6y ago
I think the only way out is for governments to prohibited targeted ads as a business model. It’s deeply subversive to the informed populace when everyone lives in completely different realities based on their advertising profiles. Making a business model like that illegal would force these services to go the paid route, or have less a subversive, and alas, less effective, advertising.
shoes_for_thee 6y ago
bullshit. this measure is twitter deferring the arbitration of truth to actual authoritative sources: "People on Twitter, including candidates for office, may not claim an election win before it is authoritatively called"
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jariel 6y ago
a) You have no right to free-speech on Twitter or any other platform. b) When people spread false information at scale, it risks the very foundations of civilization. Anyone with an actively managed platform has to try to ensure some kind of intelligent fealty - the trick is to do it without bias or and kind of ideological orientation.
godshatter 6y ago
I agree. I'm part of the "let the buyer beware" camp, despite the chaos that might entail. I would rather see social media sites focus more on not putting people in bubbles rather than trying to police what they say. If people can't see through the BS, then we get what we deserve. Every change like this is going to have unconscious bias and will likely be taken as proof of manipulation by people who don't share that bias. The only winning move is not to play.
jon37 6y ago
The classic rebuttal to free speech arguments which I'm sure you've heard, is that the first amendment doesn't apply to private companies, and that your right to free speech doesn't entitle you to a megaphone, etc. I think a more nuanced and useful way to look at things is to think of Twitter as an amplification machine rather than a speech machine. I can say what I want out loud, I can write whatever letters I want, I can make my own website if I want, etc., but putting it on Twitter causes Twitter to amplify it. Many of these announced changes pertain to what Twitter chooses to amplify - and how - rather than what it permits people to say. (As far as I can tell, the only tweets they are actually removing are those that call for violence, a standard for censorship that seems quite reasonable.) If we think in terms of how and when to amplify speech, rather than trying to figure out what kind of speech to censor, we can hit upon more workable improvements. Twitter's proposals here, under that framing, are a mixed bag. Twitter provides several ways to amplify posts - some of which are intentional on the part of users, some not. For example, if I follow a person, I'm telling Twitter to show all that person's posts in my feed. If I reply to a tweet, I'm telling Twitter to show my post to that person in their notifications, and also show it to other people who engage with it. If I quote-rt a tweet, I'm telling Twitter to show it to everyone who follows me, alongside my commentary. Etc. On the other hand, if I like a post, or engage with it in any way, I'm not telling Twitter to show it to anyone - but my Like may cause it to recommend the post to others, sort it upward in the algorithmic timeline, etc. This unintentional amplification can have unintended consequences, because the system cannot tell when engagement metrics are due to positive or negative characteristics of the post. Quote-retweets are also rife with unintended consequences. If someone "dunks" on a post by quote-retweeting it with criticism or mockery, they're betting that their comment is going to lower the status of the person they are quoting or persuade people the post is false. But the folks reading their post may not agree - and the original post might have been an bad faith attempt at distraction, which a dunk then amplifies. Alternatively, if a popular account dunks on a much less popular account, it can (sometimes intentionally, sometimes not) trigger a wave of hostility and harassment. So I like parts of Twitter's changes here - they have the right to try and amplify true information more than false information, and removing flagged posts from recommendations will do that. Additionally, removing recommended content from non-followed accounts from the algorithmic timeline is positive as well - it reduces unintentional amplification and puts more control in the hands of users. But their encouragement of the quote-retweet is concerning. They don't seem to realize how effective a weapon it can be. I would argue that any automated recommendation of user-generated content needs to be carefully controlled, if not abolished altogether. Recommendation systems cannot distinguish between content with high engagement due to quality, and high engagement due to emotionally manipulative dishonesty or other negative factors. And specially interested (or bigoted) political actors, who are simply interested in "the most effective way to attack / promote X" rather than arriving at the most truthful position, can test and manipulate those recommendation systems far more effectively than folks trying to engage with nuance and good faith. This "situation where lies so easily go viral" seems to me to have intensified starting in around 2014 to 2015 - when Twitter introduced the quote-retweet, and Facebook introduced the algorithmic timeline. I don't think "free speech" is the right framing for thinking about it. The recent phenomenon is not the existence of extremist political movements or medical misinformation, but rather, their amplification.
gdulli 6y ago
> It's weird watching many of my friends and people I respect cheering while it happens They understand that "free speech" is one of many principles we value, that these principles can clash, and we inevitably have to choose between them in cases. Even if those choices make some people uncomfortable. Before today, speech was neither offline nor online so free as to permit fraud. It's a terrible civic abdication to write off criminal behavior because it's so easy to get away with online and because it looks so much on the surface level like "free speech." Or because we live with too much fear and paranoia to accept even a discussion of establishing standards. Twitter making any judgment that some content is fraudulent is not the same as becoming the editorial boogeyman from the extremist side of whatever political party is opposite to yours. That's fear. That's an appeal to the slippery slope fallacy. My trip to the store is better off for knowing that if someone was shouting about about Jesus or conspiracies, they'd be asked to leave. We don't question that limit on speech. There's a reason you see people doing that on street corners. If there was never any deplatforming, all platforms would inevitably suck. Is it ideal that Twitter and Facebook have so much power? Maybe not, but that's just the reality we're in. We can't be paralyzed into inaction. There's no perfect body that everyone would trust to do the job and someone has to keep Twitter and Facebook from sucking too hard. Don't let your paranoia make you overlook that they'd lose half their audience/business if they ever strayed too far from the middle.
sg47 6y ago
Once democracy takes a beating, free speech will be the first to go.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago

You've never had free speech on somebody else's property.

clusterfish 6y ago
You also never had the ability to be talking on somebody else's property while sitting in your own home until very recently. Things change. The streets are still public but the streets aren't where we're talking anymore.

krapp 6y ago

No one is making Twitter an arbiter of truth. If you don't like the way Twitter does business, there are other platforms that will cater to your alternative truth needs.

joshfraser 6y ago
I'm not seeking alternative truth. Everyone cheers for Twitter because they think they are going to censor people in a way they agree with. But what about the day that changes? What about the day they decide to censor you instead? On one hand, I agree that businesses should be free to operate as they like & you can vote with your feet if you don't like the rules. However, we also have to be realistic about the fact that the largest tech corporations are now more powerful than most countries. Opting out isn't a very practical solution.
- _qulr 6y ago
  > the largest tech corporations are now more powerful than most countries I think this is fundamentally the problem, and not free speech. Sites like Twitter and Facebook are of unprecedented historical size. Nobody really worried about whether some little discussion forum allows free speech or censors itself. But Twitter and Facebook want to become "the world's discussion forum", and I'm not sure that's even a thing that should exist. You can't really have free speech if there's only a small number of platforms for speech.
- SQueeeeeL 6y ago
  Then maybe vote in better people who actually give a shit and break up tech monopolies, otherwise we're just gonna live in hell world. The Clinton's should've broken it up in the 90's and Bush's in the 2000's; but they never went all the way and we've seen this behavior continue too the current admin.
- krapp 6y ago
  >But what about the day that changes? What about the day they decide to censor you instead? What about it? People get banned from Twitter all the time - literally every hosted platform and service moderates and bans content as they see fit. The terms of service you agreed to when using that platform likely includes phrases like "for any reason" and "in perpetuity throughout the universe." So I guess I make another account? Or go somewhere else? That's not exactly the boot of fascism stomping on your face forever. >However, we also have to be realistic about the fact that the largest tech corporations are now more powerful than most countries. No they aren't. Countries have armies and the monopoly on violence. Countries can arrest you, torture you, confiscate your possessions, make your beliefs illegal, and murder you. The only thing Twitter can possibly do to me is delete my account or ban me. They only control their one platform, they don't control the internet or the entirety of media. They're not going to send me to the gulag or throw me into the ovens. They're not going to erase me like Stalin. To say that any social media platform is more powerful than most countries is ridiculous.
  - stale2002 6y ago
    > That's not exactly the boot of fascism stomping on your face forever. Alright. Let's say that all of the major social media platforms ban any discussion of raising their taxes, or enacting more regulation on them, or let's say they straight up ban major politicians from the platform. Oh, and also there is no other significant competitor that matters, and it is unlikely that any competitors will pop up anytime soon. Are you just OK with that? You are just going to say "well, I guess it is their platform, and they can do what they want, and it doesn't matter that no competitor has any significant chance of being successful". > They only control their one platform, they don't control the internet Ok, now what is almost all of the major platforms do it, and there are no serious competitors? Let's expand this out even further. What if Walmart did the same thing? Along with multiple other grocery stores. You want to raise their taxes, well sorry, you probably aren't going to be able to buy food from any major grocery store. Or how about if common carrier laws were removed and your power company did it? Or the water company, now that this is legal? Your passive acceptance of this type of being can be extrapolated out to horrifying results.
Nuzzerino 6y ago
Your comment comes across as smug and condescending. Not to mention that moving to another platform doesn't change the secondary and tertiary effects that mass censorship has on society, and therefore you, as a platform user or not.

rabuse 6y ago

I have this gut instinct we're veering towards the way China censors their internet. The great U.S. firewall, to secure our citizens from "disinformation"!

helen___keller 6y ago
As far as "great firewall style" American censorship (i.e. state removal of content on a categorical level) the only proposals I'm aware of have been to block TikTok and WeChat on the grounds of "national security".

iamdbtoo 6y ago

Twitter is a community and all communities require some level of moderation. There's never a situation where you let people say whatever they want, whenever they want without any moderation at all and everything goes well. You have to set some of sort of standard. We already do this as a society, so why shouldn't that extend to Twitter?

_qulr 6y ago
> Twitter is a community Twitter has 330 million monthly active users and 145 million daily active users. Is that a community? It seems more like an unruly mob. :-) I agree with the point that all online forums should have moderation, but for me the question is, should something like Twitter even exist? A centralized world discussion forum is not necessarily a good and healthy thing. Can humanity handle having Twitter?
- helen___keller 6y ago
  > Can humanity handle having Twitter? Even if the answer is no, pandora's box is opened. If twitter disappeared, 5 copycat sites/apps would emerge from the ashes overnight.
  - _qulr 6y ago
    > If twitter disappeared, 5 copycat sites/apps would emerge from the ashes overnight. 5 is not necessarily a problem. 1 is a problem. :-) It's not easy to reach "critical mass" though. Many social networks have tried and failed. Certainly the Twitter alternatives (e.g., App Dot Net) tried and failed. And hopefully we've all learned some lessons from Twitter and won't make the same mistakes again. Or if we did make the same mistakes again, then humanity is truly doomed, and there's nothing we can do to stop it...
  - AI_WAIFU 6y ago
    I mean we could just ban twitter like services. You just need a sufficiently vague law.
- 6y ago

km3r 6y ago

Any platform ought to have the right to prevent falsehoods from being spread on the platform. A platform also should have to right to choose what topic, otherwise a car forum could be overrun by motorcycle enthusiasts. As long as a platform applies its rules in a just and fair way, i see no issue with preventing lies or keeping the topic on track.

TheSionnach 6y ago
But who gets to decide what is truth and lies? If twitter was bi-partisan, sure, but the people in charge clearly have a heavily bias.
- gdulli 6y ago
  > But who gets to decide what is truth and lies? Twitter does. On Twitter. That's practically a tautology. Is your point that you didn't know the answer, or that we should descend into anarchy because attempting to answer difficult questions is tricky? Both sides think Twitter is biased against them. The only reason you think it's biased is because of the same tribalism that you're baselessly accusing them of. It's blatantly obvious that Twitter can never stray far from the middle because it would lose them one half or the other of their audience and business.
- nobody9999 6y ago
  >But who gets to decide what is truth and lies? If twitter was bi-partisan, sure, but the people in charge clearly have a heavily bias. You believe that and I respect your beliefs. I don't use Twitter, so I'm not really in a position to agree or disagree with you. That said, so what? The shareholders of Twitter own the company. If the company is doing what the shareholders want (within the strictures of the law), then so be it. Free speech cuts both ways. I can say just about anything I want. But Twitter or Facebook or HN, for that matter, is under no obligation to host my speech. The only entities that are forbidden from censoring by the First Amendment are the Federal government,(and through the 14th Amendment) as well as state and local governments. So if Twitter censors (or doesn't censor) content that you think shouldn't (or should) be censored, you are free to argue for your point of view and encourage others to do the same. And Twitter can do the same. Even if (and I take no position one way or another) Twitter is biased and acts upon those biases, so what? That's their right under the First Amendment. It's messy, and it pisses people off, but there's no provision in the First Amendment that speech must be orderly or inoffensive.

eplanit 6y ago

10 years ago, it was most China we spoke about regarding censorship and "social credits". The CCP has made deep inroads into US society during this time. They're succeeding in changing peoples' thoughts and feelings regarding free speech.

driverdan 6y ago
Save your outrage for when it's government mandated. Until then Twitter can moderate their platform however they want.

matchbok 6y ago

I'm not sure you understand what "free speech" is, because it doesn't apply to Twitter, at all, in any way.

joshfraser 6y ago
Mmmm the dictionary says it means "the right to express any opinions without censorship or restraint"
- matchbok 6y ago
  Again, you don't understand what that means. They are a private entity - "censorship" has no meaning there. You have exactly 0 rights on the twitter platform, as it's not a government entity.
  - newfriend 6y ago
    There is a difference between "Freedom of Speech" the principle, and "Freedom of Speech" as defined in the 1st Amendment. They are obviously referring to the principle in this case. But maybe you don't understand what that means.
  - Nuzzerino 6y ago
    That's not exactly true. The public has the right to have all laws applied fairly. The social media platforms have enjoyed the rights of a neutral forum without the liabilities that come with being a publisher. Yet the platforms act like a publisher, deciding what is seen or not seen, and the public directly or indirectly suffers as a result. This is a pretty clear case of actual rights being violated, despite the distracting narrative of "muh private company". The tech companies have a clear liberal bias, despite what the media wants you to believe. Tech savvy people tend to be more liberal, and tend to spend more time on social media, so you have a bubble of opinions that drown out the other noise (which already gets downvoted to the bottom, shadowbanned, or censored anyway), resulting in the faux appearance of a consensus that there isn't a real problem here. Anyone with enough influence to have this opinion really noticed in the mainstream media, will be discounted as a "conspiracy theorist".

sixstrings 6y ago

I think the only way out is for governments to prohibited targeted ads as a business model. It’s deeply subversive to the informed populace when everyone lives in completely different realities based on their advertising profiles. Making a business model like that illegal would force these services to go the paid route, or have less a subversive, and alas, less effective, advertising.

shoes_for_thee 6y ago

bullshit. this measure is twitter deferring the arbitration of truth to actual authoritative sources: "People on Twitter, including candidates for office, may not claim an election win before it is authoritatively called"

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jariel 6y ago

a) You have no right to free-speech on Twitter or any other platform. b) When people spread false information at scale, it risks the very foundations of civilization. Anyone with an actively managed platform has to try to ensure some kind of intelligent fealty - the trick is to do it without bias or and kind of ideological orientation.

godshatter 6y ago

I agree. I'm part of the "let the buyer beware" camp, despite the chaos that might entail. I would rather see social media sites focus more on not putting people in bubbles rather than trying to police what they say. If people can't see through the BS, then we get what we deserve. Every change like this is going to have unconscious bias and will likely be taken as proof of manipulation by people who don't share that bias. The only winning move is not to play.

jon37 6y ago

The classic rebuttal to free speech arguments which I'm sure you've heard, is that the first amendment doesn't apply to private companies, and that your right to free speech doesn't entitle you to a megaphone, etc. I think a more nuanced and useful way to look at things is to think of Twitter as an amplification machine rather than a speech machine. I can say what I want out loud, I can write whatever letters I want, I can make my own website if I want, etc., but putting it on Twitter causes Twitter to amplify it. Many of these announced changes pertain to what Twitter chooses to amplify - and how - rather than what it permits people to say. (As far as I can tell, the only tweets they are actually removing are those that call for violence, a standard for censorship that seems quite reasonable.) If we think in terms of how and when to amplify speech, rather than trying to figure out what kind of speech to censor, we can hit upon more workable improvements. Twitter's proposals here, under that framing, are a mixed bag. Twitter provides several ways to amplify posts - some of which are intentional on the part of users, some not. For example, if I follow a person, I'm telling Twitter to show all that person's posts in my feed. If I reply to a tweet, I'm telling Twitter to show my post to that person in their notifications, and also show it to other people who engage with it. If I quote-rt a tweet, I'm telling Twitter to show it to everyone who follows me, alongside my commentary. Etc. On the other hand, if I like a post, or engage with it in any way, I'm not telling Twitter to show it to anyone - but my Like may cause it to recommend the post to others, sort it upward in the algorithmic timeline, etc. This unintentional amplification can have unintended consequences, because the system cannot tell when engagement metrics are due to positive or negative characteristics of the post. Quote-retweets are also rife with unintended consequences. If someone "dunks" on a post by quote-retweeting it with criticism or mockery, they're betting that their comment is going to lower the status of the person they are quoting or persuade people the post is false. But the folks reading their post may not agree - and the original post might have been an bad faith attempt at distraction, which a dunk then amplifies. Alternatively, if a popular account dunks on a much less popular account, it can (sometimes intentionally, sometimes not) trigger a wave of hostility and harassment. So I like parts of Twitter's changes here - they have the right to try and amplify true information more than false information, and removing flagged posts from recommendations will do that. Additionally, removing recommended content from non-followed accounts from the algorithmic timeline is positive as well - it reduces unintentional amplification and puts more control in the hands of users. But their encouragement of the quote-retweet is concerning. They don't seem to realize how effective a weapon it can be. I would argue that any automated recommendation of user-generated content needs to be carefully controlled, if not abolished altogether. Recommendation systems cannot distinguish between content with high engagement due to quality, and high engagement due to emotionally manipulative dishonesty or other negative factors. And specially interested (or bigoted) political actors, who are simply interested in "the most effective way to attack / promote X" rather than arriving at the most truthful position, can test and manipulate those recommendation systems far more effectively than folks trying to engage with nuance and good faith. This "situation where lies so easily go viral" seems to me to have intensified starting in around 2014 to 2015 - when Twitter introduced the quote-retweet, and Facebook introduced the algorithmic timeline. I don't think "free speech" is the right framing for thinking about it. The recent phenomenon is not the existence of extremist political movements or medical misinformation, but rather, their amplification.

gdulli 6y ago

> It's weird watching many of my friends and people I respect cheering while it happens They understand that "free speech" is one of many principles we value, that these principles can clash, and we inevitably have to choose between them in cases. Even if those choices make some people uncomfortable. Before today, speech was neither offline nor online so free as to permit fraud. It's a terrible civic abdication to write off criminal behavior because it's so easy to get away with online and because it looks so much on the surface level like "free speech." Or because we live with too much fear and paranoia to accept even a discussion of establishing standards. Twitter making any judgment that some content is fraudulent is not the same as becoming the editorial boogeyman from the extremist side of whatever political party is opposite to yours. That's fear. That's an appeal to the slippery slope fallacy. My trip to the store is better off for knowing that if someone was shouting about about Jesus or conspiracies, they'd be asked to leave. We don't question that limit on speech. There's a reason you see people doing that on street corners. If there was never any deplatforming, all platforms would inevitably suck. Is it ideal that Twitter and Facebook have so much power? Maybe not, but that's just the reality we're in. We can't be paralyzed into inaction. There's no perfect body that everyone would trust to do the job and someone has to keep Twitter and Facebook from sucking too hard. Don't let your paranoia make you overlook that they'd lose half their audience/business if they ever strayed too far from the middle.

sg47 6y ago

Once democracy takes a beating, free speech will be the first to go.