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>Do you think social networks would be less toxic and less abused if all the devs at Facebook or Twitter were apolitical? It isn't possible to be completely "a

>Do you think social networks would be less toxic and less abused if all the devs at Facebook or Twitter were apolitical? It isn't possible to be completely "apolitical" but you can be non-partisan. For me this isn't a left vs right or Republican vs Democrat issue, its an establishment vs everyone else issue. If this policy was in effect in 2002 and 2003 people would be getting censored and banned for disputing "the fact" that Iraq had WMD. Just a few days ago NATO members blocked the former OPCW chief from giving testimony on the (very much disputed) narratives regarding the alleged chemical attacks in Syria. You can be sure the people being blocked and censored by Twitter won't be those pushing the official US government narrative. The argument Twitter is making that, "people are too dumb to figure out what is true, so we will tell them what is true" is very dangerous when Twitter doesn't have a monopoly on the truth, and is run by people with a vested interest and belief in "establishment" narratives - no matter how questionable (or provably false) those narratives are.

simias 6y ago
I'm not denying this at all, but again this is not the point I'm discussing. All companies have a political agenda one way or the other, even if it's just driven by profit. As a thought experiment: imagine if Twitter did the same thing as Coinbase did, got rid of all the politicized people. Problem solved? Of course not. The problem is that Twitter has this incredible influence. Asking them not to do anything is also not neutral and not a solution, you'll end up with 4chan or gab. Take WhatsApp in Brazil. It's been instrumental to Bolsonaro's election due to the astroturfing and dissemination of fake news by pro-Bolsonaro supporters. Do you think it's due to Facebook's employee being pro-Bolsonaro? Or Facebook itself espousing a pro-Bolsonaro stance? Of course not. It's really missing the forest for the trees IMO.
deanCommie 6y ago
> people would be getting censored and banned for disputing "the fact" that Iraq had WMD Literally nobody was buying that Iraq had WMD. It was clear that the politicians were riling themselves up in a patriotic furvor. The evidence was weak from day one and it was clear a propaganda machine was in play. > Twitter doesn't have a monopoly on the truth, I am so sick of statements like this that ultimately lead to inaction and apathy. SOME THINGS ARE JUST TRUE AND SOME ARE NOT. There is no "two sides" to them. There is objective truth and objective lies.
- Karunamon 6y ago
  That last sentence doesn't apply very often in the real world. We're not talking about philosophically pure truth in most cases, we're talking about things like headlines, in which the same factual event can be spun in innumerable ways, all of which are superficially true. Bullshit isn't always, or even mostly, an outright lie. I'd go so far as to say that making shit up whole cloth is the rarest kind of deception.
- StanislavPetrov 6y ago
  >Literally nobody was buying that Iraq had WMD. You must be very young, because this is totally false. Both political parties, every network and every newspaper was not only uniform in their belief and assertion that Iraq had WMD, they ridiculed and attacked everyone who denied this falsehood. >Israel, Russia, Britain, China, and even France held positions similar to that of the United States; France's President Jacques Chirac told Time magazine last February, "There is a problem—the probable possession of weapons of mass destruction by an uncontrollable country, Iraq. The international community is right ... in having decided Iraq should be disarmed." In sum, no one doubted that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/01/spies-lies-and-weapons-what-went-wrong/302878/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/01/spies-l... There should be no doubt that disputing the official narrative on Iraq WMD would have been censored by Twitter and other big tech companies that use establishment narrative as the only benchmark for truth. >SOME THINGS ARE JUST TRUE AND SOME ARE NOT. There is no "two sides" to them. There is objective truth and objective lies. And just who should decide what these things are, you? Twitter? The US government?
  - tpmx 6y ago
    From my perspective in Europe in 2002/2003: There was an incredibly harsh and damaging debate on this matter. Back then I was on the losing leftist side. We watched the Fox News broadcasts in horror. Nowadays I find myself on the rightish side. Fox News is still insane though. In my mind the current equivalent of the outsized influence of 2002/2003 Fox News programming is the political influence of employees of SV companies. Somehow the common factor here is americans imposing their misinformed view of the world to the rest of the world with force, be it physical or cultural.

simias 6y ago

I'm not denying this at all, but again this is not the point I'm discussing. All companies have a political agenda one way or the other, even if it's just driven by profit. As a thought experiment: imagine if Twitter did the same thing as Coinbase did, got rid of all the politicized people. Problem solved? Of course not. The problem is that Twitter has this incredible influence. Asking them not to do anything is also not neutral and not a solution, you'll end up with 4chan or gab. Take WhatsApp in Brazil. It's been instrumental to Bolsonaro's election due to the astroturfing and dissemination of fake news by pro-Bolsonaro supporters. Do you think it's due to Facebook's employee being pro-Bolsonaro? Or Facebook itself espousing a pro-Bolsonaro stance? Of course not. It's really missing the forest for the trees IMO.

deanCommie 6y ago

> people would be getting censored and banned for disputing "the fact" that Iraq had WMD Literally nobody was buying that Iraq had WMD. It was clear that the politicians were riling themselves up in a patriotic furvor. The evidence was weak from day one and it was clear a propaganda machine was in play. > Twitter doesn't have a monopoly on the truth, I am so sick of statements like this that ultimately lead to inaction and apathy. SOME THINGS ARE JUST TRUE AND SOME ARE NOT. There is no "two sides" to them. There is objective truth and objective lies.

Karunamon 6y ago
That last sentence doesn't apply very often in the real world. We're not talking about philosophically pure truth in most cases, we're talking about things like headlines, in which the same factual event can be spun in innumerable ways, all of which are superficially true. Bullshit isn't always, or even mostly, an outright lie. I'd go so far as to say that making shit up whole cloth is the rarest kind of deception.
StanislavPetrov 6y ago
>Literally nobody was buying that Iraq had WMD. You must be very young, because this is totally false. Both political parties, every network and every newspaper was not only uniform in their belief and assertion that Iraq had WMD, they ridiculed and attacked everyone who denied this falsehood. >Israel, Russia, Britain, China, and even France held positions similar to that of the United States; France's President Jacques Chirac told Time magazine last February, "There is a problem—the probable possession of weapons of mass destruction by an uncontrollable country, Iraq. The international community is right ... in having decided Iraq should be disarmed." In sum, no one doubted that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/01/spies-lies-and-weapons-what-went-wrong/302878/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/01/spies-l... There should be no doubt that disputing the official narrative on Iraq WMD would have been censored by Twitter and other big tech companies that use establishment narrative as the only benchmark for truth. >SOME THINGS ARE JUST TRUE AND SOME ARE NOT. There is no "two sides" to them. There is objective truth and objective lies. And just who should decide what these things are, you? Twitter? The US government?
- tpmx 6y ago
  From my perspective in Europe in 2002/2003: There was an incredibly harsh and damaging debate on this matter. Back then I was on the losing leftist side. We watched the Fox News broadcasts in horror. Nowadays I find myself on the rightish side. Fox News is still insane though. In my mind the current equivalent of the outsized influence of 2002/2003 Fox News programming is the political influence of employees of SV companies. Somehow the common factor here is americans imposing their misinformed view of the world to the rest of the world with force, be it physical or cultural.