5 ms·

Hot take: they should do more of this, not less. As a medium it’s fundamentally distortionary, what is popular on Twitter is as much a function of the peculiari

by cirgue 6y ago

Hot take: they should do more of this, not less. As a medium it’s fundamentally distortionary, what is popular on Twitter is as much a function of the peculiarities of its ranking algorithm as it is of the material significance of the information. The less people trust twitter popularity as an indication of importance, the better off society is, and the more diverse the online media ecosystem can be.

Fellshard 6y ago
Mandating something to be unimportant probably won't have the effect you desire. But allowing them to dig their own hole is probably the best outcome, allowing people to see the consequences for themselves. Hopefully the side effects are not too disastrous in the process.
rayiner 6y ago
The idea that Twitter and Facebook can do this in a “non-distortionary” way is unrealistic. Peoples’ personal biases are too strong. The “fact check” websites used to be great. Now, they wander way over “fact checking.” The worst abuses are when they provide “context” or challenge assumptions. Conservatives and liberals are not working from the same assumptions, and have a different set of contextual facts top of mind on different issues. The fact check organizations are pretty good about checking the actual assertion, but reveal bias through what contextual facts they provide and what assumptions they do or do not challenge. Another way they cross the line is “fact checking” obvious rhetoric: https://www.factcheck.org/2020/10/trumps-exaggerated-claims-on-biden-and-pharma-in-puerto-rico/ https://www.factcheck.org/2020/10/trumps-exaggerated-claims-... > At a rally in Sanford, Florida, President Donald Trump made the exaggerated claim that his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, “voted to obliterate” Puerto Rico’s pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. As Biden would say, “c’mon man.” How many times has a politician said stuff like “they sent your jobs to China?” Did anyone fact check Biden’s assertion that Romney would “put [Black people] back in chains?” They explain the vote by saying things like: “at the time, eliminating the provision was seen as striking a blow against “corporate welfare.” Seen by who? They also note that the bill “also raised the minimum wage.” This isn’t “fact checking,” it’s the counter-narrative from the Biden campaign.
- tptacek 6y ago
  I don't think it's the sites wandering that's the problem; it's that they're all inexorably pulled from being color commenters to being refs, and once they become refs, people start to work them. It's hard to think of a way you could run a fact checking site without this dynamic playing out, because the better you are, the more people will depend on you as a referee.
  - newen 6y ago
    How can a site that calls itself a fact checking site possibly be called a color commenter?
    - tptacek 6y ago
      I'm probably just using a bad term, but there's a difference between an observer and a referee, and that's all I'm getting at.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tzs 6y ago
  The Puerto Rico bill had good support from both parties. The vote in the House to send the bill to the Senate was 227-0 among Republicans and 186-10 among Democrats. When the Senate's modified version came back to the House, the R vote was 160-70 and the D voter was 192-2. When it got back to the Senate in final form, the Senate vote was 76-22. The stupid senate.gov site does not tabulate vote by party and I'm too lazy to do it by hand, but the Senate at the time was 55 R to 45 D. I do see that all 22 Nay votes were from R, and two D did not vote, so that would give the R vote as 33-22 and the D vote as 43-0. Among the Yea votes in the Senate I see several current R Senators: Grassley, McConnell, Shelby, and Murkowski. I think Inhofe is the only current R Senator who was in the Nays. I bet someone running against whichever of those first four Senators are up for re-election this year could put together a pretty good ad featuring Trump's talk of the bill "obliterating" Puerto Rico's pharmaceuticals and then calling out that Senator for doing so. How is the Senator going to respond? Say it was a bipartisan bill that was widely supported by both parties, which risks highlighting Trump's misleading use of it?
CivBase 6y ago
> they should do more of this, not less > The less people trust twitter popularity as an indication of importance, the better off society is How exactly will Twitter doing "more of this" result in "less people trust[ing] twitter popularity as an indication of importance"? If anything, I think Twitter should just wear their bias on their sleave and stop pretending to be an open platform. Same goes for all social media. There is no such thing as an unbiased disinformation watchdog. These are not public spaces with rights to freedom of expression. Distributed social media networks are the future.
- cirgue 6y ago
  > Twitter should just wear their bias on their sleave and stop pretending to be an open platform. This is kind of what I was getting at.
75dvtwin 6y ago
I think the issue with social networks like Twitter and other, claiming legal benefits of 'platforms' while acting as publishers and crowdsourced-publishers. It is like having a for-profit business that claims tax umbrella of a charitable organization. All we have to do is simply recongize, that these social networks are publishers of political content. So they can choose to continue editorialization by crowdourcing, but comittees, by AI, by whatever they want. And they can live happily but as publishers. The ISPs (for which section 230 really was meant) -- can continue to be impartial and claim the protection benefits of that section.

by cirgue 6y ago

Fellshard 6y ago

Mandating something to be unimportant probably won't have the effect you desire. But allowing them to dig their own hole is probably the best outcome, allowing people to see the consequences for themselves. Hopefully the side effects are not too disastrous in the process.

rayiner 6y ago

The idea that Twitter and Facebook can do this in a “non-distortionary” way is unrealistic. Peoples’ personal biases are too strong. The “fact check” websites used to be great. Now, they wander way over “fact checking.” The worst abuses are when they provide “context” or challenge assumptions. Conservatives and liberals are not working from the same assumptions, and have a different set of contextual facts top of mind on different issues. The fact check organizations are pretty good about checking the actual assertion, but reveal bias through what contextual facts they provide and what assumptions they do or do not challenge. Another way they cross the line is “fact checking” obvious rhetoric: https://www.factcheck.org/2020/10/trumps-exaggerated-claims-on-biden-and-pharma-in-puerto-rico/ https://www.factcheck.org/2020/10/trumps-exaggerated-claims-... > At a rally in Sanford, Florida, President Donald Trump made the exaggerated claim that his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, “voted to obliterate” Puerto Rico’s pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. As Biden would say, “c’mon man.” How many times has a politician said stuff like “they sent your jobs to China?” Did anyone fact check Biden’s assertion that Romney would “put [Black people] back in chains?” They explain the vote by saying things like: “at the time, eliminating the provision was seen as striking a blow against “corporate welfare.” Seen by who? They also note that the bill “also raised the minimum wage.” This isn’t “fact checking,” it’s the counter-narrative from the Biden campaign.

tptacek 6y ago
I don't think it's the sites wandering that's the problem; it's that they're all inexorably pulled from being color commenters to being refs, and once they become refs, people start to work them. It's hard to think of a way you could run a fact checking site without this dynamic playing out, because the better you are, the more people will depend on you as a referee.
- newen 6y ago
  How can a site that calls itself a fact checking site possibly be called a color commenter?
  - tptacek 6y ago
    I'm probably just using a bad term, but there's a difference between an observer and a referee, and that's all I'm getting at.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tzs 6y ago
The Puerto Rico bill had good support from both parties. The vote in the House to send the bill to the Senate was 227-0 among Republicans and 186-10 among Democrats. When the Senate's modified version came back to the House, the R vote was 160-70 and the D voter was 192-2. When it got back to the Senate in final form, the Senate vote was 76-22. The stupid senate.gov site does not tabulate vote by party and I'm too lazy to do it by hand, but the Senate at the time was 55 R to 45 D. I do see that all 22 Nay votes were from R, and two D did not vote, so that would give the R vote as 33-22 and the D vote as 43-0. Among the Yea votes in the Senate I see several current R Senators: Grassley, McConnell, Shelby, and Murkowski. I think Inhofe is the only current R Senator who was in the Nays. I bet someone running against whichever of those first four Senators are up for re-election this year could put together a pretty good ad featuring Trump's talk of the bill "obliterating" Puerto Rico's pharmaceuticals and then calling out that Senator for doing so. How is the Senator going to respond? Say it was a bipartisan bill that was widely supported by both parties, which risks highlighting Trump's misleading use of it?

CivBase 6y ago

> they should do more of this, not less > The less people trust twitter popularity as an indication of importance, the better off society is How exactly will Twitter doing "more of this" result in "less people trust[ing] twitter popularity as an indication of importance"? If anything, I think Twitter should just wear their bias on their sleave and stop pretending to be an open platform. Same goes for all social media. There is no such thing as an unbiased disinformation watchdog. These are not public spaces with rights to freedom of expression. Distributed social media networks are the future.

cirgue 6y ago
> Twitter should just wear their bias on their sleave and stop pretending to be an open platform. This is kind of what I was getting at.

75dvtwin 6y ago

I think the issue with social networks like Twitter and other, claiming legal benefits of 'platforms' while acting as publishers and crowdsourced-publishers. It is like having a for-profit business that claims tax umbrella of a charitable organization. All we have to do is simply recongize, that these social networks are publishers of political content. So they can choose to continue editorialization by crowdourcing, but comittees, by AI, by whatever they want. And they can live happily but as publishers. The ISPs (for which section 230 really was meant) -- can continue to be impartial and claim the protection benefits of that section.