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Let users choose their visibility settings and news feed prioritization algorithm (similar to how users can select the search engine used by their browser/phone

Let users choose their visibility settings and news feed prioritization algorithm (similar to how users can select the search engine used by their browser/phone among various options). This is a simple solution that should make everyone happy which does not require lawyers or revoking sec 230. It also provides the opportunity for others to publish algorithms that are less polarizing which we very much need right now. Both Wolfram and Dorsey support this idea.

neuland 6y ago
I also really like this option. But what about the default? I expect there would still be significant disagreement between different factions over what is censored / labeled / prioritized / deprioritized for those users that don't actively switch to the left or right or whatever other custom view. For this, I wonder if this could be a feature of who you follow / engage with. When someone you engage with flags something, then you don't see it. And vice-versa on prioritization. You are more likely to see things that people you follow engage with.
- Spartan-S63 6y ago
  What if there were no default? You had to go through a setup process to assign the visibility settings you want. That way, there's no possibility of bias because everyone would be required to set their own settings.
  - neuland 6y ago
    Yeah, that would be perfect. It'd be disruptive to force everyone to pick. And, I'm sure there'd be some demagoging about which options there are & how they're presented. But, I haven't heard any other suggestions that don't lead to further conflict. Ultimately, I hope there can be a solution to this that let's everyone see the content they want and engage in the public square without censorship.
kelnos 6y ago
> This is a simple solution that should make everyone happy It won't, though, because the best feed algorithm for increasing engagement and stoking outrage and making money off ads is not the one that is best for fostering calm discussion and building a community. Twitter etc. want you to use the engagement one, but in order to actually fix the social problems created by their platform, people have to use something else that will make them less money. I personally think that's fine, but I doubt Twitter will be happy with that. And I'm not sure how you legislate a requirement that your platform isn't psychologically tuned to bring out the worst in people.
- bleepblorp 6y ago
  I don't think fostering calm discussion is a necessary goal for large-scale social media platforms. Some percentage of conversations will get heated--both online and offline--but that's natural and is something society is able to deal with. The danger of social media is that it fosters radicalization by connecting extremists far more efficiently than is possible offline, and that in creating communities of extremists who give themselves psychological permission to act out their beliefs. The consequences of this spill out into the real world in ways that society is not fully able to manage. People using social media to call each other shitheads for supporting (or not supporting) Joe Biden isn't a problem. No one outside of those involved in the conversation will have any reason to care and the people involved will get over it. Social media connecting unhinged people, however, and helping them create a parallel reality where burning down 5G towers becomes the right thing to do to protect people from autism, is very much a problem. This kind of activity spills over into the real world and does have direct consequences. Regulations of social media platforms ought to be far, far more concerned with mitigating the risks of the latter problem than with maintaining civility.
MBCook 6y ago
There’s an even easier one. Stop pretending platforms or neutral. Trying to make up a rule after rule to enforce “neutrality“ and avoid the appearance of “bias“ doesn’t work. Both sides are convinced that they’re being shirked. Just come out and say it. Our new rule is “behave and we will remove what we don’t like“. You don’t like our decision? Go somewhere else. I don’t know how you could ever apply objective standards to 500,000,000 tweets per day. It’s not feasible. So stop pretending to try.
- nostromo 6y ago
  Platforms can be neutral and once were. Algorithms can be made that are content neutral. Obviously banning users from even mentioning content from a newspaper because you don't like their perfectly legal content flies in the face of that. That's the deal: you can be a service provider or a publisher. They want to have their cake and eat it too.
  - roywiggins 6y ago
    Who said that was the deal?
  - mehlmao 6y ago
    >Platforms can be neutral and once were Any examples? > Algorithms can be made that are content neutral How so? Where does the law say you can be either a service provider or a publisher?
    - nostromo 6y ago
      There are many examples of neutral platforms that put users in the driver's seat: early Twitter and Facebook, USNET, email, RSS, WWW. The law before Section 230 was such that if you moderated content, you were responsible for it. You can read about CompuServe and Prodigy's different approaches to moderation and liability. Congress decided that internet services should be given immunity from liability for third-party content, but it's clear their intent was not to allow two or three megacorps to act in partisan ways by blocking access to journalism. They are acting as publishers now and I would not be surprised if Section 230 is amended by congress.
vorpalhex 6y ago
This is why federated platforms are exciting - you can choose the host that is aligned with what you want (aggressive moderation, no moderation, etc) and still be connected to the rest of the fediverse typically. I don't imagine the monopoly platforms will follow this though, too much risk of losing users once feeds are no longer optimized for "engagement" and revenue. It's easy to realize how boring Facebook and Twitter are once the algorithm is stripped away.
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  If people were willing to pay for things they used, we could get rid of the damned ads. App.net was an interesting experiment in this, but it did not end up taking off (I don't recall the price anymore).
  - jds_ 6y ago
    Cable TV has a subscription fee, but they still show ads. What makes you think ads will just disappear if fees get added? Would definitely bring down botting on these platforms - if card fraud can be prevented effectively.
    - Jtsummers 6y ago
      The cost of social media is much lower than the cost of television content (licensing and producing shows and movies). Cable TV is more accurately described as subsidized by subscriptions, making up the difference with ads. HBO and others are examples of content providers that (mostly, they still advertise their own content between shows) eschew advertisement in exchange for a higher cost to access. Social media is cheaper than that, on a per user basis (at least amortized across all users, very active users are a net cost, but also lead many others to participate). I don't know what the price would be, exactly. But let's estimate. Twitter has approximately 300 million users, and brings in around $2.5 billion to $3 billion a year (over the past several years) in revenue. So to get an ad free experience and, assuming they're at least breaking even, cover their costs would be about $10/user. That isn't to say they'd drop paid content, but they could.
dbbk 6y ago
Twitter at least already has this, you can turn the algorithmic home feed off.
amanaplanacanal 6y ago
Would the idea be that platforms cannot moderate at all? They must allow all legal content? So spam and porn would have to be allowed?
- juniper_strong 6y ago
  Historically the term platform has meant just that, they have a legal requirement to allow all content. Think something like a phone network. There are rules about what constitutes spam on a phone network - laws limiting robocalls in some situations for example - but it isn't the phone company making those rules.
  - r00fus 6y ago
    platform != common carrier
    - juniper_strong 6y ago
      Here's an article by Eugene Volokh on the difference between publishers, distributors and platforms: https://reason.com/2020/05/28/47-u-s-c-%C2%A7-230-and-the-publisher-distributor-platform-distinction/ https://reason.com/2020/05/28/47-u-s-c-%C2%A7-230-and-the-pu.... "Historically, American law has divided operators of communications systems into three categories", he says, and he describes the third category as: "Platforms, such as telephone companies, cities on whose sidewalks people might demonstrate, or broadcasters running candidate ads that they are required to carry." His description of the liability rules for platforms: "Platforms weren't liable at all. For instance, even if a phone company learned that an answering machine had a libelous outgoing message (see Anderson v. N.Y. Telephone Co. (N.Y. 1974)), and did nothing to cancel the owner's phone service, it couldn't be sued for libel. Likewise, a city couldn't be liable for defamatory material on signs that someone carried on city sidewalks (even though a bar could be liable once it learned of libelous material on its walls), and a broadcaster couldn't be liable for defamatory material in a candidate ad." If you see a difference between that and "common carrier" that is relevant to whether an entity considered a traditional platform would have to carry spam or porn, what is it?
TYPE_FASTER 6y ago
Or don’t browse to the site where you don’t agree with the results of the algo.
solarkraft 6y ago
Then how come Twitter doesn't support it? Who's controlling it?

neuland 6y ago

I also really like this option. But what about the default? I expect there would still be significant disagreement between different factions over what is censored / labeled / prioritized / deprioritized for those users that don't actively switch to the left or right or whatever other custom view. For this, I wonder if this could be a feature of who you follow / engage with. When someone you engage with flags something, then you don't see it. And vice-versa on prioritization. You are more likely to see things that people you follow engage with.

Spartan-S63 6y ago
What if there were no default? You had to go through a setup process to assign the visibility settings you want. That way, there's no possibility of bias because everyone would be required to set their own settings.
- neuland 6y ago
  Yeah, that would be perfect. It'd be disruptive to force everyone to pick. And, I'm sure there'd be some demagoging about which options there are & how they're presented. But, I haven't heard any other suggestions that don't lead to further conflict. Ultimately, I hope there can be a solution to this that let's everyone see the content they want and engage in the public square without censorship.

kelnos 6y ago

> This is a simple solution that should make everyone happy It won't, though, because the best feed algorithm for increasing engagement and stoking outrage and making money off ads is not the one that is best for fostering calm discussion and building a community. Twitter etc. want you to use the engagement one, but in order to actually fix the social problems created by their platform, people have to use something else that will make them less money. I personally think that's fine, but I doubt Twitter will be happy with that. And I'm not sure how you legislate a requirement that your platform isn't psychologically tuned to bring out the worst in people.

bleepblorp 6y ago
I don't think fostering calm discussion is a necessary goal for large-scale social media platforms. Some percentage of conversations will get heated--both online and offline--but that's natural and is something society is able to deal with. The danger of social media is that it fosters radicalization by connecting extremists far more efficiently than is possible offline, and that in creating communities of extremists who give themselves psychological permission to act out their beliefs. The consequences of this spill out into the real world in ways that society is not fully able to manage. People using social media to call each other shitheads for supporting (or not supporting) Joe Biden isn't a problem. No one outside of those involved in the conversation will have any reason to care and the people involved will get over it. Social media connecting unhinged people, however, and helping them create a parallel reality where burning down 5G towers becomes the right thing to do to protect people from autism, is very much a problem. This kind of activity spills over into the real world and does have direct consequences. Regulations of social media platforms ought to be far, far more concerned with mitigating the risks of the latter problem than with maintaining civility.

MBCook 6y ago

There’s an even easier one. Stop pretending platforms or neutral. Trying to make up a rule after rule to enforce “neutrality“ and avoid the appearance of “bias“ doesn’t work. Both sides are convinced that they’re being shirked. Just come out and say it. Our new rule is “behave and we will remove what we don’t like“. You don’t like our decision? Go somewhere else. I don’t know how you could ever apply objective standards to 500,000,000 tweets per day. It’s not feasible. So stop pretending to try.

nostromo 6y ago
Platforms can be neutral and once were. Algorithms can be made that are content neutral. Obviously banning users from even mentioning content from a newspaper because you don't like their perfectly legal content flies in the face of that. That's the deal: you can be a service provider or a publisher. They want to have their cake and eat it too.
- roywiggins 6y ago
  Who said that was the deal?
- mehlmao 6y ago
  >Platforms can be neutral and once were Any examples? > Algorithms can be made that are content neutral How so? Where does the law say you can be either a service provider or a publisher?
  - nostromo 6y ago
    There are many examples of neutral platforms that put users in the driver's seat: early Twitter and Facebook, USNET, email, RSS, WWW. The law before Section 230 was such that if you moderated content, you were responsible for it. You can read about CompuServe and Prodigy's different approaches to moderation and liability. Congress decided that internet services should be given immunity from liability for third-party content, but it's clear their intent was not to allow two or three megacorps to act in partisan ways by blocking access to journalism. They are acting as publishers now and I would not be surprised if Section 230 is amended by congress.

vorpalhex 6y ago

This is why federated platforms are exciting - you can choose the host that is aligned with what you want (aggressive moderation, no moderation, etc) and still be connected to the rest of the fediverse typically. I don't imagine the monopoly platforms will follow this though, too much risk of losing users once feeds are no longer optimized for "engagement" and revenue. It's easy to realize how boring Facebook and Twitter are once the algorithm is stripped away.

Jtsummers 6y ago
If people were willing to pay for things they used, we could get rid of the damned ads. App.net was an interesting experiment in this, but it did not end up taking off (I don't recall the price anymore).
- jds_ 6y ago
  Cable TV has a subscription fee, but they still show ads. What makes you think ads will just disappear if fees get added? Would definitely bring down botting on these platforms - if card fraud can be prevented effectively.
  - Jtsummers 6y ago
    The cost of social media is much lower than the cost of television content (licensing and producing shows and movies). Cable TV is more accurately described as subsidized by subscriptions, making up the difference with ads. HBO and others are examples of content providers that (mostly, they still advertise their own content between shows) eschew advertisement in exchange for a higher cost to access. Social media is cheaper than that, on a per user basis (at least amortized across all users, very active users are a net cost, but also lead many others to participate). I don't know what the price would be, exactly. But let's estimate. Twitter has approximately 300 million users, and brings in around $2.5 billion to $3 billion a year (over the past several years) in revenue. So to get an ad free experience and, assuming they're at least breaking even, cover their costs would be about $10/user. That isn't to say they'd drop paid content, but they could.

dbbk 6y ago

Twitter at least already has this, you can turn the algorithmic home feed off.

amanaplanacanal 6y ago

Would the idea be that platforms cannot moderate at all? They must allow all legal content? So spam and porn would have to be allowed?

juniper_strong 6y ago
Historically the term platform has meant just that, they have a legal requirement to allow all content. Think something like a phone network. There are rules about what constitutes spam on a phone network - laws limiting robocalls in some situations for example - but it isn't the phone company making those rules.
- r00fus 6y ago
  platform != common carrier
  - juniper_strong 6y ago
    Here's an article by Eugene Volokh on the difference between publishers, distributors and platforms: https://reason.com/2020/05/28/47-u-s-c-%C2%A7-230-and-the-publisher-distributor-platform-distinction/ https://reason.com/2020/05/28/47-u-s-c-%C2%A7-230-and-the-pu.... "Historically, American law has divided operators of communications systems into three categories", he says, and he describes the third category as: "Platforms, such as telephone companies, cities on whose sidewalks people might demonstrate, or broadcasters running candidate ads that they are required to carry." His description of the liability rules for platforms: "Platforms weren't liable at all. For instance, even if a phone company learned that an answering machine had a libelous outgoing message (see Anderson v. N.Y. Telephone Co. (N.Y. 1974)), and did nothing to cancel the owner's phone service, it couldn't be sued for libel. Likewise, a city couldn't be liable for defamatory material on signs that someone carried on city sidewalks (even though a bar could be liable once it learned of libelous material on its walls), and a broadcaster couldn't be liable for defamatory material in a candidate ad." If you see a difference between that and "common carrier" that is relevant to whether an entity considered a traditional platform would have to carry spam or porn, what is it?

TYPE_FASTER 6y ago

Or don’t browse to the site where you don’t agree with the results of the algo.

solarkraft 6y ago

Then how come Twitter doesn't support it? Who's controlling it?