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> (Of course you'll be able to find a bunch of death threats from random accounts all over, I could find a handful in a few minutes, but that's largely outside

> (Of course you'll be able to find a bunch of death threats from random accounts all over, I could find a handful in a few minutes, but that's largely outside of anyone's control.) I think this is what I don’t understand about the general sentiment that Twitter is some kind of uber-censored platform. Sure, high profile accounts and tweets can sometimes be removed, but have you ever tried reporting tweets? 9 out of 10 times that I report tweets threatening violence or harm against someone, I get a notification a few hours later that the “moderation team” has reviewed that tweet and found it not to be in breach of any policies. Twitter’s reporting system is ineffective at best, and I almost wish I had seen the kind of heavy handed moderation that people prescribe to Twitter here.

edm0nd 4y ago
I mean recent Twitter leaks have shown internal tools that let them categorize users into blacklists and the ability censor their tweets so they dont get much reach or engagement by not showing up in Trending lists and etc. The screenshots of the tools came out during the big hack a year ago that was pushing crypto scams.
- hannasanarion 4y ago
  And why is that a bad thing? Trending blacklists are a standard moderation tool, basically every social media platform uses them nowadays. Without them, bad actors can game the algorithm to get their spam promoted through the trends system. The fact that moderation tools exist does not imply that they are being used for political censorship. None of the screenshots of "search blacklisted" accounts from the leak showed any evidence of it being used on actual people, they are all random alphanumeric usernames with more reports than tweets. In fact, the opposite is true. In 2018, when the feature was first rolled out, it was found to be catching several notable conservative commentators because their tweeting behavior is hard to distinguish from trolls and spambots (wonder why...), so those people were explicitly whitelisted so that they would appear in searches and trends despite their bad behavior.
  - gambler 4y ago
    We quickly went from "Twitter isn't a heavily censored platform" to "they have secret blacklists, but it's totally normal and not political and a good thing anyway". This game of moving goalposts is tiresome and clearly disingenuous.
    - angulardragon03 4y ago
      Twitter is a moderated platform. Tooling for moderating content existing does not inherently imply it is being used for political purposes, but you’re more than welcome to contradict that with sources. There’s no goalpost moving here - a social media site having the ability to prevent large volumes of spam making its way to the trending page in front of thousands of eyeballs shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. The number of crypto scams in replies to tweets by Elon himself suggests that this tooling is definitely not as draconian in ability as you seem to believe. Your email provider also has “secret” blacklists, and if incoming email originates from a sender on those lists then it gets put in your junk (or even bounced). Does that concern you?

edm0nd 4y ago

I mean recent Twitter leaks have shown internal tools that let them categorize users into blacklists and the ability censor their tweets so they dont get much reach or engagement by not showing up in Trending lists and etc. The screenshots of the tools came out during the big hack a year ago that was pushing crypto scams.

hannasanarion 4y ago
And why is that a bad thing? Trending blacklists are a standard moderation tool, basically every social media platform uses them nowadays. Without them, bad actors can game the algorithm to get their spam promoted through the trends system. The fact that moderation tools exist does not imply that they are being used for political censorship. None of the screenshots of "search blacklisted" accounts from the leak showed any evidence of it being used on actual people, they are all random alphanumeric usernames with more reports than tweets. In fact, the opposite is true. In 2018, when the feature was first rolled out, it was found to be catching several notable conservative commentators because their tweeting behavior is hard to distinguish from trolls and spambots (wonder why...), so those people were explicitly whitelisted so that they would appear in searches and trends despite their bad behavior.
- gambler 4y ago
  We quickly went from "Twitter isn't a heavily censored platform" to "they have secret blacklists, but it's totally normal and not political and a good thing anyway". This game of moving goalposts is tiresome and clearly disingenuous.
  - angulardragon03 4y ago
    Twitter is a moderated platform. Tooling for moderating content existing does not inherently imply it is being used for political purposes, but you’re more than welcome to contradict that with sources. There’s no goalpost moving here - a social media site having the ability to prevent large volumes of spam making its way to the trending page in front of thousands of eyeballs shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. The number of crypto scams in replies to tweets by Elon himself suggests that this tooling is definitely not as draconian in ability as you seem to believe. Your email provider also has “secret” blacklists, and if incoming email originates from a sender on those lists then it gets put in your junk (or even bounced). Does that concern you?