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Yeah I mean Parag was not going to make it. He was a lame duck but the product itself can't be changed much as it is still about amplifying status updates. Pus

• aluminum96 4y ago
  > Pushbacks on Elon threatening to bring free speech back ... were seemingly orchestrated by incumbent billionaires with their own mainstream media outlets feeling threatened The alternative facts and hate speech that dominate Facebook have been incredibly harmful for society, and I think there should be tighter guardrails for online content moderation. There are legitimate reasons to disagree on this issue.
  • 14 4y ago
    Wasn’t YouTube deleting content that suggested covid was airborne transmitted? Now we are seeing the scientific community agree it is in fact airborne. We should not have guard rails it only leads to censoring and whenever there is censorship there will be abuse of it.
    • op00to 4y ago
      Do you think it’s possible for the understanding of complex scientific phenomena like the type of spread of a novel virus to change as scientists gain more knowledge? Or do you just get one shot, and that’s the final answer forever?
      • brigandish 4y ago
        Isn't that supporting their point? If things change then surely differing views should be allowed, if not encouraged.
      • rottencupcakes 4y ago
        Yes, scientific consensus can change, which lends support to the idea that platforms shouldn’t be banning ideas that aren’t the current scientific consensus.
        • dymk 4y ago
          I don't see how that follows. The people saying it was airborne early on were not saying it with scientific backing, they might as well have been saying it was waterborne. Basically, they guessed and got lucky.
          • wtetzner 4y ago
            Just because there wasn't scientific consensus doesn't mean there was no scientific backing. How about just not censoring?
            • op00to 4y ago
              Because most people don't have the capability to tell the difference between bullshit and scientific fact.
      • nomel 4y ago
        What's your suggestion for censorship then? How do you know the current understanding is correct? You can censor comments suggesting the current understanding of the science might be flawed, but then what happens when the understanding shifts to that censored understanding? Do you go censor all of the comments, CDC articles, and news clips that communicated the incorrect understanding? Do you remove the censorship for the old comments? Are there any repercussions for unknowingly leading people astray, and perhaps even causing some deaths for those who thought they were protected by flawed guidelines?
    • Rapzid 4y ago
      A coronavirus that's not airborne?! When was this exactly that YouTube was banning videos for saying it was airborne? Examples?
  • avs733 4y ago
    The fact that the comment you are responding to seems to represent a mainstream and legitimized perception of twitter and the broader concept of free speech gives me zero confidence that we are headed towards more free speech. I'm considering running for president on a one issue platform: A constitutional amendment to criminalize false claims that a non-governmental actor has violated your free speech.
    • leadingthenet 4y ago
      It's a good thing you'll never be elected, then.
  • switchbak 4y ago
    Once you install "guardrails" (ie: limits to acceptable speech), they then immediately become the lever of power that the extremes vie to control. "Unacceptable views" could include: Covid came from a wet market, the Iraq war was about WMD, etc. Pick your controlversial topic, there's going to be a battle over even the limits of rational debate - ones you agree with and ones you definitely don't. You may be happy with the censorship flavour of the month now, but wait until a government comes into power that you dislike. Imagine what G.W. Bush would have done with the censorship powers available now? You're opening the floodgates to massive governmental and corporate control. I want no part of that, and I don't want my democracy to be destroyed by the broader effects that would have. If you're consciously advocating for that, then I disagree with you in the strongest terms. Yes, there's an ocean of trolls out there. And the effects of strong censorship are far worse.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • notabee 4y ago
      I think a much better guardrail would be better context. Unfortunately much of the average population may not be interested in that so much as getting their rage or cute animal picture hit, and that's going to be a huge societal challenge going forward as misinformation itself is now its own lever of power. Just muddying the water exerts a powerful influence on societal stability. But a platform designed explicitly to fill in the details surrounding an issue so that simple mistruths lose some of their power could help. Using dark algorithms and UI for light instead, and using all those carefully researched nudges to get people to find facts instead of rage mob.
      • switchbak 4y ago
        That's an interesting proposition. I'm interested in the platforms out there to add in the missing nuance, but I must say I'm sad by what's happened with both Snopes and these 'fact checker' sites. I think a big problem is the short attention span of most people - myself absolutely included. But finding ways to amplify the influence of those who have paid attention and reduce it from those who only read the titles - that could be interesting as well. There's lots of info out there to use ML to discern low quality input, it'd be interesting to see it applied for good instead of evil! Maybe this is OpenAI's next challenge :)
  • toraway1234 4y ago
  • colordrops 4y ago
    I don't want to live in China, and I don't want the US to become China, so I vehemently disagree. The excuse censors in China use is almost always that the content is harmful for society. This is a tradeoff that was chosen carefully and specifically by those who designed the laws and principles of the US. During difficult times is not when you start throwing out basic principles - in fact quite the opposite. It's easy to stand by your principles during quiet periods.
• logifail 4y ago
  > Parag was not going to make it. He was a lame duck [..] He was recently quoted as having "[..] encouraged employees to remain focused and told them 'we as employees control what happens'"? Is that quote accurate? If so, not only is the latter part apparently a straightforward falsehood, but seems to demonstrate more ability re: daft virtue-signalling than creating value for shareholders.
  • LegitShady 4y ago
    I'm not sure why anyone would trust corporate leadership in crisis times, and Twitter's board was completely divorced from any negative outcomes to twitter in terms of their holdings. They never had skin in the game except as a platform for improving their resumes or social networking.
• notreallyserio 4y ago
  Canceling is a good thing. People should be held to account for their actions. Further, people should be willing to take responsibility for their actions.
  • switchbak 4y ago
    "Cancelling" is not a good thing when it's done by a mob of knee-jerk reactionaries with the attention span of a fruit fly. "Being held to account" is only meaningful if the ones holding you to account are doing so in good faith, and via a semblance of rationality.
    • notreallyserio 4y ago
      > "Cancelling" is not a good thing when it's done by a mob of knee-jerk reactionaries with the attention span of a fruit fly. Why not? How much time and effort have to go in to recognizing shitty behavior (cat calling, brown face, jerking off in front of someone without consent, etc)? Besides, if they have such a short attention span, they can't cancel anyone -- canceling only works if you keep shunning them for a long period of time.
      • s1artibartfast 4y ago
        I think problem is that 10 million people take 15 seconds to repeat something without verifying, the target can lose their job and housing, only to be proven innocent months later. Arguably, the root cause lies with the employer that fires them or landlord that evicts them, but it take a lot of integrity to stand up to a large angry mob filled with ignorant and self-righteous anger.
      • switchbak 4y ago
        As a great example - the Covington kid video. If you watch the full, unedited video it's actually very easy to see the situation was far more complex than the media portrayed it to be: A crowd of young kids wearing Trump hats (distateful to say the least, and a powderkeg of a situation), some _actual_ black supremacists (the Black Israelites) spouting off some real hate, and a smaller group of indigenous protesters. This was a recipe for bad interactions, but in reality the kid (Nicholas Sandmann) that got all the online hate appeared to be trying to keep the peace (getting his friend to stop doing the tomahawk chop), and was confronted somewhat aggressively by a grown adult (Nathan Phillips). There's more nuance to be had of course (and those kids should not have been there, wow!), but the media got it completely backwards based on some very creative editing apparently to support a given narrative. Cancel culture in this case turned the mob against that kid. With little to no understanding of the actual situation, and based only on the most superficial stereotypes (red trump hat, conservative, probably doesn't like indigenous people, etc). I'll admit even I fell for that trap before I watched the whole video. It is simply unfair and inappropriate to target a CHILD who happened to get caught up in this crazyness. We have a young offenders act in my country for exactly this reason. And the amount of hate he got was incredible. So yes, cancel culture has, does, and will continue to make mistakes. "How much time and effort" should you go to to not ruin an innocent person's life? I don't know, but you should at the very least make an effort to get informed on the situation via multiple sources before you break out the daggers. And be aware that you're being fed a diet of what is often corporate misinformation.
• tomjakubowski 4y ago
  > Elon threatening to bring free speech back (hopefully addressing the toxic witch hunts, cancelling) how is he supposed to address these without restricting speech?
  • SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
    There are a lot of potential strategies. One big suggestion I've seen is to ensure that pileons aren't artificially amplified by the "what's happening" sidebar.
• asojfdowgh 4y ago
  > Elon threatening to bring free speech back (hopefully addressing the toxic witch hunts, cancelling) How would those two things not increase under absolute freedom of speech?
• qiskit 4y ago
  > but strictly from a business point of view, buying Twitter for the purpose of profiteering was a bad one, but at his level, money has become irrelevant, its more about control here. Agreed. Bezos, Gates, Musk, etc don't buy media companies for money. They buy it for influence, propaganda, etc. > Having said that I do question how far he would be able to take the free speech thing as a private company. I like Musk and generally support things he is trying to do. But I'm not holding my breath. No way he allows twitter to be a free speech platform. Nobody spends $44 billion to allow others to have their say. Nobody spends $44 billion for other people's benefit. Maybe he'll make some symbolic gesture like letting trump back on the platform, but I'm guessing twitter will be his personal megaphone to push his products mostly. Or maybe this is a watershed moment and elon's purchase of twitter is the start of a shift back to what the internet/social media used to be.
• ineedasername 4y ago
  >hopefully addressing the toxic witch hunts, cancelling How do you do that while keeping the content open? Of course Twitter itself can simply not ban people or hide/remove posts, but that's all part of Musk's free speech angle. Apart from that how do you tamp down witch hunts etc without interfering with the content itself?
• jsemrau 4y ago
  >Anyways, I am not a fanboy of Elon by any means other than SpaceX, Maybe there is more behind it? https://app.finclout.io/t/A3lkgnE https://app.finclout.io/t/A3lkgnE