5 ms·

I agree with a lot of what you say, but in this hypothetical I'm envisioning this a bit differently then a completely new social network so much as Twitter 2.0

I agree with a lot of what you say, but in this hypothetical I'm envisioning this a bit differently then a completely new social network so much as Twitter 2.0 with a very direct focus on getting a large "Lift and Shift" of users directly from Twitter. I should also be clear that I'm assuming a relatively proportional level of talent across Product, Design etc too not just retrenched engineers.

DeathArrow 4y ago
>getting a large "Lift and Shift" of users directly from Twitter Why would someone switch from Twitter? If anything, you might expect more freedom of speech and less bots on Twitter. On the parallel Twitter the maximum you can expect is the old Twitter minus some functionality, plus some offline time and some bugs.
- Nowado 4y ago
  Avoiding some of that free speech. One could even hope for all of it to stay contained within Twitter.
- Certhas 4y ago
  It's not hard to have a free speech platform. It's hard to have a useful speech platform. Useful speech probably requires editing and moderation and so far it's pretty clear algorithms and upvote/downvote systems aren't terribly good at it. It seems to me that the last decade or so provides ample evidence that allowing everyone to say everything they want is almost certainly anti-correlated with substantial and meaningful debate.
  - cudgy 4y ago
    It seems to me that the last decade or so provides ample evidence that not allowing everyone to say everything they want is almost certainly anti-correlated with substantial and meaningful debate.
    - Certhas 4y ago
      Our perceptions differ markedly then. I have a fairly plausible mechanism behind my observation: Getting your thoughts published and disseminated used to require buy in from a wide range of people, the publishers essentially. Publishers edited and moderated what they published so they could gain a reputation as trustworthy or sensationalist. Maintaining that reputation was essential for the business. Who would buy a newspaper with a reputation for false reporting? Removing the publishers at replacing them with algorithms designed to maximize engagement removed this intermediate layer of reputation checks. Further as the infrastructure is paid for exclusively by ads and those can be targeted fairly well, engagement is far more important than platform reputation. This has reduced the level of public discourse markedly and wrong and discredited opinions can gain substantial audiences and establish strong societal narratives with no "human editor in the loop". This we are seeing an influence of conspiracy theoretical thinking on advanced democracies that would have been unthinkable even in the 90s.
      - cudgy 4y ago
        “as the infrastructure is paid for exclusively by ads and those can be targeted fairly well, engagement is far more important than platform reputation” This is the key problem for sure, but it applies to all content providers from the largest publishers to tiny “publishers” like you and I when we post a comment on a site that is ad-supported. To take away people’s freedom of expression due to the revenue model is arbitrary and inconsistent with a free, advanced society. You suggest that there should be gatekeepers to verify the reputation and veracity of content and the individual posting the content, but these gatekeepers are themselves biased and unable to know the “truth” in most situations as there is a debate about what is the truth. Stifling debate through this filter is detrimental to discourse and results in group-think and a general lack of creative thought. It is generally unscientific and authoritarian, which history (very recent history at that) has proven quite clearly.
        Certhas 4y ago
        > To take away people’s freedom of expression due to the revenue model is arbitrary and inconsistent with a free, advanced society. This is the rhetorical slight of hand due to which any meaningful discussion of this topic is impossible on Hacker News. I talk about a lack of moderation and editorial work and you reply about "taking away peoples freedom of expression". Put another way, 30 years ago it was not considered a limit on your freedom of expression if you couldn't get your conspiracy theory published in any news paper. Today you argue/feel like it is a limit on your freedom of expression if you can't publish it on social media. > these gatekeepers are themselves biased and unable to know the “truth” in most situations as there is a debate about what is the truth. First, it is not always true that there is a debate about what is the truth. Secondly, if there is only one gatekeeper (e.g. the state) this is obviously detrimental to discourse. But if there is a multitude of gatekeepers, and if there is a strong culture of accepting high quality divergent opinions, it is not. > Stifling debate through this filter is detrimental to discourse Non sequitur! You assume that the gatekeepers will control by alignment with their own opinion, rather than by quality. That's a danger, but there are mechanisms against it. If there is a healthy landscape of publishers this is something that can be demonstrated and will become known because competing publishers have an interest in exposing this. (If all your media is owned by Murdoch you have a problem anyway). > It is generally unscientific and authoritarian, which history (very recent history at that) has proven quite clearly. What historical precedence are you thinking about with this? I think science is an excellent example, and as a scientist I am well familiar with scientific discourse, and how it functions. It does absolutely _not_ function as a free for all. First of all, if you can't get your stuff published in a reputable journal nobody will take you serious. Generally to be part of the scientific discourse you are expected to demonstrate solid understanding of the underlying material. You will not get to speak at a conference unless you have demonstrated this to a number of reputable scientists who will vouch for you in the program committee. What this comes down to is simply this: A healthy discourse in which the best ideas win and new ideas can be tried out requires structure. In a free for all, there is no guarantee that the best idea wins, in fact you would expect the most easily amplified and persuasive idea to win. Ease of amplification will depend on the medium and humans can be persuaded of any number of things that are blatantly untrue rather easily. We require so much structure in the scientific enterprise to guard against our own individual vanity and fallibility. --- As an aside, something I have been meaning to read into more deeply but haven't looked at yet very much: [Jürgen Habermas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Habermas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Habermas) has written extensively about the prerequisites for a discourse to work well, long before social media blew things wide open. I am sure there are plenty of thinkers that have tried to develop these ideas further into the contemporary setting. > His most known work to date, the Theory of Communicative Action (1981), is based on an adaptation of Talcott Parsons AGIL Paradigm. In this work, Habermas voiced criticism of the process of modernization, which he saw as inflexible direction forced through by economic and administrative rationalization.[24] Habermas outlined how our everyday lives are penetrated by formal systems as parallel to development of the welfare state, corporate capitalism and mass consumption.[24] These reinforcing trends rationalize public life.[24] Disfranchisement of citizens occurs as political parties and interest groups become rationalized and representative democracy replaces participatory one.[24] In consequence, boundaries between public and private, the individual and society, the system and the lifeworld are deteriorating.[24] Democratic public life cannot develop where matters of public importance are not discussed by citizens.[25] An "ideal speech situation"[26] requires participants to have the same capacities of discourse, social equality and their words are not confused by ideology or other errors.[25] In this version of the consensus theory of truth Habermas maintains that truth is what would be agreed upon in an ideal speech situation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_speech_situation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_speech_situation
- misnome 4y ago
  > more freedom of speech and less bots on Twitter Isn’t this a self-contradiction?

DeathArrow 4y ago

>getting a large "Lift and Shift" of users directly from Twitter Why would someone switch from Twitter? If anything, you might expect more freedom of speech and less bots on Twitter. On the parallel Twitter the maximum you can expect is the old Twitter minus some functionality, plus some offline time and some bugs.

Nowado 4y ago
Avoiding some of that free speech. One could even hope for all of it to stay contained within Twitter.
Certhas 4y ago
It's not hard to have a free speech platform. It's hard to have a useful speech platform. Useful speech probably requires editing and moderation and so far it's pretty clear algorithms and upvote/downvote systems aren't terribly good at it. It seems to me that the last decade or so provides ample evidence that allowing everyone to say everything they want is almost certainly anti-correlated with substantial and meaningful debate.
- cudgy 4y ago
  It seems to me that the last decade or so provides ample evidence that not allowing everyone to say everything they want is almost certainly anti-correlated with substantial and meaningful debate.
  - Certhas 4y ago
    Our perceptions differ markedly then. I have a fairly plausible mechanism behind my observation: Getting your thoughts published and disseminated used to require buy in from a wide range of people, the publishers essentially. Publishers edited and moderated what they published so they could gain a reputation as trustworthy or sensationalist. Maintaining that reputation was essential for the business. Who would buy a newspaper with a reputation for false reporting? Removing the publishers at replacing them with algorithms designed to maximize engagement removed this intermediate layer of reputation checks. Further as the infrastructure is paid for exclusively by ads and those can be targeted fairly well, engagement is far more important than platform reputation. This has reduced the level of public discourse markedly and wrong and discredited opinions can gain substantial audiences and establish strong societal narratives with no "human editor in the loop". This we are seeing an influence of conspiracy theoretical thinking on advanced democracies that would have been unthinkable even in the 90s.
    - cudgy 4y ago
      “as the infrastructure is paid for exclusively by ads and those can be targeted fairly well, engagement is far more important than platform reputation” This is the key problem for sure, but it applies to all content providers from the largest publishers to tiny “publishers” like you and I when we post a comment on a site that is ad-supported. To take away people’s freedom of expression due to the revenue model is arbitrary and inconsistent with a free, advanced society. You suggest that there should be gatekeepers to verify the reputation and veracity of content and the individual posting the content, but these gatekeepers are themselves biased and unable to know the “truth” in most situations as there is a debate about what is the truth. Stifling debate through this filter is detrimental to discourse and results in group-think and a general lack of creative thought. It is generally unscientific and authoritarian, which history (very recent history at that) has proven quite clearly.
      - Certhas 4y ago
        > To take away people’s freedom of expression due to the revenue model is arbitrary and inconsistent with a free, advanced society. This is the rhetorical slight of hand due to which any meaningful discussion of this topic is impossible on Hacker News. I talk about a lack of moderation and editorial work and you reply about "taking away peoples freedom of expression". Put another way, 30 years ago it was not considered a limit on your freedom of expression if you couldn't get your conspiracy theory published in any news paper. Today you argue/feel like it is a limit on your freedom of expression if you can't publish it on social media. > these gatekeepers are themselves biased and unable to know the “truth” in most situations as there is a debate about what is the truth. First, it is not always true that there is a debate about what is the truth. Secondly, if there is only one gatekeeper (e.g. the state) this is obviously detrimental to discourse. But if there is a multitude of gatekeepers, and if there is a strong culture of accepting high quality divergent opinions, it is not. > Stifling debate through this filter is detrimental to discourse Non sequitur! You assume that the gatekeepers will control by alignment with their own opinion, rather than by quality. That's a danger, but there are mechanisms against it. If there is a healthy landscape of publishers this is something that can be demonstrated and will become known because competing publishers have an interest in exposing this. (If all your media is owned by Murdoch you have a problem anyway). > It is generally unscientific and authoritarian, which history (very recent history at that) has proven quite clearly. What historical precedence are you thinking about with this? I think science is an excellent example, and as a scientist I am well familiar with scientific discourse, and how it functions. It does absolutely _not_ function as a free for all. First of all, if you can't get your stuff published in a reputable journal nobody will take you serious. Generally to be part of the scientific discourse you are expected to demonstrate solid understanding of the underlying material. You will not get to speak at a conference unless you have demonstrated this to a number of reputable scientists who will vouch for you in the program committee. What this comes down to is simply this: A healthy discourse in which the best ideas win and new ideas can be tried out requires structure. In a free for all, there is no guarantee that the best idea wins, in fact you would expect the most easily amplified and persuasive idea to win. Ease of amplification will depend on the medium and humans can be persuaded of any number of things that are blatantly untrue rather easily. We require so much structure in the scientific enterprise to guard against our own individual vanity and fallibility. --- As an aside, something I have been meaning to read into more deeply but haven't looked at yet very much: [Jürgen Habermas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Habermas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Habermas) has written extensively about the prerequisites for a discourse to work well, long before social media blew things wide open. I am sure there are plenty of thinkers that have tried to develop these ideas further into the contemporary setting. > His most known work to date, the Theory of Communicative Action (1981), is based on an adaptation of Talcott Parsons AGIL Paradigm. In this work, Habermas voiced criticism of the process of modernization, which he saw as inflexible direction forced through by economic and administrative rationalization.[24] Habermas outlined how our everyday lives are penetrated by formal systems as parallel to development of the welfare state, corporate capitalism and mass consumption.[24] These reinforcing trends rationalize public life.[24] Disfranchisement of citizens occurs as political parties and interest groups become rationalized and representative democracy replaces participatory one.[24] In consequence, boundaries between public and private, the individual and society, the system and the lifeworld are deteriorating.[24] Democratic public life cannot develop where matters of public importance are not discussed by citizens.[25] An "ideal speech situation"[26] requires participants to have the same capacities of discourse, social equality and their words are not confused by ideology or other errors.[25] In this version of the consensus theory of truth Habermas maintains that truth is what would be agreed upon in an ideal speech situation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_speech_situation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_speech_situation
misnome 4y ago
> more freedom of speech and less bots on Twitter Isn’t this a self-contradiction?