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Note that this is the dictionary definition of shadowbanning, which is the primary thing the free speech advocates on Twitter were hoping Elon would stop Twitte

Note that this is the dictionary definition of shadowbanning, which is the primary thing the free speech advocates on Twitter were hoping Elon would stop Twitter from doing.

Hamuko 4y ago
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1517716718382166016 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1517716718382166016
leereeves 4y ago
No, as explained in the thread following that tweet: "Note, this applies just to the individual tweet, not the whole account" Shadowbanning applies to accounts. Also, nowhere in that thread does it say that the user won't be told the Tweet was demonetized, which is the dictionary definition of shadowbanning.
datastack 4y ago
The difference between hiding a particular problematic tweet and all tweets of an account is important though. It seems Elon refers to the former, while shadow banning refers to the latter. Let's hope it is so.
commandlinefan 4y ago
It also virtually requires human content moderation who, as we've seen time and time again, will classify more and more conservative opinions as "negative/hate" and fewer and fewer liberal opinions. So in other words, Jack Dorsey's Twitter all over again.
- LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
  People have been seeing it as one big moderation problem and it's a bunch of smaller problems, plus the problem of people actively gaming the system and operating at large enough scale for it to always be bigger than humans can handle. But that's only true when you delete posts and block users. It makes mistakes so costly (and with machines being so easily manipulated) that we need to run too many decisions past people because our decisions here are making huge impact at a personal level for those involved. But if you're willing to accept "hidden at default-browse-level" wrongly appearing every now and then it becomes totally solvable. We were trying to scale fact-checkers and playground-nannies but the trick is to get rid of those roles and use users to flag what users like and/or don't like directly. You can do a staggered release to previously critical people, and known-objective people, once a few posts have been flagged.
JamesianP 4y ago
I thought the point of shadowbanning was to trick the poster into thinking their posts were visible while they were hidden from everyone else. Here it seems like the poster and anyone else can directly search for the poster's account or the "filtered" post and still see it. But I guess the tags won't work. Kind of a middle ground. Perhaps they will explicitly remove/block the tags so the poster knows this is happening, which at least isn't tricking them.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- iudqnolq 4y ago
  > But I guess the tags won't work. Kind of a middle ground. Perhaps they will explicitly remove/block the tags so the poster knows this is happening, which at least isn't tricking them. To clarify, Musk said nothing whatsoever about tags. Another read of Musk's tweet is that your timeline won't show tweets with a negative sentiment analysis score. Given recent events, I'm reluctant to assume Musk's vague goals will be implemented in the narrowest and most delicate way possible.
BryantD 4y ago
Is there clear evidence that shadowbanning existed on Twitter? Misunderstanding eventual consistency doesn’t count. I’m not going to be surprised if there is real evidence, I’ve just never seen any.
onetimeusename 4y ago
That's a good point. But I think also what mattered are how the content policies are enforced. I think Musk misread the situation. I do believe Twitter was biased about bans previously but that is because its user base wanted those bans. Social media apps tend to have a specific target demographic. In that sense, Twitter was not really in the "public town square" business but the memes and speech business of a specific demographic. It's not surprising there is an exodus from Twitter now that Musk has shown no loyalty to that base. Yes, it's petty but I've seen far worse on the internet. If Musk wanted something different he should have spent less money making a new app. I am not trying to provoke a flame war here either actually if it comes off that way. I think the business of social apps is trendy and you have to know your audience.
oska 4y ago
I'm a Free Speech advocate. What I hoped Elon would do is stop the permanent banning of people from the platform and the removal of tweets. He appears to be at least somewhat delivering on that hope. Having a tweet 'deboosted' rather than completely removed and the tweeter also permanently removed is a substantial improvement.
- bastawhiz 4y ago
  > He appears to be at least somewhat delivering on that hope. Unless they're pretending to be him (or advertisers) for a joke on Twitter, in which case they seem to very quickly get banned.
  - oska 4y ago
    This is not being banned for what you say, however controversial (i.e. prevention of free speech). This is being banned for pretending someone else is saying something. Such bans are not a free speech issue. Fraud is fraud. (As for the joke angle, twitter has decided it's too risky to allow humour that relies on brazen impersonation. Parody accounts that are clearly indicated as such are still allowed.)
    - noirbot 4y ago
      There's a lot of folks who clearly put "this is a parody" in every one of their "I'm Elon Musk" tweets and got banned and are still banned. He's kept redefining "clearly indicated" but only after banning people who were making fun of him. Dude's got the most fragile ego as this whole episode has demonstrated. Most of the folks getting banned for actually pretending to be someone else were either obviously a joke because they were totally silly, or were only able to look remotely real because of the idiotic $8 "you're real if you pay us" policy.
    - bastawhiz 4y ago
      What's the difference between being prevented from lying and beyond prevented from lying about your identity? If you're going to advocate for absolute free speech, you should be ready to commit. And frankly, if this was a concern, maybe eliminating the way to tell whose account is who they say they are was a terrible business move.
ReptileMan 4y ago
It depends how it is implemented. If I go to your profile and see all of your tweets - i am fine with them not being on my time-line
watwut 4y ago
Can we stop using free speech advicate as euphemism for "full of grievance right wing trolls"?

Note that this is the dictionary definition of shadowbanning, which is the primary thing the free speech advocates on Twitter were hoping Elon would stop Twitter from doing.

Hamuko 4y ago

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1517716718382166016 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1517716718382166016

leereeves 4y ago

No, as explained in the thread following that tweet: "Note, this applies just to the individual tweet, not the whole account" Shadowbanning applies to accounts. Also, nowhere in that thread does it say that the user won't be told the Tweet was demonetized, which is the dictionary definition of shadowbanning.

datastack 4y ago

The difference between hiding a particular problematic tweet and all tweets of an account is important though. It seems Elon refers to the former, while shadow banning refers to the latter. Let's hope it is so.

commandlinefan 4y ago

It also virtually requires human content moderation who, as we've seen time and time again, will classify more and more conservative opinions as "negative/hate" and fewer and fewer liberal opinions. So in other words, Jack Dorsey's Twitter all over again.

LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
People have been seeing it as one big moderation problem and it's a bunch of smaller problems, plus the problem of people actively gaming the system and operating at large enough scale for it to always be bigger than humans can handle. But that's only true when you delete posts and block users. It makes mistakes so costly (and with machines being so easily manipulated) that we need to run too many decisions past people because our decisions here are making huge impact at a personal level for those involved. But if you're willing to accept "hidden at default-browse-level" wrongly appearing every now and then it becomes totally solvable. We were trying to scale fact-checkers and playground-nannies but the trick is to get rid of those roles and use users to flag what users like and/or don't like directly. You can do a staggered release to previously critical people, and known-objective people, once a few posts have been flagged.

JamesianP 4y ago

I thought the point of shadowbanning was to trick the poster into thinking their posts were visible while they were hidden from everyone else. Here it seems like the poster and anyone else can directly search for the poster's account or the "filtered" post and still see it. But I guess the tags won't work. Kind of a middle ground. Perhaps they will explicitly remove/block the tags so the poster knows this is happening, which at least isn't tricking them.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
iudqnolq 4y ago
> But I guess the tags won't work. Kind of a middle ground. Perhaps they will explicitly remove/block the tags so the poster knows this is happening, which at least isn't tricking them. To clarify, Musk said nothing whatsoever about tags. Another read of Musk's tweet is that your timeline won't show tweets with a negative sentiment analysis score. Given recent events, I'm reluctant to assume Musk's vague goals will be implemented in the narrowest and most delicate way possible.

BryantD 4y ago

Is there clear evidence that shadowbanning existed on Twitter? Misunderstanding eventual consistency doesn’t count. I’m not going to be surprised if there is real evidence, I’ve just never seen any.

onetimeusename 4y ago

That's a good point. But I think also what mattered are how the content policies are enforced. I think Musk misread the situation. I do believe Twitter was biased about bans previously but that is because its user base wanted those bans. Social media apps tend to have a specific target demographic. In that sense, Twitter was not really in the "public town square" business but the memes and speech business of a specific demographic. It's not surprising there is an exodus from Twitter now that Musk has shown no loyalty to that base. Yes, it's petty but I've seen far worse on the internet. If Musk wanted something different he should have spent less money making a new app. I am not trying to provoke a flame war here either actually if it comes off that way. I think the business of social apps is trendy and you have to know your audience.

oska 4y ago

I'm a Free Speech advocate. What I hoped Elon would do is stop the permanent banning of people from the platform and the removal of tweets. He appears to be at least somewhat delivering on that hope. Having a tweet 'deboosted' rather than completely removed and the tweeter also permanently removed is a substantial improvement.

bastawhiz 4y ago
> He appears to be at least somewhat delivering on that hope. Unless they're pretending to be him (or advertisers) for a joke on Twitter, in which case they seem to very quickly get banned.
- oska 4y ago
  This is not being banned for what you say, however controversial (i.e. prevention of free speech). This is being banned for pretending someone else is saying something. Such bans are not a free speech issue. Fraud is fraud. (As for the joke angle, twitter has decided it's too risky to allow humour that relies on brazen impersonation. Parody accounts that are clearly indicated as such are still allowed.)
  - noirbot 4y ago
    There's a lot of folks who clearly put "this is a parody" in every one of their "I'm Elon Musk" tweets and got banned and are still banned. He's kept redefining "clearly indicated" but only after banning people who were making fun of him. Dude's got the most fragile ego as this whole episode has demonstrated. Most of the folks getting banned for actually pretending to be someone else were either obviously a joke because they were totally silly, or were only able to look remotely real because of the idiotic $8 "you're real if you pay us" policy.
  - bastawhiz 4y ago
    What's the difference between being prevented from lying and beyond prevented from lying about your identity? If you're going to advocate for absolute free speech, you should be ready to commit. And frankly, if this was a concern, maybe eliminating the way to tell whose account is who they say they are was a terrible business move.

ReptileMan 4y ago

It depends how it is implemented. If I go to your profile and see all of your tweets - i am fine with them not being on my time-line

watwut 4y ago

Can we stop using free speech advicate as euphemism for "full of grievance right wing trolls"?