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The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists

• KurvaKing 4y ago
• scifibestfi 4y ago
  "Take, for example, Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) who argued that Covid lockdowns would harm children. Twitter secretly placed him on a “Trends Blacklist,” which prevented his tweets from trending." What. Why?
  • IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
    Well, first of all, “tweets” don’t “trend”. Terms do. So this description feels off, already. Next, I wonder, but don’t care enough to look it up, if this guy is adequately summarized by only mentioning his concern for children? Screw that, I did look him up: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Bhattacharya#COVID-19_pandemic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Bhattacharya#COVID-19_pa.... He was one of the people behind the “Great” Barrington Declaration and, kn the early months of the pandemic, argued, among other things, that COVID is rather harmless. He also took money from the airline industry without disclosing as much in his publications. It’s arguable if Bhattacharya’s reach needed to be limited. What’s really hard to argue is that the thing about children is an adequate characterization of his statements during the pandemic. This is prime evidence that this story is not presenting anything close to a fair interpretation of the documents they have been given, and that you have, unfortunately, fallen for it.
    • scifibestfi 4y ago
      He's a Dr. and a Stanford professor of medicine. The Great Barrington Declaration was signed by almost a million doctors. They were warning about the harm lockdowns would do to kids and they were correct. Even if they weren't, this would still be unacceptable.
      • IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
        As I said, it’s debatable if the guy’s reach needed to be limited, the point you are arguing. What’s not debatable is that the breathless outrage-bait under discussion misrepresented the case for limiting the Dr’s reach with a straw-man argument, and so did you.
        • indoclay 4y ago
          > misrepresented the case for limiting the Dr’s reach Could you help me understand what the argument is that this person should have been put on any form of blacklist?
      • joshuamorton 4y ago
        According to its own website, the great barrington declaration was signed by around 15,000 doctors.
        • scifibestfi 4y ago
          Thanks. I didn't realize there was a further breakdown from the 934,094 total and can't edit it now. Here's the exact breakdown. medical & public health scientists: 15,989 medical practitioners: 47,278 concerned citizens: 870,827
          • neuronexmachina 4y ago
            FYI, anybody who wants to can sign the "Great Barrington Declaration," and check whatever box they want: https://gbdeclaration.org/#sign https://gbdeclaration.org/#sign The list of medical practitioners and scientists includes a number of homeopaths and obvious fake names.
      • anigbrowl 4y ago
        The Great Barrington Declaration was signed by almost a million doctors You're off by an order of magnitude and then some. Also, none of the numbers they do claim are verifiable. https://gbdeclaration.org/view-signatures/ https://gbdeclaration.org/view-signatures/ You know, when you make a specific claim like that it's really worth the 30 seconds it takes to check it again to verify your memory is correct.
    • sergiotapia 4y ago
      All of that is irrelevant. Twitter had a secret blacklist. Gross behavior from a gross company.
      • IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
        A “secret blacklist” that’s been known forever, or at least for two years: https://twitter.com/dancow/status/1601017194456186881?s=20&t=pYXrm6GNUDU_kv9QmDoxhg https://twitter.com/dancow/status/1601017194456186881?s=20&t...
        • veec_cas_tant 4y ago
          Here is an announcement from 2018[0]: >“It’s shaping up to be one of the highest-impact things that we’ve done,” the chief executive, Jack Dorsey ,said of the update, which will change how tweets appear in search results or conversations. “The spirit of the thing is that we want to take the burden off the person receiving abuse or mob-like behavior.” > The new system will use behavioral signals to assess whether a Twitter account is adding to – or detracting from – the tenor of conversations... > The updated algorithm will result in certain tweets being pushed further down in a list of search results or replies, but will not delete them from the platform. [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/15/twitter-ranking-algorithm-change-trolling-harassment-abuse https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/15/twitter-r...
          • rhaksw 4y ago
            IMO that's fine, but if you want me to trust such a system, the author should see on their tweet some indication that it's been demoted.
          • jdminhbg 4y ago
            > The updated algorithm will result These screenshots are about actions taken by Twitter employees, not an updated algorithm.
        • rhaksw 4y ago
          ... and I've worked on Reveddit for four years. Less than 1% of Redditors know that all removed comments are secretly removed. It's hard to make people care about this stuff. Most of us only start to see the harm of something when it's shown in context. Just showing that something can be theoretically harmful isn't enough.
    • yucky 4y ago
      [flagged]
      • etchalon 4y ago
        There was data to suggest that. The data that suggested that was linked in the article you posted: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7013e3.htm?s_cid=mm7013e3_w https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7013e3.htm?s_cid=mm...
        • yucky 4y ago
          From your link "Estimated mRNA vaccine effectiveness for prevention of infection, adjusted for study site, was 90% for full immunization" Does 90% equal 100% now? Her statement was false, even based on the limited data set you're referencing. It's even more false now.
          • etchalon 4y ago
            People sometimes speak in hyperbole as a point of emphasis. Behold, humanity.
            • yucky 4y ago
              If we can now expect the leading health experts in the world to be potentially speaking in hyperbole, then we can't expect the public to trust what they say to be accurate. That's a problem.
              • etchalon 4y ago
                If you take someone casually rounding up from 90% to 100% as a deep reason for concern, I have some bad news for you regarding weather forecasts.
                • yucky 4y ago
                  No expert in any field would tell you that "casually rounding from 90% to 100%" should ever be done in any serious setting. Ever. Idiots on the Internet are free to do so, but not the Director of the CDC or the US President. That gets people killed.
  • scifibestfi 4y ago
    "Still trying to process my emotions on learning that @twitter blacklisted me. The thought that will keep me up tonight: censorship of scientific discussion permitted policies like school closures & a generation of children were hurt." https://twitter.com/DrJBhattacharya/status/1601037983779389440 https://twitter.com/DrJBhattacharya/status/16010379837793894...
    • nathanaldensr 4y ago
      Is this an answer to GP's question? If so, I'm having trouble figuring out what it is.
      • philwelch 4y ago
        He was blacklisted due to his opposition to school closures and other intrusive NPI's during the pandemic.
    • lern_too_spel 4y ago
      [flagged]
      • ajvs 4y ago
        So instead it's better to stunt children's development with lockdowns and give them early heart attacks with jabs? Regardless of yours or my position however, this debate shouldn't have been censored in the first place.
        • lern_too_spel 4y ago
          People had pointed out how stupid his proposal was when he made it, and he ignored them completely. At that point, he was just a crank (https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/jlockdowns/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/jlockdowns/). The debate was never censored: he was allowed to communicate with policy makers if he had any evidence to support his proposal. What was censored (or rather, not promoted to people who weren't his followers) was his wild rants to fellow Christian libertarians who believe the invisible hand of the free market is the gentle hand of the baby Jesus himself, which we should not shackle with regulations. Slowing some children's development (while drastically accelerating others' because they were tutored by their parents who had to stay at home with them) is not even on the same scale as mass deaths and people dying outside hospitals due to lack of capacity.
• sn0w_crash 4y ago
• MilnerRoute 4y ago
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  • billfor 4y ago
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    • IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
      • deleted 4y ago
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    • veec_cas_tant 4y ago
      Am I right in believing that the only supporting evidence (and this is very weak evidence) for this claim in the two parts so far is that Twitter employees donated more money to Democrats than Republicans? Has there been any other evidence that enforcement was biased? In this latest story, Weiss said the teams were handling hundreds of cases per day and then gave a total of four right-wing examples.
• krapp 4y ago
  • deleted 4y ago
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• theCrowing 4y ago
  The title "The Twitter Files" is totally wasted on this and what's with the photographs of screens for a more dramatic effect instead of screenshots.
  • jahlove 4y ago
    Not quite: https://twitter.com/spdustin/status/1601053327567249409 https://twitter.com/spdustin/status/1601053327567249409
  • coolbreezetft22 4y ago
    I love "The Twitter Files" name, it's hilarious and totally keeping in character with the conspiratorial nature of those involved (sounds like The X Files, very mysterious and suspicious!). The episodic format of this - alongside being forced into exclusive twitter threads when it would be much more easily understood as a longer article or series of paragraphs - also comes across as a pretty blatant and desperate attempt by Musk to make twitter "the #1 source of news"
• veec_cas_tant 4y ago
  Is this information new (as of #27)? Doesn't every social media platform augment reach for troublemakers? For example, here is Elon's new policy[0]: >New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach. >Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter. >You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet. None of this info seems to warrant such a spectacle. [0]: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1593673339826212864 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1593673339826212864
  • kmlx 4y ago
    > Is this information new (as of #27)? yes, it seems like twitter employees lied when asked directly about shadow banning and other issues.
  • conscion 4y ago
    Spectacle is how Musk brands and motivates his companies. Tesla was originally climate change and lately has been self-driving. Space X is colonizing Mars. Twitter will be "radical transparency". Even if Twitter does the exact same actions, Musk will frame them all as"radical transparency"
• MilnerRoute 4y ago
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• IAmEveryone 4y ago
  I wonder what Musk would say about the idea of limiting Tweets instead of banning them. Oh, wait! New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach. Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter. You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet. Elon Musk, Nov 18th, 2022: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1593673339826212864 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1593673339826212864
• michaelgrosner2 4y ago
  "New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach. Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter. You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet." How is this any different than Elon's stated goals from 3 weeks ago?
  • MallocVoidstar 4y ago
  • rhaksw 4y ago
    You're right it's not. I gather if you want to get two sides to talk who aren't talking, i.e. those who support that message vs. those who don't, you need to appeal to both.
    • anigbrowl 4y ago
      I think there might be a reason two sides aren't talking. Conservatives: Rope, tree, journalist: some assembly required Fuck Joe Biden Fuck your feelings These are all t-shirt slogans you can buy at conservative political events, and they're quite widespread rather than exceptional. Also conservatives: Why am I being shadow banned, this is viewpoint discrimination! To be clear, there are obnoxious people and outright assholes all over the political spectrum. But conservatives have made outrage and offensiveness their brand, in recent years. I remember being astonished and disgusted by the gleeful antagonism of Rush Limbaugh back int eh 1990s when conservative talk radio first became A Thing following the Reagan administration's abolition of the 'Fairness doctrine.'
      • deleted 4y ago
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      • rhaksw 4y ago
        > I think there might be a reason two sides aren't talking. Both sides can certainly find a reason not to speak to each other. The left claims the right is hateful, the right claims the left is obscene. It's always been like that, with one having the power to censor the other. Here's an example [1]. One side, a well known entrepeneur/investor, is arguing for no censorship, and the other side, a well known disinformation researcher [2], argues for limits of the reach of certain content. One has blocked the other, so they no longer communicate directly. Five years ago, someone at Twitter might have observed this interaction and decided, "I'm going to secretly action content. That will satisfy both the disinfo labeler and the anti-censorship crowd." Yet in doing so, as we can see, nobody is satisfied. They're still not talking to each other, and they don't understand why. The reason is due to the secrecy built into all of these platforms where an unknown third party is actioning content without anyone involved in the conversation knowing about it. See also Free speech for me--but not for thee : how the American left and right relentlessly censor each other [3] (Nat Hentoff, 1992) [1] https://twitter.com/noUpside/status/1599532506252214272 https://twitter.com/noUpside/status/1599532506252214272 [2] https://www.wired.com/story/free-speech-is-not-the-same-as-free-reach/ https://www.wired.com/story/free-speech-is-not-the-same-as-f... [3] https://archive.org/details/freespeechformeb0000hent/page/n9/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/freespeechformeb0000hent/page/n9...
• rhaksw 4y ago
  Twitter calls it "visibility filtering" [1] Facebook gives mods a "Hide comment" button [2] TikTok calls it "visible to self" [3] [4] Truth Social does it [5] [6] [7] Reddit shows all removed comments to authors as if they're publicly visible [8] Open source tools are built to do it [9] [10] Textbooks advocate "disguise a gag or ban" [11] I call it Shadow Moderation [12]. The system intentionally does not show users the ways in which their content has been actioned. The solution is simple— provide users with the same view that the moderating system has. Whenever their content has been actioned, let users see it. It may be the result of two groups who fail to connect. Those who don't want any censorship at all, and those who want disinformation to be handled by the platform. If there is no olive branch and no concession made between these two positions, then platform designers may seek to satisfy both by secretly actioning content. If there is now wide understanding that this happens everywhere, maybe we have a chance to build a platform whose express goal is to not withhold censorship actions from the author of the content. [1] https://twitter.com/bariweiss/status/1601014175366402048 https://twitter.com/bariweiss/status/1601014175366402048 [2] https://www.agorapulse.com/blog/hide-comments-on-facebook/#options-for-social-media-managers https://www.agorapulse.com/blog/hide-comments-on-facebook/#o... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-how-tiktok-censors-videos-that-do-not-please-beijing https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-... [4] https://netzpolitik.org/2019/cheerfulness-and-censorship/ https://netzpolitik.org/2019/cheerfulness-and-censorship/ [5] https://www.tiktok.com/@cheyenne.l.hunt/video/7111505389950242094?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1 https://www.tiktok.com/@cheyenne.l.hunt/video/71115053899502... [6] https://www.citizen.org/article/truth-cant-handle-the-truth/#_ftn4 https://www.citizen.org/article/truth-cant-handle-the-truth/... [7] https://www.tiktok.com/@cheyenne.l.hunt/video/7111858102638529835 https://www.tiktok.com/@cheyenne.l.hunt/video/71118581026385... [8] https://www.reddit.com/r/CantSayAnything/comments/zdubov/write_any_comment_here_20221206/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CantSayAnything/comments/zdubov/wri... [9] https://getstream.io/blog/feature-announcement-shadow-ban/ https://getstream.io/blog/feature-announcement-shadow-ban/ [10] https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-shadowban/85041 https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-shadowban/85041 [11] https://kraut.hciresearch.info/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/kiesler10-Regulation-current.pdf https://kraut.hciresearch.info/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/ki... [12] https://cantsayanything.win/2022-10-transparent-moderation/ https://cantsayanything.win/2022-10-transparent-moderation/
• photochemsyn 4y ago
  It would be useful to have a somewhat in-depth visual of Twitter's engineering architecture along with an explanation of exactly where in the system these 'visibility filters' were implemented. There's also mention of an 'amplification block' which makes one wonder just how natural the phenomenon of a post 'going viral' really was in the past. Twitter claimed to be a user-driven platform (not counting bots of course) where user actions would dictate what was popular and what went viral, but now there are some questions about just how controlled such events were. Questions like "How much of the this was stage-managed?" and "How much was bot-driven?" deserve answers.
• quyleanh 4y ago
  Sorry about off topic but am I banned on top pages of HN? Or is this topic filtered? Recently I don't see this thread on the first 10 pages. Now it's appeared on page 7. It should be more visible with the number of upvote and comment, shouldn't it?
  • NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
    Topic is being downvoted/flagged, I assume. Normally HN loves tech company drama. And there are screenshots of twitter accounts from the employee/moderator tooling. It's super interesting stuff, even just technically.
    • quyleanh 4y ago
      It's appeared on #27 and then be flagged. Just wow HN.
      • dang 4y ago
        It's just the normal up-and-down of sensational submissions on HN. The 'wow' factor is a function of the attention you're paying to it.
        • drummer 4y ago
          This kind of censorship is nothing normal dang.
          • dang 4y ago
            This is hardly censorship: The Twitter Files - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33838556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33838556 - Dec 2022 (1549 comments) The Twitter Files Part 2: Twitter's Secret Blacklists - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33915734 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33915734 - Dec 2022 (481 comments) ... and it's quite normal. It happens with every sensational or inflammatory story, especially the Major Ongoing Topic kind: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=%22major%20ongoing%20topic%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... We don't have any interest in censoring this—it's being moderated the same way we moderate anything else in this category, regardless of which way the political vectors point. You guys are cherry-picking a tiny and arbitrary sample of datapoints—i.e. what you happen to notice, when you happen to be looking, which is (1) a tiny time sample, and (2) strongly influenced by how you feel about the story. Other people who look at different times and/or feel differently notice different things and come to completely different conclusions. Then you (some of you, at least!) turn those unreliable, sample-biased and feeling-influenced observations into flaming arrows and fire them at the mods—the same mods, btw, who turned off the flags on the story in the first place.
• rhaksw 4y ago
  Wow this post is #208 on HN: https://i.imgur.com/e4lQko4.png https://i.imgur.com/e4lQko4.png It's only an hour old. The post must've been flagged, which I know has a pretty heavy influence on the ranking here. For those flagging, this conversation is worth having. Whether platforms secretly demote people's content is important to them.
  • godels_theorem 4y ago
    Or shadowbanned, like me.
    • rhaksw 4y ago
      Sadly, many don't even notice full account shadowbans [1] [2]. But account-level shadowbans are sort of known to exist. What's being reported here is harder to detect. That is, the secretive removal of individual pieces of content, or reducing the reach of an account's content. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/351buo/tifu_by_posting_for_three_years_and_just_now/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/351buo/tifu_by_postin... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8z3sd4/i_have_used_reddit_for_4_years_without_knowing_i/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8z3sd4/i_have_used_red...
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  • NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
    How did you even find it? I only found it trying to submit it because I didn't see it. And HN loves posting dirt on tech companies here - understandably so - because a lot of it is highly technical. So this being absent is really suspicious. Like, I'd love to know how they implemented the "Trends Blacklist". In the years older leak I had assumed that it was on the trending terms, but Weiss revealed that it was targeting people and tweets. Or the "Search blacklist". That's basically sabotaging your own search function so that things that are popular/relevant/trending are hidden. That makes no sense for an platform to even do for anything other than censorship of people on purpose. Or what does "Do Not Amplify" do? Does that mean they do amplify other things, but never want these accounts to be amplified by that process? How was that implemented? Musk just tweeted: "Twitter is working on a software update that will show your true account status, so you know clearly if you’ve been shadowbanned, the reason why and how to appeal" That'll be good to see. Exposing this stuff to the people affected is just...good faith interaction with your users. I'm sure a lot of people are going to be justifiably mad. I wonder what this will do to twitter's stock price...
• foolinaround 4y ago
  Discrimination as alleged by conservatives but pooh-poohed as others as merely delusional is now clearly proved. How can tech self-regulate itself, or should there be external agencies who would watch the growing power of tech companies? and who would watch them? Decentralization never seems to take off, so we seem to be left with these existing players like twitter, meta, google ...who are de-facto monopolies....
  • JetAlone 4y ago
    Right, so now that this thing has been proved we're moving on to the "They did and it's a good thing" phase.
  • smoldesu 4y ago
    > How can tech self-regulate itself Would it be a stretch to suggest 'the government'?
    • someNameIG 4y ago
      Outside of removing things like CSAM wouldn't it be illegal for the government to tell social media how it must moderate? I'm from the US though so not an expert or it's laws.
      • srj 4y ago
        DMCA and court orders in the US. Many more in other countries.
        • someNameIG 4y ago
          True. Still nothing about banning or shadow banning though, or even needing to tell users they do so.
      • stale2002 4y ago
        Telephone companies are forced by the government to carry certain speech. Similar laws could be expanded to other major communication platforms.
• hnrodey 4y ago
  Quite ironic that this post itself is shadowbanned.
  • rideontime 4y ago
    Please define "shadowbanned."
    • Markoff 4y ago
• NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
  • taolegal 4y ago
    > Why does big tech, including HN all have the same auth-left wing bias? I think intelligent people are abnormally capable of self-deception.
    • michaelmrose 4y ago
      Everyone is heir to the same inherent flaws that plague humanity but smart people are less likely to practice self deception. If you find yourself on average on the opposite side of the vast majority of smart people the first thing that is in order is self refection. While being smart doesn't make them correct the last thing that would be useful would be to dismiss the majority of smart folks.
      • taolegal 4y ago
        > but smart people are less likely to practice self deception Smart people are better at contriving complex justifications that seem right but are in fact wrong. People don’t usually set out with the intention of deceiving themselves.
      • MrMan 4y ago
        smarter people are deceived by different things but they are no less subject to propaganda. one of the propaganda points that works against all people is "you are in the club of smart people, let me let you in on some things most people either dont know, or dont want to know!"
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • anigbrowl 4y ago
• Jun8 4y ago
  There must be a ton of ex (or current) Twitter employees on HN: can one of you verify if the user management tool shown in the photos is an actual thing and provide more information on how it works?
  • anigbrowl 4y ago
    https://twitter.com/44/status/1601027028144115712?s=46&t=VtdDn30h4XEEqxWxM3usjQ https://twitter.com/44/status/1601027028144115712?s=46&t=Vtd...
• Jun8 4y ago
  There must be a ton of ex (or current) Twitter employees on HN: can one of you verify if the user management tool shown in the photos is an actual thing and provide more information on how it works? As another sibling comment states, other platforms also do similar things. It's easy how such systems get started and evolve. In fact, given the severe downvoting I see on this and similarly polarizing threads on HN, I think if someone built a browser extension that hides comments by users from a user created list many people HN users would probably use it.
  • afavour 4y ago
    It is, and none of this is new information, given this article from 2020: https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgxd3d/twitter-insider-access-panel-account-hacks-biden-uber-bezos https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgxd3d/twitter-insider-acces... A more pressing question, IMO: one of the screenshots shows a “direct messages” button. Does Weiss and/or Taibbi have unrestricted access to read users DMs right now?
    • jdkee 4y ago
      "Does Weiss and/or Taibbi have unrestricted access to read users DMs right now?" Now that would be interesting.
      • sleepybrett 4y ago
        • sangnoir 4y ago
          Or anyone he considers his enemy/detractor. Anyone who has ever exchanged words with Elon, or even looked him the wrong way better have deleted their DMs - and asked their counter-parties to do the same - before Musk walked in the door at Twitter HQ. Let that sink in.
          • sleepybrett 4y ago
• VictorPath 4y ago
• throwayyy479087 4y ago
  • scifibestfi 4y ago
    The 4 stages. It's not happening. It's happening, but it's equally applied. It's not equally applied and that's a good thing. We already knew about it. Why is this news?
  • a_shovel 4y ago
    Some things that would be good if they happened don't happen
• deleted 4y ago
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• anigbrowl 4y ago
  Love to see non-employees of Twitter having access to my DMs. I don't think that's consistent with the user agreement or the privacy laws in the state of California.
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • _a9 4y ago
    I don't think they even have access to the dashboard. I assumed they were given the prepared data. An earlier tweet by Musk or a journalist mentioned lawyers would deliver the data to them direct from Twitter. Even if they did it's clear that whoever made the screenshot in the libsoftiktok screen doesn't even have access to see their email. Like all other tech admin panels, there are access controls. Just because the 'delete website' button is visible to you doesn't mean your account has permission to use it.
    • anigbrowl 4y ago
      Weiss's co-author @abagailshrier commented: 'Our team was given extensive, unfiltered access to Twitter's internal communication and systems.' I'm gonna take this at face value pending clarification. Just because the 'delete website' button is visible to you doesn't mean your account has permission to use it. Well, nothing looks greyed out. Again, I'm going to assume they had access unless there's specific information to the contrary.
      • rideontime 4y ago
        Now the head of Trust & Safety is admitting the screenshots were "requested" from her[0]. This was hardly a balanced investigation. [0] https://twitter.com/ellagirwin/status/1601084794288640000 https://twitter.com/ellagirwin/status/1601084794288640000
        • anigbrowl 4y ago
          It's a bit of a mess really. Musk fired the deputy general counsel the other day, commenting shortly afterward that he had only learned about the man's previous stint in a similar role at the FBI on Sunday. People quickly pointed out that Musk had actually commented on the tweets about that person and his FBI connections last April. I feel that what we're seeing is largely investigation theater designed to validate a particular outcome rather than a real inquiry. If you consider this from an information/hybrid warfare point of view and think of Twitter as territory, then it's reminiscent of highly engineered plebiscites that precede or follow invasions to give them an aura of legitimacy.
• chucky123 4y ago
  Incredible, how openly twitter gas-lights users when it comes to policy enforcement.
  • yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
    I mean, that's not news, is it? Virtually every social network does that (even HN shadow bans people). (Not saying it's right, only unsurprising.)
    • nathanaldensr 4y ago
      If you defined "that" in "every social network does that" for HN and the other major social media sites, you'd realize just how different the definitions are. The differences matter.
    • rhaksw 4y ago
      It's surprising when you see it happen to your own content. Check out the reactions from people whose content has been secretly moderated that I quote here [1] These aren't far right or left, it's everyone. Likely all of us have been secretly moderated at some point without our knowledge. When I discovered this happening on the platform I used, I built a tool to let me know when it happened, and I published that tool for others to use. Now it sees 500k users per month. Similar tools could be built for all other sites that do this. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33916519 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33916519
    • remarkEon 4y ago
      > even HN shadow bans people HN also gives you an option to see this content in your account settings (showdead = yes).
      • XorNot 4y ago
        That's different to letting the person it was done too see it.
        • 4y ago
• chucky123 4y ago
  Why is this flagged ??
  • dang 4y ago
    Users flagged it.
    • chucky123 4y ago
      This post has got 75 upvotes in the last 1 hour. Surely there must be some merit to keeping it up.
      • batch12 4y ago
        It may not even be those with strong opinions on the topic that are flagging this. I think some may flag topics they see as potentially inflammatory as a means to avoid flamewars, uncivil discourse, etc.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  • propogandist 4y ago
  • Markoff 4y ago
    Because large part of HN users prefer to live in denial about facts they don't like. It's also fact there are brigades and bots operating on HN and NGAF.
    • dang 4y ago
      "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
• rideontime 4y ago
  Fascinating to see how the comment section is skewed only by the people who are invested enough in this melodrama to have come running to HN to discuss the thread. Will be interesting to see how it shakes out when the rest of the world wakes up.
  • Markoff 4y ago
    No offense, but pretty much everyone outside America is already awake long time ago, especially the buggest part of world population living in Asia. Whole America has like 1/5 of Asia population. I think you should refresh your time zones knowledge. But yeah, Northamerican leftists are not awake yet.
• etchalon 4y ago
  When Musk announced his new policy towards moderation (speech, not reach), I pointed out it sounded no different in practice than "shadow banning", which was already something that certain segments of people considered censorship. The reaction to this drop, which just describes how any moderation system at scale works/would need to work, is a nice confirmation of that belief. "They have a secret blacklist!!" It's a database. They have a database.
  • ArunRaja 4y ago
    One important change coming from elon: Terminal for each user showing their Shadowbanned status. And ability to appeal against it.
    • etchalon 4y ago
      They will 100% eventually, if not soon after, have a special status, that isn't visible to the end user, and isn't appealable, because moderation at scale requires it. It'll be called something different, or framed in some different way of course.
• tedunangst 4y ago
  I think it's funny that the outrage tourists also managed to be angry that libs of tiktok was also put on a "no action" whitelist. They're not even reading the disclosures; they're just screaming. https://twitter.com/bariweiss/status/1601018810495995904 https://twitter.com/bariweiss/status/1601018810495995904
  • harry8 4y ago
    "no action" whitelist meaning in this case that nobody can reverse (possibly found to be incorrect) previous actions without taking additional steps? ie "Even if this is wrong don't touch it"
    • tedunangst 4y ago
      Meaning no matter how egregiously this account violates the content policy, do not suspend until first consulting with higher ups.
      • harry8 4y ago
        Yes and also meaning (and extremely likely in this case to be the reason - rightly or wrongly) "do not lift these restrictions until first contacting this other group."? Not my first thought when reading the words "no action whitelist" Yours?
        • sangnoir 4y ago
          At Twitter's volumes, lifting of restrictions manually doesn't scale. Speaking as an outsider: how I would design it would have the lifting of restrictions being automated and set up at the time restrictions are applied (set on a timer or deletion of an offending tweet). Lifting of restrictions manually would be far less frequent than applying them. With that in mind, I get the distinct impression that the LoTT account was being treated with kid gloves/white gloves.
          • harry8 4y ago
• rswail 4y ago
  Why is anyone surprised that the major/globally operating social media companies have extensive internal systems for controlling the content that appears via their platforms? Irrespective of whether or not you agree with individual decisions, the fact that such systems exist should not be a surprise. These companies operate within legal frameworks across multiple jurisdictions that have endless variations of restrictions on speech and content. What surprises me is that there are people that whine about this without proposing or creating an alternative.
  • threeseed 4y ago
    > without proposing or creating an alternative They have an alternative in mind. It's called unfettered free speech. Problem for Twitter is that advertisers aren't interested in a fancier 4chan.
    • vasili111 4y ago
      If Twitter content will become similar to 4chan content, the advertisers will behave with Twitter as with 4chan.
  • hcurtiss 4y ago
    I think it’s because they said repeatedly they were doing no such thing.
    • anigbrowl 4y ago
      You really think someone would do that? Just form a corporation and tell lies?
  • TheRealDunkirk 4y ago
    It’s not the fact that these systems exist, it’s that Twitter denied that they did for years, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
    • threeseed 4y ago
• username3 4y ago
  > Twitter is working on a software update that will show your true account status, so you know clearly if you’ve been shadowbanned, the reason why and how to appeal https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1601042125130371072 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1601042125130371072
  • rhaksw 4y ago
    It sounds desirable but we shouldn't have to rely on whoever's in charge. Elon could say he's no longer shadow moderating and simply swap out who gets moderated. Or, if he really does get rid of it, the next guy could quietly bring it all back. We should be building external systems that can check the visibility of our own content. It can be done with an extension, for example.
  • notpachet 4y ago
    > so you know clearly if you’ve been shadowbanned A shadowban that the user clearly knows about sounds like an oxymoron.
    • h11h 4y ago
      I assumed shadow banning was invented for forums to hide low quality users without giving them a signal to create a new account.
      • Zuiii 4y ago
        But when they do eventually figure it out, they end up hoping from one newly created account to another. Unless using new accounts are prohibitively expensive, and they usually aren't, then you'll end up just replacing one problem with another. The correct way to moderate is to be civil and treat "low quality" users as human beings. Reserve inhuman bans for inhuman users (bots).
        • epakai 4y ago
          Ban evasion was a thing long before shadow bans. I've seen persistent users disrupt IRC channels for years, maybe decades. You can't reason with or befriend somebody who holds a grudge that long. Moderators will just have to deal with the problem repeatedly. Shadow bans at least minimize recurrence by taking away the immediate feedback.
• quadrifoliate 4y ago
  I have been responsible a bit of content moderation myself, and interacted with mods on various forums. It's possible that this is responsible for some of my views, summarized here. - The "secret" aspect of all this can be largely ignored. Twitter is under no obligation to tell its users exactly how their Tweets are moderated. I am sure most moderation tools are secret, including whatever Twitter (or for that matter, HN) uses today. - There are aspects of user privacy that are important (e.g. how user data is gathered, where is it stored, whether it complies with various data governance regulations) which would be interesting, but have been largely ignored by these Tweets so far. - I don't think Weiss understands what "shadow ban" means. It means that you post Tweets, but no one ever sees them. None of the practices she describes amount to what is usually described as a shadow ban or a hellban. Preventing a post from showing up in trends or searches is not a shadow ban. Google SafeSearch does not "shadow ban" explicit images or links. - All companies have hierarchies of escalation. It is not surprising to me that there is a "top people" level of escalation in the form of SIP-PES that Weiss mentions. In fact, I'm reasonably sure something similar probably exists at Twitter today, consisting of Musk and some close advisors. They might even be using the exact same group! - A lot of the discussion Weiss quotes as if it's top-secret information seems to show...individuals behaving reasonably while struggling with the extremely hard problem of content moderation at scale? Roth and others seem to be essentially saying, "We don't want to kick these users off the platform. Maybe if we limit their reach a bit, we won't get them inciting howling mobs that target and disturb other users?" Post-Musk Twitter seems to be struggling with the same thing, as the Kanye West debacle shows. Overall, I don't really see too much that would cause me to gasp with horror. All I can really see is a company that never grew to Facebook scale trying to grapple with its content moderation problem without having the resources or perhaps temperament to hire hundreds of cheap content moderators like Facebook does.
  • rhaksw 4y ago
    > The "secret" aspect of all this can be largely ignored. I bet you would not like for your comment here to be secretly removed. In fact, many users are shocked to discover when this happens, as I share here [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33916519 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33916519
• hintymad 4y ago
  The American philosopher John Rawls had this interesting concept "Veil of Ignorance"[1]. It basically says that only when you don't know who you are will you think clearly about the social justice. That is, pick whichever principles you think the society should stick to, but do so only when you don't know in which position you'll end up being. So, you can think that the justice is killing the damn riches so you can live in one of those water-sideproperties, but what if you turn out to be one of the riches? You may think that it's only fair to let poor people survive by themselves, but then you will be surprised if you are born in a struggling family. Or hypothetically, you may think it's totally fair to ban the hell of this damn Dr. Jay Bhattacharya because apparently he's spreading misinformation, until one one day you find that you are shadow banned on Twitter for warning people of climate change simply because the employees there didn't believe in climate change. So, yeah, unless we believe that all dominant companies will always be run by Californian-like lefties or our life will never be impacted by right-wing organizations or policies, this Twitter file things should concern us. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_position https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_position
  • evolve2k 4y ago
    Yes. Random thought; This would likley make for a fun board game concept. Players are tasked with design societal rules.. and then woops, spin the dice and are now confronted by the rules they set for themselves.
  • Epitom3 4y ago
    Beautifully said
• rationalfaith 4y ago
• deleted 4y ago
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• zephrx1111 4y ago
  I don’t understand somebody’s reasoning here: it is not news so it is not true.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• seo-speedwagon 4y ago
  None of this is new information. There is an entire help page about this https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-reach-limited https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-reach... The only new info I learned was Libs of TicTok apparently got special protections not afforded to regular users
  • sanjayio 4y ago
    It’s marketing material, content moderation and free speech is a super hot topic.
    • KurvaKing 4y ago
  • throwawayacc3 4y ago
    The Four Stages: 1. It's not happening. 2. It's happening, but it's equally applied. 3. It's not equally applied and that's a good thing. 4. We already knew about it. Why is this news? ^---- You are here.
    • ergocoder 4y ago
      5. TruthSocial does it too
      • KurvaKing 4y ago
      • throwawayacc3 4y ago
        Exactly! "Fascist do it, but it's justifiable when we do it because we are moral and the ends justify our means. We're moral because our name is literally antifascist!"
• godelski 4y ago
  This all seems like a major publicity stunt. We all know that Twitter is filtering users. The question is why they are filtered. There's a clear bias to specifically show right wingers being banned but other independent sources say it is roughly even. I don't want to really see political leanings so much as I want to see the content that caused them to be flagged in the first place. If someone promotes Nazism or some other universally hated sentiment I don't care which party they belong to. I want to know WHY these people were flagged. Without that being said I can't read these (and the previous posts) as any more than propaganda. It has a right wing bias and that feeds into a prior narrative but we all know that social media is amazing at causing selection bias. If they really want to show that Twitter's prior policies favored the left wing then they need to show more data and fewer direct examples. There's been this narrative that most employees at Twitter are left wing therefore filters target right wingers but that is naive unless we assume all Twitter employees' voices are equal and equally contribute to the creation of these filters. This isn't so much whistleblowing as it is propaganda. Musk wants to drive eyeballs and the master of hype is doing what he does best. Lord around a nothing burger and promises the moon. He's just using that right wing prior that many have and exploiting that with selection bias without actually demonstrating that there is a bias.
  • YetAnotherNick 4y ago
    It is there in the thread > 3. Take, for example, Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) who argued that Covid lockdowns would harm children. Twitter secretly placed him on a “Trends Blacklist,” which prevented his tweets from trending.
    • godelski 4y ago
      > who argued that Covid lockdowns would harm children. Using science or using propaganda? The issue, as I'm trying to make as abundantly clear as possible, is that we still don't know what the offending tweet says. Therefore we cannot actually conclude if the down weighting was appropriate or not. If he said "I have a paper which shows that under lockdown children are performing worse on tests" then I'd be upset. But if he said "The lockdown is harming our children and turning them into literal Nazis" then yeah, I do want that taken down. I'm just unwilling to speculate as to what the tweet actually said. You're putting at lot of trust in The Free Press[0], a new (self admitted) press organization that has little history[1]. In an age of misinformation we have to be constantly asking ourselves "do I believe this information because it is accurate or because it fits my preconceived notions (priors)?" Be critical of these people too. If what they are saying is true, then fair critique, as I've laid out, will roll off of them and truth will be on their side. If they aren't saying what is true, then do we also not have a duty to speak up when we find flaws in their arguments? If you want a free and fair media, we have to be able to criticize and evaluate our internal biases. [0] https://www.thefp.com/ https://www.thefp.com/ [1] Google them. Literally googling "thefp" doesn't come up with them. They do not seem to be associated with the advocacy group The Free Press. And one of their sources has uses MD in their username, claims in the bio that they aren't a doctor and it is their initials, ShellenbergerMS is not a taken username... Looking these individual people up, we do find a specific political bias and not a uniform one like their website claims.
• deleted 4y ago
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• YeBanKo 4y ago
  VF happens at google and other big tech as well, probably even at a larger scale. And they have a right to do so, but once a complexity reaches a certain level, they should be considered publishers and be fully responsible for content, just like a newspaper editors are.
• telaelit 4y ago
  These “Twitter Files” have been so disappointing. I was really expecting to see some crazy stuff, but all I’m seeing is a company that was moderating their content. Even the incident that Weiss points out of someone being doxxed and Twitter doing nothing about it happened under Elon’s rule, and was probably not moderated because of the chaos that Elon created. Even the people that were “shadow banned” makes sense, I’m actually surprised that they didn’t moderate accounts like Libs of TikTok even more considering that they’re actively shutting down children’s hospitals and directing hate and violence towards transsexual people. All in all, a big nothingburger.
  • archagon 4y ago
    Just more outrage theater by the right.
  • hyperdunc 4y ago
    In other words, Twitter was moderating user content according to a systemic far-left political bias at the company. But since your bias matches, you don't think it's a big deal.
    • telaelit 4y ago
      If the political bias you’re seeing is “far-left” then you’re very far to the right. Advertisers don’t want to advertise on a website that is being used to direct hate and violence towards the LGBTQ+ community, advertisers are the main source of revenue for Twitter, thus content directing hate and violence towards the LGBTQ+ community are moderated. Similar arguments could be made for other ways in which Twitter was moderating their content. Those are decisions to boost revenue and to make Twitter a safer place for people to hang out, I don’t see how those are “far left” biased decisions. If employees were pushing a “far left” agenda I’d expect to see every conservative shadow banned, instead conservatives were protected (ex. Libs of TikTok not being kicked off). Last year Twitter even admitted to boosting conservative content in order to try to appease conservatives claiming a bias [0]. Im sorry but I just don’t see anything that proves there was a “systemic far left political bias” at Twitter. If anything I’m seeing a far-right systemic bias growing at Twitter with Elon at the helm. [0] - https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/22/twitter-admits-bias-in-algorithm-for-rightwing-politicians-and-news-outlets https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/22/twitter-a...
• wesleywt 4y ago
  The problem with these "Twitter Files" is that it is being released in the form of "bombshells" when in reality they are exposing nothing. But by doing it in the form of a bombshell the right wing is making it look like they have been oppressed all these years, when it is their voices that are mostly promoted on these platforms.
  • over_bridge 4y ago
    Exactly. Elon is going for theatrics but none of the releases are big enough to break through to the average person. All of them together might but these scraps of news aren't doing it. Also they cite these right wing personalities being suppressed but honestly there are so many of them, of course some will be flagged. I'm pretty left leaning and I'm struggling to even think who would be the leftwing equivalents of some of these names. We don't really coalesce around political personalities so who would there be to get flagged? The presentation of these details is being done in such an overtly gleeful right-wing manner that it's hard to take it in objectively.
  • hyperdunc 4y ago
    Either you're kidding, or you're so far left that everything else looks right wing.
    • veec_cas_tant 4y ago
      Can you post a quick breakdown of what is actually being revealed? I'm honestly shocked that anyone at least a bit technically literate didn't understand the types of tools social media companies use. Elon and others seem to be pitching these releases as huge bombshells about conservatives being silenced. I haven't seen any evidence for that claim at all. The most detailed analysis we've got so far was a spreadsheet of employee political donations. Maybe they are building up to it?
• rideontime 4y ago
  Twitter's current head of Trust & Safety has admitted that the posted screenshots were "requested"[1] from her. This clearly isn't a balanced report. https://twitter.com/ellagirwin/status/1601084794288640000 https://twitter.com/ellagirwin/status/1601084794288640000
  • oska 4y ago
    I think you're misreading that tweet. What she is saying there is that the reporters did not have access to Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and that they had to get information on the various filters applied to an account via screenshots of the control system provided by the internal Twitter official who was has this access and is also responsible for keeping PII private. Nevertheless, thank you for linking that tweet. It's an important one for clarification of the process that is being followed, and the care being taken.
• LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
• gnicholas 4y ago
  It seems like the dispute here is around the definition of "shadowban". We can all agree it includes situations where the user posts and 0 other people see the post. Twitter admits to limiting visibility of posts. So the dispute becomes a spectrum/threshold question. Most people would say that if 10% of the people who would normally see your posts get to see them, that's pretty shadowban-y. And most people would agree that if 90% get to see your posts, that's more like "limiting visibility" than shadowbanning. The key questions are: (1) to what extent was visibility reduced, and (2) at what threshold should we consider "limiting visibility" to be tantamount to a shadowban? There are also indirect effects to consider: if your posts are shown to only 60% of the people of a normal post, then you will get fewer RTs and fewer new followers in the long run. So consistent "visibility limitation" has a compounding effect that could substantially slow your account growth and reach over time.
• hyperdunc 4y ago
  Online platforms should not be allowed to moderate content according to whim or unwritten bias. If a piece of content is moderated, it should remain in place and be clearly labeled with an explanation from the TOS. Exceptions: If the moderated content is spam it can be collapsed. If it's illegal, it can be removed.
• robswc 4y ago
  I’m not really shocked. Interesting to see it all finally come out though. People were certainly made fun of for implying that they were shadow banned (in the sense that they were more suppressed than the average user) and tons of people would outright deny it was even happening.
• oska 4y ago
  Here's a hint to a further revelation for those who continue to pretend that the Twitter Files are a 'nothingburger'. Ian Miles Cheong : > So here’s a question for @elonmusk and @bariweiss: were any political candidates — either in the US or elsewhere — subject to shadowbanning while they were running for office or seeking re-election? Elon : > Yes https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1601123235755487233 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1601123235755487233
  • cactusplant7374 4y ago
    Political candidates can spread lies and hate. I don’t see why they shouldn’t be subjected to the same rules as everyone else. Musk feels the same way about Alex Jones — who was part of a civil and not criminal action. What he did was immoral but not illegal. I’m glad we have a system to address the harm he did but disappointed in Musk that he can’t apply the same standard beyond Jones.
  • nrki 4y ago
    Come now, this could be verified with evidence. I'm sure these actions exist in a database and email trail. Musk could release the evidence himself, or use an actual journalistic process and have someone impartial review it. But there is none, and so he hides behind his disdain of "the MSM" and posts yes/no answers to leading questions that only serve to rile up his base.
    • oska 4y ago
      Your comment seems to me to be full of bad faith. > use an actual journalistic process There is a journalistic process being followed - two established journalists have been given comprehensive access to internal files and are documenting what they have found, while putting their discoveries in context. Elon is also promising that these files will be released publicly for other journalists and the interested public to pore over at a later date. > this could be verified with evidence And who's saying it won't be? This was not Elon volunteering this information himself. This was simply him replying in the affirmative to a question put to him. (And no, it was not a 'leading question'.) > he hides behind his disdain > questions that only serve to rile up his base Not worth replying to these. Just quoting as examples of your bad faith.
• sfusato 4y ago
  Hearing people who weren’t censored - and who in fact benefited from censorship - tell those who WERE censored that censorship is no big deal is infuriating beyond belief.
• croes 4y ago
  Let me quote Elon: "New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach. Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter. You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet."
• quags 4y ago
  In the early 00s forums dealt with “trolls” as we labeled them. Moderation was used to keep things on topic and deal with people who did not add to the community, made threats and really made being a moderator annoying. Total free speech gives you 4chan or kiwi farms. There needs to be a balance of content moderation to keep off literal hate speech and threats to prevent that. Twitter would not be a billion+ dollar company with out moderation. So if Elon wants to make the process more open I am all for that but really any one who has dealt with the cesspool forums and social networks can become knows content moderation is needed and moderators are human in the end. Sometimes you simply can’t have a conversation with a troll to correct the behavior.
  • DoItToMe81 4y ago
    Total free speech gives you a place where openly discussing a topic is easier than without it? OMG! Sign me up!!!
• hereme888 4y ago
  I don't understand how this is difficult to understand. Twitter lied about their activities, and they targeted conservatives and the political right. Those are facts. Inexcusable. Elon is pro-regulation in a non-deceitful manner. He's solving the problem.
  • hereme888 4y ago
    And then some people downvote my comment. Probably the same intolerant cancel culture activists that plagued twitter.
• DoItToMe81 4y ago
  I wish they'd release the whole list of banned topics so people could decide for themselves what was suppressed and why, instead of having it drip fed to them.
• ummonk 4y ago
  I think Austin Allred gets to the heart of the matter, which is that the Twitter statements were crafted to give the impression that deboosting / deamplification was purely algorithmic, rather than based on unappealable human tagging of accounts: https://twitter.com/Austen/status/1601032626004930560 https://twitter.com/Austen/status/1601032626004930560
• throwawaymanbot 4y ago
• whinvik 4y ago
  HN after post on Twitter's shadow bans: Its all normal. Move on. HN after post on some user getting booted off Stripe: This is not normal. Why is Stripe doing this?
• hmoodie 4y ago
  A priori, I think the idea of someone buying a prominent company and releasing internal communications about controversial decisions of the past is super interesting. Is it unprecedented? It's a shame that he's choosing to go about it in this way. Releasing things in a slow drip via two uhhhh lets say highly polarizing pundits is bad for transparency. Everything people are seeing is first filtered through and framed by these two people. Wouldn't it be better to simply release the raw data all at once and let people comb through it? I know he says he's going to do that later, but why not now?
• alexandre_m 4y ago
  Always funny to see these new revelations, while at the same time reading https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/debunking-twitter-myths https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/debunking-twitter-... "Does Twitter shadow ban? Let’s discuss this one upfront. Simply put, we don’t shadow ban! Ever. We do rank Tweets to create a more relevant experience for you, however, and you’re always able to see Tweets from people you follow. Check out our company blog post for more details." and news articles from earlier, such as 2022-05-03 https://www.wral.com/fact-check-hannity-says-elon-musk-bid-exposed-twitter-shadow-ban/20263477/ https://www.wral.com/fact-check-hannity-says-elon-musk-bid-e...