6 ms·

I agree that colloquially it's definition can be looser depending on context, but it's in bad faith that Weiss[0] quotes Twitter's then Head of Policy and Trust

by adamwk 4y ago

I agree that colloquially it's definition can be looser depending on context, but it's in bad faith that Weiss[0] quotes Twitter's then Head of Policy and Trust as saying Twitter doesn't shadow ban people when in the very blog post[1] she's quoting they clearly define shadow banning as, "deliberately making someone’s content undiscoverable to everyone except the person who posted it, unbeknownst to the original poster." [0]: https://twitter.com/bariweiss/status/1601013855697588224 https://twitter.com/bariweiss/status/1601013855697588224 [1]: https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2018/Setting-the-record-straight-on-shadow-banning https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2018/Setting-t...

somenameforme 4y ago
Would most people consider an account shadow banned when it can post as normal, yet its post are secretly set to have near zero visibility? The answer is self evident. Twitter tried to redefine shadowbanning to something they do not do, and then put out a post saying they don't shadowban. That is engaging in extremely bad faith. Using the definition as normally understood, is not. There was a post on Hacker News when this blog was released: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17623306 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17623306 One post there sums it up pretty well: Is it just me? Did I just read a blog post that said “We don’t do this thing I’m going to explain how we do the thing we don’t do.”
- tptacek 4y ago
  It doesn't matter what "most people" would consider, because Twitter provided their definition of the term at the time. People disagree about all sorts of terms, and that's totally fair, but what Weiss is doing is retconning her own personal definition of the term on Twitter's policy statements, which were unambiguous. She is, in turn, being unambiguously dishonest. It's interesting how selective people are about the supposed Gell-Mann Amnesia effect.
  - bavell 4y ago
    Right, Twitter provided their own definition which delicately tiptoes around the unsavory issue and Weiss expanded the definition to suit her own self-interests. How does that make what "most people" would consider not matter? Seems like a non-sequitur to me but maybe I'm not understanding your point.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      Because the thread is about Weiss's claims. If you want to talk about how Twitter's definition of shadow-banning is problematic, or their moderation practices in general, start another top-level thread.
    - rhaksw 4y ago
      Agreed, it's rare for any service to outright say "we shadow ban" as done here [1] for example. And, most services still use a form of shadow moderation [2]. So it's perfectly fine to discuss here. Attempts to shut down conversation are just that. [1] https://getstream.io/blog/feature-announcement-shadow-ban/ https://getstream.io/blog/feature-announcement-shadow-ban/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33916414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33916414
- croes 4y ago
  Isn't near zero visibility the norm for most users?
  - iinnPP 4y ago
    I have been shadowbanned on Twitter and it is very different, even with no followers. I don't even know what caused it but it might have been reporting a person who was inciting violence (who subsequently committed said violence). Ever since then Twitter has been blocked on my network.
- raydev 4y ago
  > yet its post are secretly set to have near zero visibility Whoever is following you and using the chronological timeline will see your tweets just fine as they happen. Twitter deciding not to promote your tweet in the trending-ish/follows timeline doesn't seem close to shadowbanning to me.
scifibestfi 4y ago
Do they have anything about how they were blacklisting accounts, unbeknownst to the original poster?
rhaksw 4y ago
> "deliberately making someone’s content undiscoverable to everyone except the person who posted it, unbeknownst to the original poster." This happened to my tweet here [1]. It doesn't show up under the parent tweet [2]. It appears to be some sort of domain-based shadow filtering. It's probably because of the cheap .win domain I bought for $2. Why would Twitter censor that link? One could speculate it was because patriots.win moved there from r/The_Donald. But they "don't shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology." right? For the record, I built Reveddit because I perceived that r/The_Donald made heavier use of shadow moderation than the rest of Reddit. However I later learned that its use is common across Reddit and other sites. Shadow moderation is nobody's friend, except to serve as a reminder of that fact. It was purportedly built to deal with bots, but bots know how to check the visibility of their content. It hurts genuine individuals the most. [1] https://twitter.com/rhaksw/status/1594103021407195136 https://twitter.com/rhaksw/status/1594103021407195136 [2] https://twitter.com/TheFIREorg/status/1594078057895063553 https://twitter.com/TheFIREorg/status/1594078057895063553
- bonzini 4y ago
  They explicitly say they don't shadowban people. Pattern matching for moderation is a completely different thing.
  - rhaksw 4y ago
    The public is still going to interpret that as shadow moderation of people's content.
    - bonzini 4y ago
      Shadowbanning people means banning people, it's obviously separate from moderation of individual tweets. AFAIK the only subreddit that has banned me was the_donald, but I can obviously have my content removed if I post to a news subreddit from domains they consider unacceptable. It is honestly silly to be surprised. Any community with just a few thousand users will ban entire domains, it's not surprising that they resort to banning entire TLDs at the billion user level.

by adamwk 4y ago

somenameforme 4y ago

Would most people consider an account shadow banned when it can post as normal, yet its post are secretly set to have near zero visibility? The answer is self evident. Twitter tried to redefine shadowbanning to something they do not do, and then put out a post saying they don't shadowban. That is engaging in extremely bad faith. Using the definition as normally understood, is not. There was a post on Hacker News when this blog was released: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17623306 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17623306 One post there sums it up pretty well: Is it just me? Did I just read a blog post that said “We don’t do this thing I’m going to explain how we do the thing we don’t do.”

tptacek 4y ago
It doesn't matter what "most people" would consider, because Twitter provided their definition of the term at the time. People disagree about all sorts of terms, and that's totally fair, but what Weiss is doing is retconning her own personal definition of the term on Twitter's policy statements, which were unambiguous. She is, in turn, being unambiguously dishonest. It's interesting how selective people are about the supposed Gell-Mann Amnesia effect.
- bavell 4y ago
  Right, Twitter provided their own definition which delicately tiptoes around the unsavory issue and Weiss expanded the definition to suit her own self-interests. How does that make what "most people" would consider not matter? Seems like a non-sequitur to me but maybe I'm not understanding your point.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    Because the thread is about Weiss's claims. If you want to talk about how Twitter's definition of shadow-banning is problematic, or their moderation practices in general, start another top-level thread.
  - rhaksw 4y ago
    Agreed, it's rare for any service to outright say "we shadow ban" as done here [1] for example. And, most services still use a form of shadow moderation [2]. So it's perfectly fine to discuss here. Attempts to shut down conversation are just that. [1] https://getstream.io/blog/feature-announcement-shadow-ban/ https://getstream.io/blog/feature-announcement-shadow-ban/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33916414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33916414
croes 4y ago
Isn't near zero visibility the norm for most users?
- iinnPP 4y ago
  I have been shadowbanned on Twitter and it is very different, even with no followers. I don't even know what caused it but it might have been reporting a person who was inciting violence (who subsequently committed said violence). Ever since then Twitter has been blocked on my network.
raydev 4y ago
> yet its post are secretly set to have near zero visibility Whoever is following you and using the chronological timeline will see your tweets just fine as they happen. Twitter deciding not to promote your tweet in the trending-ish/follows timeline doesn't seem close to shadowbanning to me.

scifibestfi 4y ago

Do they have anything about how they were blacklisting accounts, unbeknownst to the original poster?

rhaksw 4y ago

> "deliberately making someone’s content undiscoverable to everyone except the person who posted it, unbeknownst to the original poster." This happened to my tweet here [1]. It doesn't show up under the parent tweet [2]. It appears to be some sort of domain-based shadow filtering. It's probably because of the cheap .win domain I bought for $2. Why would Twitter censor that link? One could speculate it was because patriots.win moved there from r/The_Donald. But they "don't shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology." right? For the record, I built Reveddit because I perceived that r/The_Donald made heavier use of shadow moderation than the rest of Reddit. However I later learned that its use is common across Reddit and other sites. Shadow moderation is nobody's friend, except to serve as a reminder of that fact. It was purportedly built to deal with bots, but bots know how to check the visibility of their content. It hurts genuine individuals the most. [1] https://twitter.com/rhaksw/status/1594103021407195136 https://twitter.com/rhaksw/status/1594103021407195136 [2] https://twitter.com/TheFIREorg/status/1594078057895063553 https://twitter.com/TheFIREorg/status/1594078057895063553

bonzini 4y ago
They explicitly say they don't shadowban people. Pattern matching for moderation is a completely different thing.
- rhaksw 4y ago
  The public is still going to interpret that as shadow moderation of people's content.
  - bonzini 4y ago
    Shadowbanning people means banning people, it's obviously separate from moderation of individual tweets. AFAIK the only subreddit that has banned me was the_donald, but I can obviously have my content removed if I post to a news subreddit from domains they consider unacceptable. It is honestly silly to be surprised. Any community with just a few thousand users will ban entire domains, it's not surprising that they resort to banning entire TLDs at the billion user level.