3 ms·

Can you point me to the “Twitter Files” showing the government set the bounds of acceptable topics? Like I said above, I had trouble picking through these long

by md_ 4y ago

Can you point me to the “Twitter Files” showing the government set the bounds of acceptable topics? Like I said above, I had trouble picking through these long tweet threads.

ashwagary 4y ago
This thread touches on some of the censorship of legitimate debate. https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/1607378386338340867 https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/1607378386338340867
- md_ 4y ago
  That thread seems to show two things: 1. Trust and safety is a hard job, and Twitter was...kinda not great at it, I think? Honestly, not a big surprise. 2. In high-level discussions with government policymakers, policymakers expressed general desires for what kind of misinformation might be of particular concern (like health misinfo, or misinfo leading to hoarding and panic buying). #2 seems...sorta fine to me? #1 seems like a product problem, to be perfectly clear, but it's hard to connect that to government censorship. I'm not trying to make light of all the failures in #1. But I find it a bit hard, assuming good faith, to understand if the view of most critics is: a. There should be zero content filtering or content-related ranking. (I mean, that's fine; Mastodon doesn't have algorithmic ranking, and if you don't want filtering, enjoy the Viagra spam I guess?) b. There should be content filtering and ranking, but it should rank things the way critics want. (For example, a lot of critics seem concerned not with ranking in general, but with downranking of heterodox views on Covid.) c. There should be content filtering and ranking, but Twitter just wasn't great at it; we'd like to see them improve their processes (which I am not optimistic about given the headcount story at Twitter). Or something else?
  - ashwagary 4y ago
    >it's hard to connect that to government censorship. Mislabeling as misinfo either intentionally or unintentionally and marking links, tweets, and accounts for suppression just because they dont push a government's view is by definition "government censorship". Concerning abc: A government that is bound by the 1st amend. should ultimately play no role in policing speech. It's not any more complicated than that.
    - md_ 4y ago
      I mean, hypothetically, what if Twitter said, "We really think it's bad for our brand to be connected to state sponsored info ops, and we'd like help avoiding it. Let's reach out to the FBI for threat intel to help us keep abreast of info ops." (To be clear, I'm not saying this is what happened. In particular, Twitter's allowing Pentagon information operations--apparently by accident--on their platform doesn't look great.) As a hypothetical--is that bad? It seems like it runs afoul of your "government should play no role in policing speech." But that seems like a somewhat oddly absolutist stance to me. (For another hypothetical: let's say I'm Fox News, and I want to have a commentator on, but first I ping some buddies at the FBI and ask, "Is this commentator known to be an unregistered foreign agent?" Again, is it bad?) A lot of these things could be bad. We might argue for some sort of firewall between anything involving media and private speech and anyone working in government ever. But that seems like a pretty radical departure from the status quo, and it's not obvious to me that what Twitter did was in bad faith or really different than the above examples.
      - ashwagary 4y ago
        It's not radical. The idea that an inherently biased 3 letter agency should be given any say in who gets to express an opinion publicly is anti-American at its core. Good thing newer protocols like Nostr kill these attempts to weaken freedom of speech by mongers.
        md_ 4y ago
        The idea that a social network might ask their government for assistance in identifying foreign influence operations...is pretty run of the mill? Not sure what a "monger" is in this context.

by md_ 4y ago

Can you point me to the “Twitter Files” showing the government set the bounds of acceptable topics? Like I said above, I had trouble picking through these long tweet threads.

ashwagary 4y ago

This thread touches on some of the censorship of legitimate debate. https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/1607378386338340867 https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/1607378386338340867

md_ 4y ago
That thread seems to show two things: 1. Trust and safety is a hard job, and Twitter was...kinda not great at it, I think? Honestly, not a big surprise. 2. In high-level discussions with government policymakers, policymakers expressed general desires for what kind of misinformation might be of particular concern (like health misinfo, or misinfo leading to hoarding and panic buying). #2 seems...sorta fine to me? #1 seems like a product problem, to be perfectly clear, but it's hard to connect that to government censorship. I'm not trying to make light of all the failures in #1. But I find it a bit hard, assuming good faith, to understand if the view of most critics is: a. There should be zero content filtering or content-related ranking. (I mean, that's fine; Mastodon doesn't have algorithmic ranking, and if you don't want filtering, enjoy the Viagra spam I guess?) b. There should be content filtering and ranking, but it should rank things the way critics want. (For example, a lot of critics seem concerned not with ranking in general, but with downranking of heterodox views on Covid.) c. There should be content filtering and ranking, but Twitter just wasn't great at it; we'd like to see them improve their processes (which I am not optimistic about given the headcount story at Twitter). Or something else?
- ashwagary 4y ago
  >it's hard to connect that to government censorship. Mislabeling as misinfo either intentionally or unintentionally and marking links, tweets, and accounts for suppression just because they dont push a government's view is by definition "government censorship". Concerning abc: A government that is bound by the 1st amend. should ultimately play no role in policing speech. It's not any more complicated than that.
  - md_ 4y ago
    I mean, hypothetically, what if Twitter said, "We really think it's bad for our brand to be connected to state sponsored info ops, and we'd like help avoiding it. Let's reach out to the FBI for threat intel to help us keep abreast of info ops." (To be clear, I'm not saying this is what happened. In particular, Twitter's allowing Pentagon information operations--apparently by accident--on their platform doesn't look great.) As a hypothetical--is that bad? It seems like it runs afoul of your "government should play no role in policing speech." But that seems like a somewhat oddly absolutist stance to me. (For another hypothetical: let's say I'm Fox News, and I want to have a commentator on, but first I ping some buddies at the FBI and ask, "Is this commentator known to be an unregistered foreign agent?" Again, is it bad?) A lot of these things could be bad. We might argue for some sort of firewall between anything involving media and private speech and anyone working in government ever. But that seems like a pretty radical departure from the status quo, and it's not obvious to me that what Twitter did was in bad faith or really different than the above examples.
    - ashwagary 4y ago
      It's not radical. The idea that an inherently biased 3 letter agency should be given any say in who gets to express an opinion publicly is anti-American at its core. Good thing newer protocols like Nostr kill these attempts to weaken freedom of speech by mongers.
      - md_ 4y ago
        The idea that a social network might ask their government for assistance in identifying foreign influence operations...is pretty run of the mill? Not sure what a "monger" is in this context.