7 ms·

Also how about.... everyone else in the world who is not an American voter?

threeseed 4y ago
Only anecdotally. But ever since Musk took over the amount of US political content has significantly increased in particular from the right despite me not living in the US. It's hard to tell whether previously political content was weighted less and Musk has removed those controls or whether they are now weighted higher.
- kevingadd 4y ago
  Some of the power users Musk reportedly had boosted are specifically right wing political posters, like catturd2. But then he's also boosted some high profile left leaning politicians, so it's not exclusive. It does mean you're more likely to see right wing American political content either way, which has to be annoying for people outside of the US. https://gizmodo.com/twitter-algorithm-aoc-ben-shapiro-catturd2-1850272655 https://gizmodo.com/twitter-algorithm-aoc-ben-shapiro-cattur...
  - realjhol 4y ago
    Why do you believe it would be annoying to us?
  - fyloraspit 4y ago
    Would it not be just as annoying to see a slant the other direction, or in any extreme direction?
    - IncRnd 4y ago
      The parent poster doesn't realize the inherent bias in what they wrote and that you have pointed out.
      - kevingadd 4y ago
        Boosting both right and left wing content increases your chance to see either type of content, because you boosted them over everything else.
        IncRnd 4y ago
        I'm not sure why you wrote that to me. It was already in your prior comment.
    - oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
      I believe their point is that, because the US is generally regarded as 'to the right of' many countries in Europe, for example, a slight rightwing bias looks to us (I'm in the UK) like an extreme rightwing bias. Heck, even a completely neutral stance, as far as the US is concerned, will look like it veers to the right for us. Note that I'm not saying anything about how I believe the twitter algorithm should work, this is just my interpretation of what that commenter meant.
      - AlchemistCamp 4y ago
        Europe is only a tiny fraction of the world, though. Compared to India, Japan, Singapore and (depending on the metric) China, the US looks clearly left of center. Compared to most of the Middle East, the US looks extremely left-wing.
  - agentgumshoe 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
      some of those opinions are that others of certain sexual orientations are indeed subhuman and/or should be treated as much, and due to Popper's paradox of tolerance, we don't need to, and shouldn't, tolerate such intolerance
      - agentgumshoe 4y ago
        That's one interpretation, which I see used as justification to attack and be generally horrible to anyone who disagrees. I see a lot of commenters making comments that Republicans are some kind of lower intelligence being too (same the other way too). Are these people allowed to be offended? Unfortunately the plight of LGB (and Womens' rights to an extent) has been utterly brushed aside by the continual addition of each letter to the cause and the arguments too hot and aggressive to separate out the underlying causes for fair debate on their own.
        ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
        you say "attack and be generally horrible to anyone who disagrees", but recall that the thing said "attackers" are disagreeing with is equal or greater animosity towards people on the basis of their sexuality versus their opinions in other words, it's a reaction to intolerance, specifically a decision not to tolerate intolerance - as we covered before, we don't need to, since doing so will end tolerance entirely (see Popper's paradox of tolerance for this)
        agentgumshoe 4y ago
        I think Popper's paradox does nothing really but talk around an issue by changing the argument. Intolerance is not black and white, it is contextual. You can be intolerant of those who break the law, because they break the laws that hold society together (at a basic level). Paradoxes often aren't so problematic if you take them out of their own frame of reference (e.g. Zeno's paradox & Achilles). I think the context we are referring to here is really free speech. Should we tolerate speech (opinions) that we despise or disagree with? Absolutely. And here we have the attackers responding to feeling insulted (framed as 'intolerance') by not being accepted/agreed with. Then they respond in kind and no progress is made. You show me those people responding to equal/higher hostility and I guarantee I can show just as many examples of the opposite. And what I mean there is not "you're side is worse," I mean there are aggressive and horrible actors on both sides, who should not be the frame of reference for debate. But too often they are, and too often examples of hostility as used as an excuse for escalation or to avoid real debate.
- meragrin_ 4y ago
  I live in the US in "Trump country" and don't see any political content. Maybe its just related to the people you follow and the content you look at?
tormeh 4y ago
This is what it means to let another country own your social media. Their ideas and memes unconsciously get preferential treatment. This is maybe not a good thing, but it is what it is.
- adamckay 4y ago
  > Their ideas and memes unconsciously get preferential treatment. I think as this repo shows it's conciously, rather than unconsciously, getting preferential treatment.
  - blululu 4y ago
    It’s omission. They built for Americans because they were Americans. No one building this said “let’s ignore Canadian politics” or any other country, they just didn’t think about them at all, because like most Americans they don’t really care about the insidious Québécois plots to annex Prince Edward Island or whatever actual issues are happening in Canada.
    - 908B64B197 4y ago
      The freedom convoy and it's repression with suspension of constitutional rights (because that's a thing over there?) and bank accounts arbitrarily frozen did get a little bit of attention in the American medias. > the insidious Québécois plots to annex Prince Edward Island I know it's a joke, but the people of Prince Edward Island would most likely welcome it. Economically that would be a huge boost. Not sure Québec would enjoy it however. Perhaps they should look at annexing Labrador?
      - mthoms 4y ago
        Bank accounts were not "arbitrarily frozen". This is total nonsense. https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/banks-were-only-asked-to-freeze-accounts-of-freedom-convoy-protestors-in-ottawa-and-after-most-were-warned-rcmp https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/banks-were-only-asked-t...
ben_w 4y ago
Before I deliberately locked myself out of it (well before Musk), I asked for my data. They classify me as: * speaks Indonesian Interested in: * Beer * Cricket * DJs * Dance * Enterprise software * Horror * NFL football * South America And aged either between 13-54 or (and?) over 65 Other than the age (I'm neither under 13 nor between 55-64), everything I've listed is incorrect. On that basis, they'd probably call me a Republican. Carries a different meaning when you're British, that name does.
- tedivm 4y ago
  I'm a guy in my 30s but they had me classified as a 65+ year old woman. They also thought I was a radiologist.
- oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
  What a strange age classification — no idea about what your age actually is, just that it definitely isn't 55-64. I assume it would never conclude you are under 13 for legal reasons.
- dudeinjapan 4y ago
  Aren't "enterprise software" and "horror" the same thing?
  - ben_w 4y ago
    Fair. I try to avoid both, when I can. :)
dbbk 4y ago
This is an interesting point... they're making sure their A/B experiments don't adversely affect Republicans or Democrats. But lots of European countries are skewed more to the left and would broadly look more similar to the "Democrats" group.

Only anecdotally. But ever since Musk took over the amount of US political content has significantly increased in particular from the right despite me not living in the US. It's hard to tell whether previously political content was weighted less and Musk has removed those controls or whether they are now weighted higher.

kevingadd 4y ago
Some of the power users Musk reportedly had boosted are specifically right wing political posters, like catturd2. But then he's also boosted some high profile left leaning politicians, so it's not exclusive. It does mean you're more likely to see right wing American political content either way, which has to be annoying for people outside of the US. https://gizmodo.com/twitter-algorithm-aoc-ben-shapiro-catturd2-1850272655 https://gizmodo.com/twitter-algorithm-aoc-ben-shapiro-cattur...
- realjhol 4y ago
  Why do you believe it would be annoying to us?
- fyloraspit 4y ago
  Would it not be just as annoying to see a slant the other direction, or in any extreme direction?
  - IncRnd 4y ago
    The parent poster doesn't realize the inherent bias in what they wrote and that you have pointed out.
    - kevingadd 4y ago
      Boosting both right and left wing content increases your chance to see either type of content, because you boosted them over everything else.
      - IncRnd 4y ago
        I'm not sure why you wrote that to me. It was already in your prior comment.
  - oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
    I believe their point is that, because the US is generally regarded as 'to the right of' many countries in Europe, for example, a slight rightwing bias looks to us (I'm in the UK) like an extreme rightwing bias. Heck, even a completely neutral stance, as far as the US is concerned, will look like it veers to the right for us. Note that I'm not saying anything about how I believe the twitter algorithm should work, this is just my interpretation of what that commenter meant.
    - AlchemistCamp 4y ago
      Europe is only a tiny fraction of the world, though. Compared to India, Japan, Singapore and (depending on the metric) China, the US looks clearly left of center. Compared to most of the Middle East, the US looks extremely left-wing.
- agentgumshoe 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
    some of those opinions are that others of certain sexual orientations are indeed subhuman and/or should be treated as much, and due to Popper's paradox of tolerance, we don't need to, and shouldn't, tolerate such intolerance
    - agentgumshoe 4y ago
      That's one interpretation, which I see used as justification to attack and be generally horrible to anyone who disagrees. I see a lot of commenters making comments that Republicans are some kind of lower intelligence being too (same the other way too). Are these people allowed to be offended? Unfortunately the plight of LGB (and Womens' rights to an extent) has been utterly brushed aside by the continual addition of each letter to the cause and the arguments too hot and aggressive to separate out the underlying causes for fair debate on their own.
      - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
        you say "attack and be generally horrible to anyone who disagrees", but recall that the thing said "attackers" are disagreeing with is equal or greater animosity towards people on the basis of their sexuality versus their opinions in other words, it's a reaction to intolerance, specifically a decision not to tolerate intolerance - as we covered before, we don't need to, since doing so will end tolerance entirely (see Popper's paradox of tolerance for this)
        agentgumshoe 4y ago
        I think Popper's paradox does nothing really but talk around an issue by changing the argument. Intolerance is not black and white, it is contextual. You can be intolerant of those who break the law, because they break the laws that hold society together (at a basic level). Paradoxes often aren't so problematic if you take them out of their own frame of reference (e.g. Zeno's paradox & Achilles). I think the context we are referring to here is really free speech. Should we tolerate speech (opinions) that we despise or disagree with? Absolutely. And here we have the attackers responding to feeling insulted (framed as 'intolerance') by not being accepted/agreed with. Then they respond in kind and no progress is made. You show me those people responding to equal/higher hostility and I guarantee I can show just as many examples of the opposite. And what I mean there is not "you're side is worse," I mean there are aggressive and horrible actors on both sides, who should not be the frame of reference for debate. But too often they are, and too often examples of hostility as used as an excuse for escalation or to avoid real debate.
meragrin_ 4y ago
I live in the US in "Trump country" and don't see any political content. Maybe its just related to the people you follow and the content you look at?

tormeh 4y ago

This is what it means to let another country own your social media. Their ideas and memes unconsciously get preferential treatment. This is maybe not a good thing, but it is what it is.

adamckay 4y ago
> Their ideas and memes unconsciously get preferential treatment. I think as this repo shows it's conciously, rather than unconsciously, getting preferential treatment.
- blululu 4y ago
  It’s omission. They built for Americans because they were Americans. No one building this said “let’s ignore Canadian politics” or any other country, they just didn’t think about them at all, because like most Americans they don’t really care about the insidious Québécois plots to annex Prince Edward Island or whatever actual issues are happening in Canada.
  - 908B64B197 4y ago
    The freedom convoy and it's repression with suspension of constitutional rights (because that's a thing over there?) and bank accounts arbitrarily frozen did get a little bit of attention in the American medias. > the insidious Québécois plots to annex Prince Edward Island I know it's a joke, but the people of Prince Edward Island would most likely welcome it. Economically that would be a huge boost. Not sure Québec would enjoy it however. Perhaps they should look at annexing Labrador?
    - mthoms 4y ago
      Bank accounts were not "arbitrarily frozen". This is total nonsense. https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/banks-were-only-asked-to-freeze-accounts-of-freedom-convoy-protestors-in-ottawa-and-after-most-were-warned-rcmp https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/banks-were-only-asked-t...

ben_w 4y ago

Before I deliberately locked myself out of it (well before Musk), I asked for my data. They classify me as: * speaks Indonesian Interested in: * Beer * Cricket * DJs * Dance * Enterprise software * Horror * NFL football * South America And aged either between 13-54 or (and?) over 65 Other than the age (I'm neither under 13 nor between 55-64), everything I've listed is incorrect. On that basis, they'd probably call me a Republican. Carries a different meaning when you're British, that name does.

tedivm 4y ago
I'm a guy in my 30s but they had me classified as a 65+ year old woman. They also thought I was a radiologist.
oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
What a strange age classification — no idea about what your age actually is, just that it definitely isn't 55-64. I assume it would never conclude you are under 13 for legal reasons.
dudeinjapan 4y ago
Aren't "enterprise software" and "horror" the same thing?
- ben_w 4y ago
  Fair. I try to avoid both, when I can. :)

dbbk 4y ago

This is an interesting point... they're making sure their A/B experiments don't adversely affect Republicans or Democrats. But lots of European countries are skewed more to the left and would broadly look more similar to the "Democrats" group.