6 ms·

You can dismiss the complaint without measurement if you are confident in two things: 1. Your system does nothing to actually segment this specific group by th

by slg 4y ago

You can dismiss the complaint without measurement if you are confident in two things: 1. Your system does nothing to actually segment this specific group by their identity. 2. You are confident that the systems you have set up to reward good behavior and punish bad behavior are accurate. If both of those are true, you know that even if the group is being disproportionately negatively impacted by some form of recommendation/moderation, that it is only because that group disproportionately participates in behavior that is bad for the platform. That isn't a problem. It would actually be worse for the platform overall if you did anything to appease that group.

jurassic 4y ago
> ...it is only because that group disproportionately participates in behavior that is bad for the platform. That isn't a problem. That is exactly what Twitter's stance has been all along (in the pre-Elon era) and it IS a problem for the product because people being silenced due to their own bad behavior (example: misgendering transgender people) feel an injustice is being done. The rule-makers get to set the range of acceptable discourse on Twitter and those to the right of center have felt unfairly disadvantaged by the way it was done in the past. Over time this has eroded trust in the product. Just because people aren't being labeled and ranked based on whether they are red team or blue team, the people deciding what "good" and "bad" behavior looks like on the platform have the power to disproportionately impact these groups.
- slg 4y ago
  Data isn't going to tell Twitter whether to allow or disallow misgendering people. You either think that is bad behavior that shouldn't be allowed or you don't. Disallowing it is not disadvantaging Republicans. It is stopping behavior Twitter has deemed is bad for the platform. As I said in point 2 above, either Twitter is confident in those decisions or not. Data is worthless when it comes to a moral decision like that. And if we accept hat Twitter believes (or more accurately did believe) that misgendering people is wrong, who cares whether people who want to do it feel an injustice is being done? Would anyone say that deleting spam is an injustice to spammers? You break the rules and you get punished.
  - skissane 4y ago
    > Data isn't going to tell Twitter whether to allow or disallow misgendering people. You either think that is bad behavior that shouldn't be allowed or you don't. Disallowing it is not disadvantaging Republicans. If one of the defining characteristics of a political/religious/cultural group is having a particular ethical view, then enforcing a contrary ethical view against them is disadvantaging them and discriminating against them. Now, it may in some cases be morally and/or legally permissible, or even justifiable, discrimination, but it still is discrimination, and it is still disadvantaging them. > Would anyone say that deleting spam is an injustice to spammers? You break the rules and you get punished. Worldwide, many jurisdictions have laws against discrimination on the basis of religion; although it is less common, some jurisdictions also have laws against discrimination on the basis of political belief. A law prohibiting discrimination on some ground, is evidence that some people believe discrimination on that ground to be immoral. By contrast, I've never heard anyone suggest that spammers should constitute a "protected class", and I'm not aware of any jurisdiction which treats them as one. Some people believe that there is nothing morally wrong with discrimination on the basis of religion and/or politics. Other people think there is something morally wrong with it, but if there is a conflict between the right to be free from religious and/or political discrimination, and the rights of LGBT people, the rights of the latter morally ought to take priority. Spam is irrelevant to that ethical debate.
    - slg 4y ago
      >If one of the defining characteristics of a political/religious/cultural group is having a particular ethical view, then enforcing a contrary ethical view against them is disadvantaging them and discriminating against them. I don't think misgendering people is a "defining characteristic" of Republicans and if that is, the Republican Party is in a pretty sad state considering all the bigger problems in the world. And if that qualifies as a "defining characteristic", there are plenty of other counter examples of society accepting discrimination as you define it. Banning polygamy would be discriminatory against Mormons is one. You could even argue that a full abortion ban is discriminatory against Jewish people. >some jurisdictions also have laws against discrimination on the basis of political belief. Notably not in the US where Twitter is based and were most of these complaints originate.
- basisword 4y ago
  Am I misunderstanding? Are you suggesting that penalising those who misgender transgender people is unfairly disadvantaging people whose political views are right of centre?
  - yanderekko 4y ago
    They obviously feel that it is. Likewise, if Twitter actioned people for saying "kill all men" or "all cops are bastards", this would be seen as having an obvious partisan impact.
  - iamacyborg 4y ago
    Folks like Jordan Peterson would like you to think so, yes. Of course, the man is essentially a walking “old man yells at clouds” meme at this point, so I’m not sure you should take anything he says with any merit.
  - jurassic 4y ago
    It's not about what I personally believe or think is unfair. It's about what Republicans (broadly speaking) believe. There is massive resentment from people on the right who think the Twitter rules unfairly elevated some political opinions as good/correct/acceptable while treating others as unacceptable. The handling of trans issues is just one example to illustrate the problem here. People on the left think trans rights are human rights while people on the right think a lot of trans issues should be open for discussion, legislation, persecution, etc. I think if we're being intellectually honest most would acknowledge that as a country we are far from consensus on many of the details here (bathrooms, girls sports, etc), and yet Twitter's rules and enforcement actions behaved as if the leftist view of transgender people is the only valid and permissible view. The handling of January 6 and the banning of Trump is another example. These things are Rorschach tests; people apply their biases and reach very different conclusions about what should be done. I don't claim to know the solution, I'm just trying to sketch out the problem with the way things were creating a climate where a big segment of the US felt unwelcome and resentful toward the platform. This presents a problem for the platform, since you can't afford to alienate large double digit percents of the population if your mandate from shareholders is to grow mDAU by any means necessary. In that context, having some metrics tracking in place to measure the impact of algorithm changes on democrats and republicans to see whether impact is disproportionate is a completely rational thing to do.
- concordDance 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - jurassic 4y ago
    Misgendering is shitty behavior in every version of English.
    - concordDance 4y ago
      Sometimes. Consciously using language that you know will offend another person and being uncaring of their feelings is shitty behaviour (unless you have a very good reason), using language that comes naturally and you think accurately describes the situation is neutral behaviour, making the effort to use validating language that people prefer is good behaviour. There's also the communication accuracy issue. Words can carry a host of connotations and implications (e.g. pronouns carry information (in the information theory sense of shifting the probability distribution) regarding how deep someone's voice sounds) and using words that give the listener an inaccurate impression is a cost, however minor. How much information is transmitted (and thus how big the "lie" is) depends on how different the male and female probability distributions (along many axes) are and how different they are to the transman and transwoman distributions. Which is obviously a very complex thing to figure out (are men and women identical other than outer appearance in X society? Obviously not, but how different they are is very unknown, for any X).
      - slg 4y ago
        I don't know why people need to make this topic so complicated. Imagine you meet someone named William. Maybe you become familiar with them and call them "Will" and they correct you and say they only want to go by "William". From that point forward, calling them "Will", "Willy", "Bill", "Billy", "Liam", or anything else besides "William" is rude. It doesn't matter that society at large thinks those names are all acceptable alternatives. It doesn't matter what is on this person's birth certificate. It doesn't matter the reason behind their request. An individual person told you their preferences and you ignored them. That is rude. Pronouns are the same. You call people by what they want to be called. Anything else is rude to that individual.

by slg 4y ago

jurassic 4y ago

> ...it is only because that group disproportionately participates in behavior that is bad for the platform. That isn't a problem. That is exactly what Twitter's stance has been all along (in the pre-Elon era) and it IS a problem for the product because people being silenced due to their own bad behavior (example: misgendering transgender people) feel an injustice is being done. The rule-makers get to set the range of acceptable discourse on Twitter and those to the right of center have felt unfairly disadvantaged by the way it was done in the past. Over time this has eroded trust in the product. Just because people aren't being labeled and ranked based on whether they are red team or blue team, the people deciding what "good" and "bad" behavior looks like on the platform have the power to disproportionately impact these groups.

slg 4y ago
Data isn't going to tell Twitter whether to allow or disallow misgendering people. You either think that is bad behavior that shouldn't be allowed or you don't. Disallowing it is not disadvantaging Republicans. It is stopping behavior Twitter has deemed is bad for the platform. As I said in point 2 above, either Twitter is confident in those decisions or not. Data is worthless when it comes to a moral decision like that. And if we accept hat Twitter believes (or more accurately did believe) that misgendering people is wrong, who cares whether people who want to do it feel an injustice is being done? Would anyone say that deleting spam is an injustice to spammers? You break the rules and you get punished.
- skissane 4y ago
  > Data isn't going to tell Twitter whether to allow or disallow misgendering people. You either think that is bad behavior that shouldn't be allowed or you don't. Disallowing it is not disadvantaging Republicans. If one of the defining characteristics of a political/religious/cultural group is having a particular ethical view, then enforcing a contrary ethical view against them is disadvantaging them and discriminating against them. Now, it may in some cases be morally and/or legally permissible, or even justifiable, discrimination, but it still is discrimination, and it is still disadvantaging them. > Would anyone say that deleting spam is an injustice to spammers? You break the rules and you get punished. Worldwide, many jurisdictions have laws against discrimination on the basis of religion; although it is less common, some jurisdictions also have laws against discrimination on the basis of political belief. A law prohibiting discrimination on some ground, is evidence that some people believe discrimination on that ground to be immoral. By contrast, I've never heard anyone suggest that spammers should constitute a "protected class", and I'm not aware of any jurisdiction which treats them as one. Some people believe that there is nothing morally wrong with discrimination on the basis of religion and/or politics. Other people think there is something morally wrong with it, but if there is a conflict between the right to be free from religious and/or political discrimination, and the rights of LGBT people, the rights of the latter morally ought to take priority. Spam is irrelevant to that ethical debate.
  - slg 4y ago
    >If one of the defining characteristics of a political/religious/cultural group is having a particular ethical view, then enforcing a contrary ethical view against them is disadvantaging them and discriminating against them. I don't think misgendering people is a "defining characteristic" of Republicans and if that is, the Republican Party is in a pretty sad state considering all the bigger problems in the world. And if that qualifies as a "defining characteristic", there are plenty of other counter examples of society accepting discrimination as you define it. Banning polygamy would be discriminatory against Mormons is one. You could even argue that a full abortion ban is discriminatory against Jewish people. >some jurisdictions also have laws against discrimination on the basis of political belief. Notably not in the US where Twitter is based and were most of these complaints originate.
basisword 4y ago
Am I misunderstanding? Are you suggesting that penalising those who misgender transgender people is unfairly disadvantaging people whose political views are right of centre?
- yanderekko 4y ago
  They obviously feel that it is. Likewise, if Twitter actioned people for saying "kill all men" or "all cops are bastards", this would be seen as having an obvious partisan impact.
- iamacyborg 4y ago
  Folks like Jordan Peterson would like you to think so, yes. Of course, the man is essentially a walking “old man yells at clouds” meme at this point, so I’m not sure you should take anything he says with any merit.
- jurassic 4y ago
  It's not about what I personally believe or think is unfair. It's about what Republicans (broadly speaking) believe. There is massive resentment from people on the right who think the Twitter rules unfairly elevated some political opinions as good/correct/acceptable while treating others as unacceptable. The handling of trans issues is just one example to illustrate the problem here. People on the left think trans rights are human rights while people on the right think a lot of trans issues should be open for discussion, legislation, persecution, etc. I think if we're being intellectually honest most would acknowledge that as a country we are far from consensus on many of the details here (bathrooms, girls sports, etc), and yet Twitter's rules and enforcement actions behaved as if the leftist view of transgender people is the only valid and permissible view. The handling of January 6 and the banning of Trump is another example. These things are Rorschach tests; people apply their biases and reach very different conclusions about what should be done. I don't claim to know the solution, I'm just trying to sketch out the problem with the way things were creating a climate where a big segment of the US felt unwelcome and resentful toward the platform. This presents a problem for the platform, since you can't afford to alienate large double digit percents of the population if your mandate from shareholders is to grow mDAU by any means necessary. In that context, having some metrics tracking in place to measure the impact of algorithm changes on democrats and republicans to see whether impact is disproportionate is a completely rational thing to do.
concordDance 4y ago
[flagged]
- jurassic 4y ago
  Misgendering is shitty behavior in every version of English.
  - concordDance 4y ago
    Sometimes. Consciously using language that you know will offend another person and being uncaring of their feelings is shitty behaviour (unless you have a very good reason), using language that comes naturally and you think accurately describes the situation is neutral behaviour, making the effort to use validating language that people prefer is good behaviour. There's also the communication accuracy issue. Words can carry a host of connotations and implications (e.g. pronouns carry information (in the information theory sense of shifting the probability distribution) regarding how deep someone's voice sounds) and using words that give the listener an inaccurate impression is a cost, however minor. How much information is transmitted (and thus how big the "lie" is) depends on how different the male and female probability distributions (along many axes) are and how different they are to the transman and transwoman distributions. Which is obviously a very complex thing to figure out (are men and women identical other than outer appearance in X society? Obviously not, but how different they are is very unknown, for any X).
    - slg 4y ago
      I don't know why people need to make this topic so complicated. Imagine you meet someone named William. Maybe you become familiar with them and call them "Will" and they correct you and say they only want to go by "William". From that point forward, calling them "Will", "Willy", "Bill", "Billy", "Liam", or anything else besides "William" is rude. It doesn't matter that society at large thinks those names are all acceptable alternatives. It doesn't matter what is on this person's birth certificate. It doesn't matter the reason behind their request. An individual person told you their preferences and you ignored them. That is rude. Pronouns are the same. You call people by what they want to be called. Anything else is rude to that individual.