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Yishan did this same sleight of hand trick with twitter before Elon bought it[1]. Then his point was that twitter doesn't have a bias, it's simply a normal mode

Yishan did this same sleight of hand trick with twitter before Elon bought it[1]. Then his point was that twitter doesn't have a bias, it's simply a normal moderation problem (noise-signal ratio). Now that twitter is owned by Elon, everyone can see it obviously moved right. What normies are fairly noticing in these corps is moderating not by the overton window of the normal consumer, but by the overton window of the managerial class who run the business. 1. https://twitter.com/yishan/status/1586955288061452289 https://twitter.com/yishan/status/1586955288061452289

ethanbond 3y ago
Wouldn’t Twitter be an unambiguously more successful business if Elon’s moderation moves brought it more in line with “the normal consumer?” Seems to me he simultaneously put out a dogwhistle for one audience (far right commentators agree on this) and was openly hostile both to individuals and standard sensibilities among another audience (e.g. it’s distasteful to treat employees of your newly acquired company the way he did). That could fully explain “the shift” without any “omg conspiracy Overton window biased moderation” mumbo jumbo.
- woooooo 3y ago
  You'd have to isolate the political bias changes from all of the other changes, including loudly antagonizing advertisers.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    But that was part of “the shift” that GP is crediting for moving toward broader appeal. Agreed on the general point, this stuff can’t really be disaggregated in a meaningful way, but of course it doesn’t need to be disaggregated: the overall set of Musk’s decisions have been extremely destructive to the company (so far).
    - meowfly 3y ago
      Sorry. I wasn't claiming Elon made Twitter more appealing, but rather was trying to point out that when management changed so did the bias. I realize my poor grammar made it difficult to fully capture what I was trying to say. My core argument is that I have now seen twice what looks like Yishan making excuses for moderation decisions that fall outside most people's discourse window. I also am not making claims about what makes more money. It could possibly be true that people with a particular political pursuasion are more likely to convert.
- reaperman 3y ago
  > Wouldn’t Twitter be an unambiguously more successful business if Elon’s moderation moves brought it more in line with “the normal consumer?” Purely for revenue maximization, I think it would be optimal to give each user a view through their own personal Overton window. However, people in positions of power often find additional goals beyond merely maximizing revenue. Such as "moving" that Overton window.
rayiner 3y ago
> What normies are fairly noticing in these corps is moderating not by the overton window of the normal consumer, but by the overton window of the managerial class who run the business Now the question is, why is the managerial class so weird and creepy? The Gemini images didn’t come out of left field—that’s what Hollywood movies look like these days too. Random non-white people in contexts where it makes no sense, or racially balanced friend/family groups that don’t map onto how people actually associate in real life. My family looks like one of those Gemini images—my brother and I are south Asian, my wife is British American, her brother is Samoan/black/Asian, his girlfriend is Filipino, and my sister in law is Taiwanese. But it’s a fluke—you don’t see that much mixing organically pretty much anywhere. The overwhelming majority of people are in same-race marriages and have homogenous circles of friends. The world still looks like Friends or Seinfeld, not whatever Hollywood is showing recently. So it’s very creepy to me that there are a bunch of people in Hollywood deliberately making casting choices with these unrealistic representations—or, as in the case of Gemini, inserting hidden text into prompts to achieve that effect—as if somehow my family is better than one that’s all white or all Filipino. The contrived nature of it makes race seem like a big deal, instead of something irrelevant, and it’s creepy and weird.
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  >The contrived nature of it makes race seem like a big deal, instead of something irrelevant, and it’s creepy and weird. What's weird and creepy is the discomfort with people's preferences and the imposition of their own in such a non-transparent way. It's also clear for things to have gotten this bad they have to be repressing employees into not saying the emperor wears no clothes.
  - catchnear4321 3y ago
    > It's also clear for things to have gotten this bad they have to be repressing employees into not saying the emperor wears no clothes. this isn’t new, isn’t hard, and isn’t limited to the context being discussed. (nor is it ubiquitous.) you want paycheck? you say right things and not wrong things. you be right way and not wrong way. who decides right and wrong? who gives paycheck.

ethanbond 3y ago

Wouldn’t Twitter be an unambiguously more successful business if Elon’s moderation moves brought it more in line with “the normal consumer?” Seems to me he simultaneously put out a dogwhistle for one audience (far right commentators agree on this) and was openly hostile both to individuals and standard sensibilities among another audience (e.g. it’s distasteful to treat employees of your newly acquired company the way he did). That could fully explain “the shift” without any “omg conspiracy Overton window biased moderation” mumbo jumbo.

woooooo 3y ago
You'd have to isolate the political bias changes from all of the other changes, including loudly antagonizing advertisers.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  But that was part of “the shift” that GP is crediting for moving toward broader appeal. Agreed on the general point, this stuff can’t really be disaggregated in a meaningful way, but of course it doesn’t need to be disaggregated: the overall set of Musk’s decisions have been extremely destructive to the company (so far).
  - meowfly 3y ago
    Sorry. I wasn't claiming Elon made Twitter more appealing, but rather was trying to point out that when management changed so did the bias. I realize my poor grammar made it difficult to fully capture what I was trying to say. My core argument is that I have now seen twice what looks like Yishan making excuses for moderation decisions that fall outside most people's discourse window. I also am not making claims about what makes more money. It could possibly be true that people with a particular political pursuasion are more likely to convert.
reaperman 3y ago
> Wouldn’t Twitter be an unambiguously more successful business if Elon’s moderation moves brought it more in line with “the normal consumer?” Purely for revenue maximization, I think it would be optimal to give each user a view through their own personal Overton window. However, people in positions of power often find additional goals beyond merely maximizing revenue. Such as "moving" that Overton window.

rayiner 3y ago

> What normies are fairly noticing in these corps is moderating not by the overton window of the normal consumer, but by the overton window of the managerial class who run the business Now the question is, why is the managerial class so weird and creepy? The Gemini images didn’t come out of left field—that’s what Hollywood movies look like these days too. Random non-white people in contexts where it makes no sense, or racially balanced friend/family groups that don’t map onto how people actually associate in real life. My family looks like one of those Gemini images—my brother and I are south Asian, my wife is British American, her brother is Samoan/black/Asian, his girlfriend is Filipino, and my sister in law is Taiwanese. But it’s a fluke—you don’t see that much mixing organically pretty much anywhere. The overwhelming majority of people are in same-race marriages and have homogenous circles of friends. The world still looks like Friends or Seinfeld, not whatever Hollywood is showing recently. So it’s very creepy to me that there are a bunch of people in Hollywood deliberately making casting choices with these unrealistic representations—or, as in the case of Gemini, inserting hidden text into prompts to achieve that effect—as if somehow my family is better than one that’s all white or all Filipino. The contrived nature of it makes race seem like a big deal, instead of something irrelevant, and it’s creepy and weird.

faeriechangling 3y ago
>The contrived nature of it makes race seem like a big deal, instead of something irrelevant, and it’s creepy and weird. What's weird and creepy is the discomfort with people's preferences and the imposition of their own in such a non-transparent way. It's also clear for things to have gotten this bad they have to be repressing employees into not saying the emperor wears no clothes.
- catchnear4321 3y ago
  > It's also clear for things to have gotten this bad they have to be repressing employees into not saying the emperor wears no clothes. this isn’t new, isn’t hard, and isn’t limited to the context being discussed. (nor is it ubiquitous.) you want paycheck? you say right things and not wrong things. you be right way and not wrong way. who decides right and wrong? who gives paycheck.