When you say “sharing”, do you mean posting? Isn’t a bunch of people accounts posting the same thing what causes amplification?
If we’re gonna get technical, I suppose if they had another way to suppress amplification without bans, that would be better.
No, they didn’t. They changed course only when it was clear that the public wasn’t going along with their recommendations anymore.
I criticized them for taking way too long to change course and keeping kids out of school WAY longer than nearly every other country.
The problem here is that your definition of the evil “amplification” is “making it available for others to read”.
People sharing a story has absolutely nothing to do with algorithms. I havent bought your argument about the algorithms - which does have merit, although I disagree that there is an inherent bias - because it really isnt about algorithms, it’s about silencing people who believe things you think are false as you just made clear.
How would investigating the origins of covid bring about repercussions we should be worried about with our allies? I figured they might care to know as well.
That’s just an arbitrary definition of social media though. The days of social media just consisting of users sharing cat pics have been over for a while. Social media is where people get their news just as much, if not moreso, than professional news media sites. Ask anyone running a legit news media website today (including legacy media) if facebook and twitter are integral to their reader/viewership and they would all respond that they are. CBS couldn’t even keep up a twitter boycott for two days.
Are you in favor of removing section 230 protections for social media sites? Do you want them to somehow distinguish corporate news from grandpa’s xenophobic rant/the gender studies major’s meltdown about misgendering - heavily regulating the former and leaving alone the latter? Or do you want them to heavily regulate everything, essentially making them a hollow shell of their former selves? Or something else? What exactly is your solution?
No, my definition of amplification is putting it at the top of everyone’s feed.
I was thinking along the lines of it potentially being the result of US-sponsored research. And even if that’s not true, China could make it true. Our own govt would be blamed.
I want them to somehow distinguish actual news from false or slanted personal opinions and to be responsible for amplifying it (not for simply making it available). Perhaps it would be sufficient to allow sharing with friends, maybe even followers (though I’m uncertain about this), without putting it at the top of everyone else’s feed, i.e., no amplification. If something is good enough it’ll spread person-to-person exactly like word of mouth, no computer algorithms necessary.
Now you answer a serious question: Do you not think that there is a problem with political polarization? Do you not think that social media is responsible (in large part, if not entirely) for it? Do you think we should allow a free-for-all, like glitch99 seems to, by letting every nut say whatever they want and have bots retweet it to make it appear at the top of everyone’s feed? What’s your solution?
That clearly does not reconcile with the quote I was replying to. If you’re opposed to algorithms that artificially inserts the article on pages to get maximum views, then prohibiting the article’s subject matter and banning accounts that post it arent even on your radar as possible reactions. Yet that’s the go-to response. You arent opposed to algorithms amplifying a story, you are opposed to algorithms amplifying stories you disagree with.
Yet you’ve been so adamant that it’s a one-way street. The prolonged problems for business owners and staff come when the supposed “truth” is amplified.
Do you agree with actor Mark Ruffalo that the government should take over Twitter to accomplish this?
As a worldwide ‘public square,’ this app should be heavily regulated for misinformation & spamming by hostile interests,” Mr. Ruffalo said in a Thursday Twitter post. “If Elon cannot do that with his ‘company,’ it should be seen as a public utility under governmental supervision. This system unregulated will be more deadly.”
I can agree with this. It’s why they keep saying this, it makes it seem like a no-brainer common sense thing.
The problem is the standard that’s been set as to what’s considered “misinformation” and “hostile interests”. They dont like to dive into that, because it quickly becomes clear it is a highly subjective and biased standard that is often more about advancing (or protecting) favored political agendas. Labeling something as misinformation because it contradicts or takes away from your own message is the opposite of objective moderating.
Nowhere in his quote does he mention a government takeover. It’s akin to saying Edison (the electric utility co) was taken over by the government. Last I checked it was publicly traded.
No, you miss the point. I’m not sure why you keep going on and on about the validity of the laptop. Forget the laptop - Twitter chose to limit eliminate reporting on a topic that they didn’t like and said they thought it might be false. If you didn’t agree with them, you were stuck in twitter jail.
There didn’t used to be nearly so many people purposely being obtuse (not intended to apply to @scripta).
For a utility, the government determines the product and the price the business is allowed to sell. I call this a government takeover. You can quibble. Should the government force Twitter to become regulated as a utility?
Ruffalo was very specific – “heavily regulated for misinformation & spamming by hostile interests” (not for everything under the sun). And I tend to agree. But I also agree with glitch’s comment that it may be subjective. So I don’t have an answer, I just know that continuing to allow it is not good. And I believe that disabling the amplification is a solution, even if not the solution.
If anything they said included a “thought it might”, it would’ve been slightly less egregious. Instead they unequivically declared it to be false information, omitting the “thought” and “might” parts entirely.
I do not think this “misinformation” is the horrible problem you claim. Humankind has had gossip and false information throughout our existence.
The problem with regulation is Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will watch the watchers?
The founders decided that the best solution is no regulation by the government. Let opposing views be heard. The Left has the anti-constitutional “Progressive” view that we should be ruled by wise bureaucrat dictators. They are also horrified by this crack in their cultural hegemony.
And asking him would prove what exactly? It’s all about trying to smear Biden.
And it’s impossible to prove you didn’t assassinate JFK. Do we need a congressional inquiry into it?
In the past we felt the actions were aimed towards the truth. Now the actions are very clearly not aimed towards the truth. Plenty of bans are being handed out for saying non-controversial things Musk doesn’t like.
There was an intermediate step that got skipped because they saw it would be meaningless–the second checkpoint would be met before the data from the first got processed. That’s your “delay”–there’s no point in doing something you know will be overtaken by events before you can complete it.
You don’t understand. Republican = good, Democrat = bad. Don’t confuse yourself with the facts!
The difference is in most areas there isn’t outrageous content for the algorithms to find. Thus they do a pretty good job of finding things you might like. When there is outrageous content they become very good at leading you down the rabbit hole because there’s no understanding of causality–the people that like the outrageous stuff generally also like the not as outrageous stuff. (You can see the same effect on Amazon–buy parts/supplies for something and it will try to sell you the something. Lacking any concept of causality it doesn’t realize you must already have the something and thus almost certainly do not want another.)
Remember how Musk was complaining about all the bots on Twitter? That’s a big part of the problem here–it’s not what people want to talk about, it’s bots making artificial traffic.
Look at what China pulled recently–flooding Twitter with porn that would show up for anyone trying to find information about the protests. That wasn’t a bunch of Chinese people wanting to talk about porn, that was the government shouting down messages they didn’t like with the power of server farms. And the guys who would have put a stop to it aren’t there anymore.
Why do you keep posting Babylon Bee stuff? That’s satire!
It’s about determining the truth. You’d rather avoid asking such questions, because you are afraid of the truth. If it’s determined that there’s nothing there, there’s nothing there - but you dont want to determine that because you’re afraid there might be something there. So you simply declare it to be nothing, then forbid anyone from determining anything.
Contrary to what you want to claim, this is what perpetuates the so-called conspiracy theories moreso than anything else.
It’s very simple to prove that I did not. Unless you are afraid that I might have, thus you dont want to ask the necessary questions knowing you might not like the answers.
And you are completely (and intentionally) avoiding the point - when there is no proof either way, insisting it’s fake is just as much misinformation as insisting it’s true.
In the past, you felt the actions werre aimed towards protecting your beliefs. Now it’s challenging your beliefs and it is deemed outrageous.
If true, then why all the banning of the people who wanted to talk about it? I’d tend to agree that this is a big part of the problem, but we are complaining about the subsequent “solution” that is entirely unrelated to what you claim to be the problem. This was not the problem being addressed.