President Trump Accuses Twitter of Political Bias (bloomberg.com) 468
President Donald Trump has accused Twitter of targeting his followers for removal from the social media platform, amid complaints by conservatives that social media companies have been discriminating against right-wing voices. From a report: "Twitter has removed many people from my account and, more importantly, they have seemingly done something that makes it much harder to join -- they have stifled growth to a point where it is obvious to all," Trump said in a tweet Friday. "A few weeks ago it was a Rocket Ship, now it is a Blimp! Total Bias?" Trump and some other Republicans have complained that Facebook, Alphabet's Google and Twitter have censored or suppressed conservative voices. Democrats have called that a diversion from concern over Russia's use of social-media platforms to influence the 2016 presidential election and over the proliferation of offensive content. In his opening remarks during a meeting with state attorneys general in September, Attorney General Jeff Sessions raised concerns that social media companies have a political agenda and have the power to manipulate public opinion, according to Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh.
Self discovery (Score:2, Insightful)
It's hard to admit to yourself, after the last account removals of Nazis, that you were one them.
Even if you didn't know it, the rest of us did.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
after the last account removals of Nazis
You mean the last account removals of people using the NPC meme, where twitter has refused to give any ban reason at all? But liberals and progressives were screeching that the NPC meme is 'dehumanizing' but conveniently forget that they've been labeling anyone who doesn't follow their ideology as nasi's, fascists, racists, sexists, homophobes, and chalk full of misogyny? And if you're a minority that doesn't agree, you're an uncle tom, house ni**er(enjoy the lameness filter), race traitor, white supremac
Re: (Score:3)
Twitter never really suggested it had no bias, it's always been fundamentally far left in leaning.
Post your references, AC troll. It's not the responsibility of decent people to prove your retarded statements false.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
If you are going to pass over the far left by saying it's not 'substantial', then the same could be said of the far right. It's the same on both sides: both extremes are absurd but both represent a tiny slice of the demographic that generally leans left or right. Both sides get a disproportionate amount of airtime relative to the number of people actually in those extreme groups.
Overton Window shifted (Score:4, Insightful)
Meanwhile we kept the definition of the far left as "Women who want to cut off men's penises and seize all private property".
The number of "far right" didn't change. They used clever rhetoric and their control of mass media to pretend their ideas weren't radical and hammered that point home until folks were fooled into it. There is a substantial far right in America, we just got tricked into pretending there isn't.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
No, it is not. The far-right in America is represented by the 30% who watch fox news and attend Trump rallies.
You're making the two-fold common mistake of (1) assuming everyone on the other side of the divide are all the same and (2) assuming everyone on the other side holds the most extreme views. The reality is far closer to a bell curve - on either end you have a tiny portion of wackos, while a huge majority clusters around the middle.
Less than 1% of the US watches Fox News (https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/the-top-basic-cable-networks-for-july-2018-are/372335 vs https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]).
I don't know ho
Re: (Score:3)
I'd only add that the concept that says, 'you're either left or right', is false.
Agreed. Or even, it's that very mentality that has exacerbated the problem.
Re:Who said Twitter has no bias? (Score:5, Insightful)
The far left is now everybody slightly to the right of center. By today's standards Reagan and Ike were both communists when you actually look at their platforms relative to the Ayn Rand worshiping Republicans of today. (And Reagan was a McCarthyist. )
Indeed, I'm a centrist and the far right on here frequently have called me a liberal or lefty just for not liking Trump. It reminds me of the Bush era and the "if you oppose the Iraq war you're a traitor" verbiage. It's political propaganda "if you're not for the President you're part of a dangerous radical left".
Re: (Score:3)
You are comparing apples to oranges by comparing European definitions to American ones.
It's about as accurate as us stating Europeans have no right wing since they don't line up with our perception.
But you know that.
So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, they can, but they can't have the safe harbor provision as they show to be checking for every post with a system, so they should be liable for every single copyright infringement on the platform.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, they can, but they can't have the safe harbor provision as they show to be checking for every post with a system, so they should be liable for every single copyright infringement on the platform.
Copyright infringement in 140 / 280 characters or fewer? It's possible an entire, or substantial part of a, work could be tweeted in under that, but otherwise it would probably fall under fair use -- all assuming no source was cited and/or it wasn't shown to be a simple quotation.
Re: (Score:2)
There's the image and video embedding services.
Also the grey area of links for copyrighted material.
Re: So? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Creative use of technology can't ignore the law, but can result in long legal disputes.
There was an old P2P network which I forget the name of that tried to avoid copyright infringement through maths. Rather than transmit copyrighted work, it split the work into two blocks - one of random noise, the other of that noise XORed with the data. Stored separately, so that neither party storing it could have the work in any meaningful way, but a downloader could reassemble it from blocks of random data.
The express
Re: So? (Score:3)
Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
Prove it. Show me anything in the CDA or DMCA that conditions the safe harbors upon a lack of "bias" in the material that a service carries.
I'll even give you the links to the relevant CDA [cornell.edu] and DMCA [cornell.edu] provisions because you're not going to find them.
-IP/Technology Attorney
Re:Aware of "facts" yet unaware of their import (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the legal theory was:
Where the "checking" had nothing to do with checking for copyright infringement but rather "political bias."
The argument was that if a service implemented a political bias that they'd lose the copyright safe harbor. "Political bias" is not red flag knowledge of copyright infringement under 17 USC 512(c).
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
What impact can social media have on our elections? Apparently, a lot if Russian ads on Facebook are believed to swing 2016. Are you comfortable with private entities able to control elections to such an extent as to be able to silence people from national dialogue and get their preferred politician elected because the power they wield over people?
Here I thought the left was against large multinational companies abusing their positions of power over regular people. I don't know what the right answer is but I think we are in a precarious position as the technology matures to be able to, in real-time, silence and condition the dialogue people have. That is more dangerous to democracy than Trump or any president could ever be. It's even more terrifying that there are so many quick to support that kind of power for any kind of entity especially one without accountability or transparency. I don't care if it was Jesus Christ that is too much power for one company, platform, person, industry, government, anything to have.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Here I thought the left was against large multinational companies abusing their positions of power over regular people.
As someone who's often left-leaning, that's almost completely wrong.
The left is very much in favor of large companies (and states) having power over regular people. The key is that it's a highly-regulated power, managed by someone with the regular people's best interests in mind, because history has shown that the regular people very rarely understand how to actually accomplish their goals. Those that do aggressively pursue their goals will usually end up doing so by preventing others from pursuing theirs.
N
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, Slashdot readers? +5 Interesting!?!?!
The left is very much in favor of large companies (and states) having power over regular people. The key is that it's a highly-regulated power, managed by someone with the regular people's best interests in mind, because history has shown that the regular people very rarely understand how to actually accomplish their goals. Those that do aggressively pursue their goals will usually end up doing so by preventing others from pursuing theirs.
You have paternalism, elitism, classism, and corporatism (maybe some other -isms that I missed) all wrapped up into one. Let me rephrase your statement:
The left is very much in favor of un-freedom.
If anything, history has shown that while people do at times make the wrong decision, both individually and at the levels of various local/national political entities, they often are able to accomplish their goals. What happens, though, is that sometimes once they accomplish their goals they realize that maybe they should not have accomplished their goals.
Discounting for the moment revolutions that have been fomented by other countries (notably the US poking around in Latin America and the Caribbean), in the last few hundred years you have had significant revolutions in the US, Russia, France, Cuba, Venezuela, China, and others. Each of those seems to be a very clear example of the people accomplishing their goals, with some turning out better than others. Cuba and Venezuela, however, seem to also be shining examples of "buyers remorse".
What you describe is what we have seen Cuba and Venezuela turn into, with the government controlling not just big business, but also small businesses and individuals. Surprise surprise, people there found out that they were not so fond of losing their self-determination (i.e., liberty) to the government even though they gave it away to start with!
So how about we break up Sinclair Media (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but you're not fooling anyone. You're in favor of centralized media control when it suits you. You're opposed to it when the slightest resistance is detected.
Here's the thing, you won. You won everything. You control every branch of government. Even the Democrats are mostly right wing now thanks to the Overton window shift. The right own everything. Now you've just got to live with the consequences. Your guy Trump just called himself a Nationalist. He praises dictators for seizing power. He put a pro-torture woman in charge of the CIA. That's all gonna come home to roost soon. Enjoy your Pyrrhic victory. In the meantime can you stop acting like you're some oppressed minority? You're not. You won.
Re: (Score:2)
It's hard to compare the two platforms as the same.
You have Fox on one side and CNN, MSNBC, and the network news on the other side.
On the social media side, you have twitter and facebook - both companies lean to the left.
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't actually matter if they're not a government entity. Twitter has testified that they consider themselves the "new public square" for political discussion. They promoted that as well. There's been a whole assload of cases on this whereby a company presents itself as a public square, 1st amendment rules apply.
So really it boils down to this: Either the 1st amendment rules apply, in which case they're far more broadly protected and so are people. Or it doesn't, in which case they're not only curating content, but the people allowed to post there. In which case CDA S.230 no longer apply and they become liable for anything posted there. The "reasonable" defense section only applies if they allow access but don't actively curate, something they stopped doing a few years ago, when they made the change of how people become verified and in turn stated that they support the views of the people who are verified. This again is something they've openly stated.
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There's been a whole assload of cases on this whereby a company presents itself as a public square, 1st amendment rules apply.
Sounds interesting. Can you link some references? Make sure and include an "assload" of them.
Re: (Score:2)
Why don't you just try your favorite search engine. I'd suggest using the search phrase "extended 1st amendment protections." You'll learn something interesting...providing of course the search engine you picked isn't curating your results.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah too sad I guess in your world then, it's much easier to turn around and be handed information then it is to actually find it on your own and feeling a measure of success in learning about it as well.
Google is your first problem, enjoy your curated results.
Re: (Score:2)
Google is your first problem, enjoy your curated results.
Just so you know, you are the one that suggested I:
try your favorite search engine
Who in their right mind would have tried to use Google after that? But okay, so Google is tainted. Where should I search? Amazingly, you don't offer that info either. I guess that's another thing I need to research on my own right?
This is fun. Where do we go next?
Re:So? (Score:4, Interesting)
Citation?
Let me try to help. Say your neighbor starts running down the street yelling "Your wife is a whore!". Do you think:
1. Everyone should believe him, because he said it. Until you prove otherwise, she is a whore.
2. People should disregard him, or at least ask him provide evidence.
The choice is of course self evident to sane people.
People can play these "all assertions need evidence" games all day long. It benefits no one, particularly in the information age and when most citations are simply links to other people that have also made the same assertion with no citation themselves.
i'm confused what you are saying. Are you arguing we should believe nothing we read, or everything we read? Or should we flip a coin? In lieu of evidence we can trust or at least put some weight on, a coin flip is the best we can do.
Or do you think we should believe whatever supports our internal narrative about the world? Like, Twitter is a bunch of libtards trying to bring down Trump?
Re:So? (Score:5, Informative)
Pretty sure they've revoked that policy at this point. Just because they promoted that at one time does not mean that they're locked into it for all eternity.
No. The CDA [cornell.edu] expressly says otherwise. 48 USC 230(c)(2):
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of --
(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected.
Pure fiction.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you remember the banks that were "to big to fail?" It would be VERY easy for the government to declare these communication entities as "Too influential to go unregulated". You could crow about free speech. But the government WILL win if they choose to go down that route. And eventually they will.
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Twitter is not a government entity. They can do what they damn well please.
That's not how it works in America (or anywhere, really). They can't e.g. ban you because you're Black. The more you open your business to the public, the more you have to bake that gay cake, like it or not. And there's a spectrum defined in law, from "group of people who all know each other" to "common carrier". For the former, the rights of the owners dominate, for the latter the rights of the customers dominate, and there are several stops in between.
Twitter needs to be held to some legal standard. Are they a common carrier? Then they must respect the first amendment rights of their users. Are they a publisher? They they get 100% control of content, and are 100% legally responsible for what they allow. So what are they?
Re: (Score:2)
The more you open your business to the public, the more you have to bake that gay cake, like it or not.
The problem with this is that religion rights is a constitutionally protected issue as well.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, that's my point. There's a legal spectrum: on the one end, the rights of the owners win, on the other, the rights of the customers win, with most businesses in the middle somewhere.
Re: (Score:3)
They're an interactive computer service, and get reasonable control of content on a good faith basis with 0% responsibility for what they allow.
CDA [cornell.edu] section 230(c):
(c) Protection for âoeGood Samaritanâ blocking and screening of offensive material
(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any
Re:So? (Score:5, Interesting)
Twitter is not a government entity. They can do what they damn well please. They don't have to obey the 1st Amendment. If he doesn't like it, he can quit using the service (don't we all wish)....
Yes, as a Trump supporter, I DO wish he'd lay off his tweeting, at least for the most part. Some of it has been helpful, but the bulk of it has been anything but helpful or appropriate in my view. But one must also acknowledge that the media's reaction to these tweets has been at least partly responsible for the whole three ring circus. Trump is obviously the ring master, but the media are running around as the clowns at his request.
However, It's fair to state that there IS sort of a social movement brewing that is pushing to force 1st amendment like rules onto popular social platforms, even those which are privately owned and operated. Personally, I'm a bit conflicted about this kind of regulation, because that's what this will need to be, a law. On one hand I clearly see the political bias imposed by these platforms as a bad thing, but on the other I clearly understand that the 1st amendment doesn't apply.
I guess that my preference would be for a "hands off" policy and leave things as they are. Let folks like Trump complain about how unfair the sites moderate based on political bias, just take the complaints with a grain of salt. As much as these platforms are PR shamed into trying to justify their bias, the net effect is the same as a regulation and a whole lot less complex and expensive to boot.
SO... Let Trump complain. I think he's correct, Twitter is biased. However, I'm not supportive of laws or regulations that try to enforce any political parity on social platforms. IF Trump's PR war on Twitter causes them to be less biased, great! I think it's a waste of his time, but I'm more concerned about his accomplishments and policies than his Twitter rants.
Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
Honest question: is twitter a publisher or a medium. It makes a huge difference.
If twitter is a publisher, then they may have the right to reject some tweets. But, that also means they are responsible for *everything* that is tweeted.
If twitter is a medium, then they do not have the right to delete tweets that have the wrong political opinion.
It seems to me that twitter - and facebook and google - want to have it both ways.
Re: (Score:3)
Wrong. The CDA permits them to screen out the overtly and covertly racist drivel that passes for the sort of material suppressed for "bias" that Trump is complaining of.
(c) Protection for âoeGood Samaritanâ blocking and screening of offensive material
(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall
Re: (Score:3)
"Sorry, it's against our religious views to serve Nazis." [scotusblog.com]
-Twitter
Re:FALSE (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. They lost any such protection the moment they went public.
A partnership or closely held corporation has most of the rights of the owners. If the owners share some religious belief, they get some degree of protection from being compelled to act against that belief, as it should be. But a publicly held corporation is nothing like that. The act of opening up ownership to anyone with money renounces any protections for being a group of people united in faith.
Which, by the way, is the right answer to balance free speech with preventing campaign donations. Public corporations (i.e., almost every big one) should just be banned completely from donating to politicians or PACs. Including donations in kind, like only allowing ads from one political side (just as e.g. radio stations are barred from doing).
Re:So? (Score:4, Funny)
Nononono get out of here with your facts. You aren't supposed to use the liberal CA rule that defines political ideology as a protected class. That's a cudgel for liberals to use, it's NOT FAIR to apply the law equally. And what are you doing pointing out the recent decision that jeopardizes our overlords and their ability to kick us out of their "open" platform discriminatorily? YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE PAYING ATTENTION!!!
Why can't they have a bias? (Score:3, Informative)
So what? It's their platforms, why can't they have a political bias? If I ran a website with a political bias, would that be breaking any laws? I wonder if Trump properties have a 'bias' to who they rent to? Is Trump willing to speak up there as well if commercial entities can't have a political bias?
Re: (Score:2)
Twitter was partly ruled as a public forum because of Trumps twitter feed and response system. Twitter can arbitrary ban people from taking part in that public forum with zero transparency and zero accountability. Are you comfortable with a single company having that kind of power because #resist Trump?
Re: (Score:2)
If I ran a website with a political bias, would that be breaking any laws?
There's a difference between a publisher and a common carrier. Social media companies of course want to have it both ways. But that's not good for society, and shouldn't be allowed. Either be a publisher, with total control over (but also total responsibility for) what you publish, or be a common carrier (you can't discriminate, which means any legal problems are those of your users).
Europe is starting to come down on the side of treating social media like publishers, gradually ratcheting up the degree t
Still the Bias is there. (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone that argues there is no Bias is just lying to themselves.
Trump (Score:5, Funny)
I was elected king or whatever, biggest election in any country ever, and now people are questioning me. Nobody ever questioned Obama. Obama was so bad I was always questioning him, as were many of the best people. Everyone is saying how well I am doing, really, and nobody is questioning me, so why are all these people questioning me?
Seriously, who cares? (Score:2)
It didn't, though... (Score:5, Informative)
Nothing significant happened.
According to the results [socialbakers.com] of a quick Google search, Trump lost a maximum of 11,230 followers from his high of 55,287,639, a grand total of 0.02%.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you trying to outdo the real George the Third ?
He is only said to have writen "Nothing Important Happened Today -July 4 1776"
Fact? (Score:3)
Seriously though, this post truth world is starting to creep me out.
Re:It didn't, though... (Score:5, Informative)
It wasn't 2%. It was 0.02%. 1/5000th of his follower count.
Sure, they could have been active participants...... but it's far more likely to have been bots, killed off in a normal purge.
So? (Score:2)
Any valid human perspective has bias.
Sometimes, you hear a perspective, understand it completely, and reject it as false. Then, you're biased against that perspective.
Communicating the reason for that bias, and reevaluating that bias are valuable parts of being an open-minded functional person.
Skepticism is bias - and it is very important to a functioning society to avoid several forms of stagnation. The problem is closed-mindedness, not bias.
The problem is also using all of these concepts as bludgeons wi
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you, Brother, or Sister, or Nonbinary Fraternal Sibling, for your kind words of wisdom and understanding.
It matters not that our thumb on the scale for political discourse on the platforms that hundreds of millions of people use for online communications, for surely we are on the side of goodness and light and that will never change.
Our bias is the only valid one, due to our own enlightenment. We do not see it as maintaining an ideological echo chamber, for surely there can only be one Truth. Th
This is about establishing a narrative (Score:5, Insightful)
At the end of the day strip away the nonsense about "Culture War" this and "PC that" and you're left with what really matters: economics. And when it comes to economics the media is united on the side of the right. Low taxes (for capital, labor can still pay taxes, I mean, somebody's gotta pay 'em, amiright?), minimal or no regulation, free trade when it's good for profits (but not for pharmaceuticals, that would be a job killing regulation). The right own Sinclair who own just about every TV station in the country. They own Fox news. Hell, they own CNN and MSNBC if you pay attention to economics instead of social issues.
I guess it bothers me to see the right wing playing the victim card when they've got all 3 branches of gov't, billionaire elites and virtually all the media that matters on their side. What bother's me is that they can peddle this nonsensical persecution complex and get away with it. It's Orwellian Double think, exactly the kind of thing they're supposed to be against...
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like you are suggesting there is a Jewish influence at the White House.
What the bleep? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Facts have obviously fallen out of fashion around here. From the opening paragraph of the same CNN article:
Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama condemned disgraced Hollywood executive Harvey Weinstein on Tuesday, marking their first public comments on the matter since reports of his alleged predatory behavior broke five days ago.
You will note that Clinton, Obama, and plenty of other progressives wasted no time criticizing Trump for waiting more than five minutes to repudiate the Unite the Right rally. Yet they waited five days to repudiate Weinstein. In the day of the 24/7 news cycle, waiting five days to make a statement on something, especially when you criticize your opponents for waiting too long to make their own state
Re: (Score:2)
Those two events are very different. The Weinstein thing was all accusations coming from some of his victims. Should those political figures have issued statements more quickly instead of waiting five days, probably. But the delay isn't really all that surprising given the relationships they had with him. Trump and the nazi rally are a different animal entirely. From the outset there was photographic and video evidence of that shit show. There was never any doubt about what happened and Trump didn't have an
Um... Trump didn't repudiate Unite the Right (Score:2)
Will he ever post anything positive? (Score:2, Interesting)
That's all I ask. His every tweet is something negative, an attack or an accusation that someone is mistreating/maligning/abusing him.
Has he nothing to contribute?
This site could use a cleanup as well (Score:5, Insightful)
What the hell has happened to the /. comments section over the past 10 years? This place has gone fucking crazy with right wing crybabies. Used to come back here to see reasoned and thoughtful discussion even while the trolls were prevalent, but now it's just some bot-esque echo chamber of crazy people. It's like the bots and crazies that infested local newspaper comments section added this site to their target lists for propaganda.
Slashdot's population aged (Score:2, Insightful)
As an added bonus we're mostly men, and men are feeling pretty well crapped on lately. We granted women equal rights b
Twitter is the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm glad that President Trump is focusing on his number of Twitter followers as one of his supporters in Florida is arrested for a terrorist attack on his prominent critics.
He's definitely showing leadership and has his priorities straight.
https://www.abcactionnews.com/... [abcactionnews.com]
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
He also drives a van covered with Trump stickers and is a long-time registered Republican. Sorry, guys, but this is exactly what it seemed to be: a MAGA-chud hopped up on Trump's violent rhetoric, going down the list of people Trump has criticized on Twitter and sending them pipe bombs. More righ
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Funny, I didn't hear you complaining about leftwing terrorism. You know like the democrat who shot up the congressional baseball game. Or the other democrat who sent ricin through the mail and tried to kill a bunch of people including Trump's kid. Oh yes, very "right wing terrorism." And sure didn't hear you whining about Holder saying "kick them when they're down." Or Waters telling people to get into the face of other people - funny how progressives and democrats suddenly started doing this right afte
Re: (Score:2)
Well, the very conservative Washington Examiner is reporting it, so I guess it could be fake.
But you will also note that the story doesn't say he was a convicted felon, only that he had been arrested before on felony charges, and did jail time, but not necessarily for the felonies.
https://www.washingtonexaminer... [washingtonexaminer.com]
I am biased (Score:3, Insightful)
Against Nazis and white supremacists. Uh oh, slashdot didn't delete my comment, it must be biased too!
I mean, what are the chances that Nazis and KKK members are hated by most of society, and that it becomes reflected in a platform used by large portions of society?
Foreshadow of the next bomb victims? (Score:2)
More likely, if Faux News echos this then Trump will echo back and fools caught in the feedback loop will have another target of their hate. The whole time while all parties point elsewhere or worst case at each other but they will never accept responsibility (not likely even false statements saying they accept responsibility.)
Re: (Score:2)
Against Nazis and white supremacists. Uh oh, slashdot didn't delete my comment, it must be biased too!
Are you biased against black supremacists? How about democrats that demand that laws shouldn't be enforced?
I mean, what are the chances that Nazis and KKK members are hated by most of society, and that it becomes reflected in a platform used by large portions of society?
Well that's a funny thing, because there's more black supremacists and communist agitators like BAMN, antifa and so on then actual nazi's or members of the KKK these days. Out of curiosity, are you against them as well? Twitter isn't.
Re: (Score:2)
Against Nazis and white supremacists. Uh oh, slashdot didn't delete my comment, it must be biased too!
I mean, what are the chances that Nazis and KKK members are hated by most of society, and that it becomes reflected in a platform used by large portions of society?
My first thought was basically this. Does Twitter's political bias cause them to ban people who post things about less industrial regulation and lower taxes, or are they banning people that post about how much they hate blacks, Muslims, and "teh gays".
Who the fuck cares, anyway? (Score:2)
If YOU are still using 'social media' then you should re-think that.
Re: (Score:2)
It boggles my mind that Trump has 55 million followers. Honestly the idea that anyone would have that kind of numbers is just crazy. I get that a sizeable chunk of that is probably people that aren't fans of his but just want to keep abreast of whatever crazy shit he's spouting, but still. That is just an impossibly large group of people lending an ear to someone.
SHOCKED! Not that shocked. (Score:3)
Is it political bias (Score:3, Insightful)
if you shut down lies, hate, and bullshit? There are probably plenty of others who get the boot, too, but the GOP is particularly enamored of spewing outright lies, hate, and bullshit, so it just looks like they are being targeted. If they don't like getting filtered or banned, maybe they should try not lying so much. Duh.
@Jack Likes Nazis (Score:2)
There's your bias: Jack likes Nazis and shameless hustler criminals like Trump who support his service, so of course he won't ban Trump no matter how many people on BOTH SIDES want the Orange Julius Caesar to STFU.
Follower growth (Score:2)
I have studied the growth of followers and signups. I am reminded of the oft-used phrase:
Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
If you think your signups are slowing down, (1) check that your metrics are working correctly, (2) check that your assumptions of an unlimited pool for signups are still valid, (3) understand that things change.
In other "news" (Score:2)
Old cat pees on bed. Again. And looks into different direction.
Seriously, how is $TRUMP accuses $NON-TRUMP of $STUFF_HE_DOES_NOT_SO_SECRETLY still any news?
More likely ... (Score:3)
Trump and some other Republicans have complained that Facebook, Alphabet's Google and Twitter have censored or suppressed conservative voices.
Trump Should Have Been Banned From Twitter (Score:3)
Boycott Twitter.
Conservative voices (Score:3, Insightful)
a.k.a. liars and idiots.
Home of the nationalist, the white supremacist, the flat-earther, the fascist, the religious zealot, and the neo-nazi. These are some really awesome people and we all need to hear what they have to say....
Examples? (Score:2)
If not, I would think that right-winged persons would be happy to have the nut jobs filtered out from their point of view. Sure the others might dominate in numbers, but it would also show that right wing are, on average, more reasonable than their unfiltered counterparts.
I'm seriously i
Hah! (Score:2)
If Twitter had a bias, Trump would have been removed long ago for all of his flagrant violations of their terms of service. I
Re: (Score:3)
Possible discriminatory account deletions and manipulations by Internet social media platforms seems like both:
'News for nerds' - tech stuff potentially being used to manipulate news and opinions is pretty geeky, even though it's also mainstream...
'Stuff that matters' - seems like Twitter in particular messing with your followers might matter to some of you. Or not, but I betting the interest is nonzero.
And you can expect even the non-right-wing news sites to run the story, perhaps with a different analysi
Re: Wow (Score:2)
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Forgive me, please, but evidence for what?
Re:Bias is Pretty Blatant Anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they admitted under oath that their automated system deleted 48% of the tweets. Breitbart didn't omit those details, why did you?
Also, why continue to vote for the Republicans in charge of that committee who failed to do anything after Twitter admitted that? They don't advocate for you, so why do you still support them? They took the side of big business, as usual, yet I doubt you're gonna vote to remove any of them from office in 2 weeks, are yah?
Re: (Score:2)
No, they admitted under oath that their automated system deleted 48% of the tweets.
Does that really matter?
Are you comfortable with self learning algorithms censoring political topics in the national dialogue on an arguably (partially ruled by the courts) public forums along political lines that isn't accountable and isn't transparent in the hands of a single company/industry?
What could possibly go wrong with that kind of precedent.
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Actually, 'blaming' the algorithms isn't avoiding responsibility at all. This is all their stuff. They are responsible.
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Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
"Total bias?" So basically what happened is "Trump asked whether Twitter has bias." And of course all right-wing news sites will run with the story.
You say that like the bias is imagined. Here is one recent example [foxnews.com].
Here, I'll save you the trouble of reading it: Candace Owens, a black woman who is a conservative, took anti-white racist tweets by the newly hired member of the NYT editorial board, Sarah Jeong, and replaced "white" with "black". Result? Twitter did nothing to Sarah Jeong for her original tweets, but locked out Candace Owens' account for violating Twitter's rules. Twitter claims it was a "mistake."
This sort of thing has happened enough times that it sure seems like there is a bias problem.
Re: Wow (Score:2)
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An anecdote is solid evidence when it comes to the behavior of algorithms. When you're talking about a group of people, individual examples don't mean much because they aren't very predictive. An algorithm is different. Once you know how to beat a PacMan level, you know how to beat it every time.
That point of evidence proves that, at that point in time, Twitter's algorithms only banned people for criticism of some races, but not others. Can we agree that's not cool? That code that is capable of e.g. ba
Twitter admitted it a while ago (Score:5, Informative)
There is. Twitter CEO admitted prevalence of Left among the employees [washingtonpost.com], to the point, where the Right-minded do not feel safe expressing their views [deadline.com].
He then proclaimed, that "need to remove our bias from how we act and our policies and our enforcement" — which is like a Boston referee promising to not favor Red Sox...
So, yes, Twitter are biased, that's a fact. It is also a fact, that it is legal for them to have such a bias.
Finally, I think it is self-evident, that they should not be biased — both for reasons we have the First Amendment in the first place (the Amendment does not apply to them, but the reasons do), and because it hurts their business. And here Jack Dorsey agrees with me, thankfully...
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So, you are seeking to contradict me on the basis of the synonyms I chose? "Right wing" and "Right-minded" are the same things, dear
No, those are not synonyms. From https://www.dictionary.com/bro... [dictionary.com] (the only definition, I'm not cherry picking):
Being conservative has nothing to do with having correct, honest or good opinions. Try not to be so patronizing when you are wrong-minded, dear.
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Capitalizing it doesn't make it change its meaning. You used it wrong, claimed it was a synonym when challenged on it and then doubled-down on your stupidity when shown proof. You certainly have the conservative mindset down pat.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe it could get it's own special little section with some other features. Moderation can be changed so that he only options are "+1 Validates My Beliefs" and "-1 Fuck You I Disagree" or something along those lines. Anyone who wants to, is free to join in, but if they don't even want to observe the trash fire, they can just skip over the story entirely. Maybe even feel a little bit smug about doing so.
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Should we be concerned with the power social media has over the dialogue and elections?
Even if there isn't a bias, are you comfortable with those private companies able to decide who is worthy of speaking in the preferred manner of the POTUS in an unaccountable and nontransparent way?
I am baffled that /. of all places is mostly comfortable with a few tech companies having that kind of power because of one person they don't like. "There are no bad tactics just bad targets" seem like the M.O. for many these d
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I don't mind if there is some evidence to back it up (like even a blog post showing how it was hard for someone to sign up)
Exactly. And Twitter denied it, other than admitting there was a problem with their autocomplete results which they said they had a fix on the way.
In a statement to CNBC, Twitter said it does not shadow ban users. "We are aware that some accounts are not automatically populating in our search box, and shipping a change to address this," the company said.
https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]
So not only did they deny shadow banning R's, they denied doing it at all.
Re: Wow (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Faux News? They've never been a NEWS station, reporting facts and following journalistic practices or ethics. They have always been the mouthpiece of the GOP, and recently, disinformation from Russia. So while nobody needs a gag order more than Fox news, we're never gonna' get it until they go tits up after being sued for inciting violence and civil war - which is not likely to happen under our far-right Supreme Court.