I see comments like this frequently on hackernews and i'm curious on your motivation. Do you actually use twitter so this comment isn't lining up with your expectations? Do you not use twitter and expect this person to justify their experience by doing further research? What is _actually_ motivating you to comment like this?
i use twitter and have been using twitter for the past... fifteen years (my profile say "Joined October 2007").
my own twitter experience has not changed at all -- i'm seeing the same tweets i was seeing before and seeing none of the hate people are seeing. but, ofc, the plural of anecdote is not data.
I personally do, and nothing has changed for me since he took over. I would like to see some semblance of a proof when someone tries to be as bold as to claim something is demonstrably false, he's not talking about having a different experience he is saying as a matter of fact that it is a false statement.
For all the jokes about excessive sourcing that hacker news gets it's probably one of the things that keeps it from turning into yet another hearsay platform.
This is genuinely the only place in the internet right now I can actually read and have a decent discussion about musk without it either turning into a hate circlejerk or a flamewar, would be nice to keep it that way.
>>Do you actually use twitter so this comment isn't lining up with your expectations?
yes, and I see zero hate or other issues with content on my feed
> What is _actually_ motivating you to comment like this?
I hate when people attribute opening the Overton window to more than just Extreme left authoritarian political opinions, which is what Political Twitter was isolated to before elon, is some how a bad thing
> I hate when people attribute opening the Overton window to more than just Extreme left authoritarian political opinions, which is what Political Twitter was isolated to before elon
This is incorrect.
"Based on a massive-scale experiment involving millions of Twitter users, a fine-grained analysis of political parties in seven countries, and 6.2 million news articles shared in the United States, this study carries out the most comprehensive audit of an algorithmic recommender system and its effects on political content. Results unveil that the political right enjoys higher amplification compared to the political left."
Nothing in your comment refutes my position. The very rules and actions of "Trust and safety" are what I am talking about, not what links users of the platform share.
Try to actually talk about what I am complaining about
> Try to actually talk about what I am complaining about
> > I hate when people attribute opening the Overton window to more than just Extreme left authoritarian political opinions, which is what Political Twitter was isolated to before elon
I literally quoted what you talked about and responded to your claim - please try to improve your reading comprehension skills.
No you did not, you responded with an unrelated fact that "right news" (which is widely over categorized in these research papers BTW) is the most shared link
This does not refute the position that twitter employee based censorship was largely in one direction, this does not refute the fact that twitter policies were written and enforced in one ideological direction, this does not even really indicate why those links where shared or the reaction to the link, where they shared for outrage or criticism, for support or derision?
> No you did not, you responded with an unrelated fact that "right news" (which is widely over categorized in these research papers BTW) is the most shared link
Yes, on Twitter, which according to you was "Extreme left authoritarian" until recently. Odd that leftist authoritarians allow right wing content to dominate their platform.
> twitter employee based censorship was largely in one direction
Any evidence for this claim?
> the fact that twitter policies were written and enforced in one ideological direction
Evidence? Twitter's own data says that this is not the case in the links I provided.
> No your link proves and supports nothing
My links (there were two) prove and support my point - you haven't read them though.
You: "...Extreme left authoritarian political opinions, which is what Political Twitter was isolated to before elon"
If true, then we would not find much, if anything, that was not "extreme left authoritarian political opinions" amongst the detritus of "political twitter", right?
And yet, when shown that not only did there exist content from the political right, it was amplified more than content from the political left, you reply:
"you responded with an unrelated fact"
Let's try it this way. Let's say I make a statement that the birds at my feeder are isolated to crows. If you then point to my own videos which show not only that there are many other kinds of birds, but these other kinds of birds eat the most seed from it, what should I reply? "Oh, I'm sorry but that is an unrelated fact"? Or perhaps, "That proves nothing, how do we know the other birds were not brought there by the crows?" Or how about, "The fact that there were other kinds of birds at your feeder does not refute the fact that you prevent non-crows from coming to your feeder." Etc.
You quite literally stated that Political Twitter was isolated to "Extreme left authoritarian political opinions" prior to Musk's takeover. Which is of course both demonstratively false and a ridiculous claim on its face.
If anything, the person responding to you gave you the benefit of the doubt, presuming you may have meant that views outside the "extreme authoritarian left" were systematically de-emphasized by the recommendation algorithm. Which is also false but at least not a mindbogglingly stupid thing to actually believe.
Someone interested in an actual discussion might have taken the opportunity to clarify their initial statement. But abrasiveness and the "read what I meant, not what I wrote" approach also works I guess.
In order presented: Yes. No. You mean, it is not obvious? I am motivated by curiosity.
A claim was made that is not supported. It isn't unreasonable to request such a claim to be validated by demonstration.
Personally, I have not seen an increase in "hate" or violence or bigotry or any other -ism or -ist. I've seen people disagree in a much more whole-hearted way, while at the same time, seeing prompts for reducing the strength of language. For example, you get a pop up if you write "I think you are stupid" but not "I think you are silly."
Quid pro quo: what is _actually_ motivating you to comment like this?
I guess it feels like this is just banter amongst bored people at work and demand for works cited comes off as sealioning or just maybe misreading the room
I find that anything related to Twitter/Musk produces some of the lowest quality comments on HN, and the top comment in this thread is one of them. It's a reddit style "amirite?" comment that does not engage with the topic (Twitter says they've limited reach for "hateful" content, so "impressions" could be down, even if the total number of hateful tweets sent might be up, so it's absolutely not obvious, and it's very questionable how some random person would know which tweets had what amount of impressions), doesn't care to present any reasoning or data, and the user vanishes when asked to substantiate.
Musk brings out the worst in some people. Hearing about him shuts down their brains and they "return to monkey", just throwing feces. And they're certainly not dumb, it just looks like those old spy movies with sleeper agents. One minute your friendly neighbor jokes and smiles and the next he hears some specific sentence on the radio and his programming takes over, his face freezes and he gets his gun and marches towards city hall. That's what I see happening to some people here when Musk gets mentioned.
Hi, I didn't vanish. I have a busy life. And HN has Guidelines [1], and you may want to re-read the last two:
> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.
You appear to be violating both of those guidelines.
You assert that my comment "does not engage with the topic". I disagree. I think I analyzed the submission, and found parts of it worth discussing.
Why did I make the comment I did? I should have taken more time to establish myself, and I'm sorry I opted to quickly highlight rather than to explain. Allow me (now that I have a moment) to explain.
It's a puff piece.
Despite being a puff piece, does it make any actual claims? Yes. Hmmm - maybe it would be interesting to identify the actual claims.
Are any of the claims actually falsifiable? Yes. Hmm - maybe it would be interesting to point out the claims that are actually falsifiable.
Do I think any of the falsifiable claims are demonstrably false? Yes. Hmm - here they are.
Am I sure that they are demonstrably false, and do I have the evidence to back that up? No. Darn. I can't say they're definitively false, but I can at least highlight the two that I have the strongest belief that yes, they are probably wrong.
Hence the only thing I added to them: "I think both of those claims are demonstrably false."
I'm sorry I didn't have time to go find the primary sources that would back up my belief.
1) Our Trust & Safety team... remains strong and well-resourced...
Wow. If you scan through the comments complaining about my comment, I don't see anyone who seems to have any problem with me pointing this one out. We've all seen the articles about the layoffs, firings, and resignations. I believe a recent one identified that there is exactly one (1) person left, doing an important moderation job, in a major market...? I wish I had the reference at hand, to show a primary source.
2) ...impressions on violative content are down over the past month...
If you scroll through the comments, I think you'll see some interesting discussion, including bringing up the Overton Window, and someone even provided references. (Great username, trs8080!) So, it appears folks on HN thought it was worth discussing. I'm glad to see their discussion. Maybe it would have happened without me pointing out that section, but maybe it wouldn't.
> Sealioning refers to the disingenuous action by a commenter of making an ostensible effort to engage in sincere and serious civil debate, usually by asking persistent questions of the other commenter.
Never heard sealioning before, "thanks, I hate it" I guess. Reminds me of "dog-whistling", and in a way is an exact example of what PM_me_your_math is getting at.
You can decide someone is being disingenuous, but if you can't demonstrate that somehow, I'm inclined to disbelieve you. The GP said "those claims are demonstrably false", and then a follow up comment said "okay, please demonstrate", and you can claim that's being disingenuous? Don't you see how that creates an iron-clad thought bubble?
Hi, given the layoffs, firings, and resignations, I think the claim "Our Trust & Safety team... remains strong and well-resourced..." is the one that has the burden of proof.
The second claim is absolutely more nuanced, and I admit, will be much harder to falsify.
