[incomingpain]

>What is this talk about “the algorithm,” as in Musk saying “they should open source the algorithm.” Is this the traffic boosting and suppression mechanism?

If for example you make a post that says "Vaccines cause autism". They dont have enough humans to moderate this. They write an algorithm that generally sees that and you get shadowbanned or equivalent.

What are all the subjects in which you may not talk about on twitter? Its not public knowledge. Open sourcing it means people can see the true bias.

[Tehchops]

It's not biased to moderate something like "vaccines cause autism".

It's been legally and scientifically established as outright misinformation. The genesis of that theory was a disgraced researcher who pushed fraudulent claims with misrepresented data. The paper was retracted for "scientific misconduct".

And yet now moderating false claims that have a detrimental effect on public health outcomes is seen as a "leftist government conspiracy".

[brimble]

If social media were about private communication among circles of friends and family, this wouldn't be an issue. Instead it's also some kind of broadcast medium with an opaque curation/boosting system. That's the part that causes most of the trouble, and IMO the fix is to treat tech companies that operate that way as responsible for what they publish, when it's not private communication.

"But that will make them to stop that part of their business entirely, or make it way more expensive and force them to take an actual editorial stance! And their viral-ness will suffer a ton!"

Yes, exactly, that's the point.

They've created this medium, then they decide what to push with it. They should be responsible for that, or else back away from how they're currently operating.

[moistofreason]

Ok, but where is the line drawn and who decides where it is drawn? The point of Musk advocating to open source the algorithm is to provide transparency on this.

E.g. not all issues are as cut and dry as your example.

[adventured]

> It's not biased to moderate something like "vaccines cause autism".

It is biased. As is any and all moderation, inherently.

Biased toward science. A bias toward the rational is a positive, healthy bias.

Rather than cowering about bias, Twitter should very openly and very aggressively stake out a clear and biased position; ie, this is our ground: we're pro science, pro vaccines, and we're going to hold that ground, period (whether anyone else likes it or not, and our algorithms will bias this way accordingly).

[incomingpain]

I dont mind this position. Ultimately it needs to be open and free to discuss. By saying this is offlimits, the cat and mouse game begins and we invent new words that will generally be understood in their place.

[Tehchops]

Well sure, but in the context of this discussion "bias" implies political.

[incomingpain]

>It's not biased to moderate something like "vaccines cause autism".

I surrender. I agree, we absolutely should be doing something. The point elon is planning with the open sourcing is to simply make it public. I figure most political folks wont really argue over the autism thing.

>It's been legally and scientifically established as outright misinformation. The genesis of that theory was a disgraced researcher who pushed fraudulent claims with misrepresented data. The paper was retracted for "scientific misconduct".

Here is the interesting thing. Do we fix the conversation by banning people from talking about it?

When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say. -George R. R. Martin

Or would it be better to allow people to talk about it and just post a warning that it's discredited and link?

>And yet now moderating false claims that have a detrimental effect on public health outcomes is seen as a "leftist government conspiracy".

I chose vaccines cause autism because it's a great example of something that is harmful to society. Something that might be worth censoring but when you block or even secretly shadowban this subject. It even makes me want to know more. Sure looks like conspiracy to me.

But I also kind of point to NYTimes and incoming CNN ceo who are telling their journalists to break out of their twitter echo chambers.

twitter censors far more than this subject. The anticonservative bias that twitter creates also ends up forming echo chambers for the left. Who then dont see criticism of their work. The consequence that NYTimes for example sees is that they stop reporting properly, they report on their echo chamber. They then fundamentally break journalism ethics rules.

[pessimizer]

> It's not biased to moderate something like "vaccines cause autism".

Would you support this sort of unbiased moderation being expanded to telephone calls?

[Tehchops]

> telephone calls

Not the same reach. Telephone calls are ostensibly private exchanges between two willing parties. Twitter is much more akin to a "crowded theater" than a telephone call.