> Colloquially, I think many information suppression tactics get lumped under the term "shadow-ban" and that your definition is very narrow. It reinforces your position so I understand why you're defining it as such but it's not very convincing to anyone who doesn't share your position. Of course, that's assuming you're genuinely interested in persuasion instead of yelling into the echo chamber.
Reasonable criticism. I suppose Twitter representatives have probably used this same definition to squirm out from questioning before, and it's not a great look. Although siblings comment are pointing out that Twitter did define it as identical to what I'm saying in a blog post; so at least they are consistent in what they were saying pre-Musk.
On the persuasion front – I'll give it a try!
I think the reason that Twitter hid behind the narrower definition of a shadow ban is to avoid saying the harder-to-stomach truth that "information suppression tactics", as you put them, are essential to content moderation. Think about this – is HN's (supposed) voting ring detector an "information suppression tactic"? Is flagging posts? Why is Bari Weiss not posting breathless stories about them? I think the only difference is that zero people in Weiss's circle use this orange web site. I would love to be convinced otherwise, though.
> All around us are these huge, easy-to-abuse, global influence platforms with cozy backchannels to the most powerful bureaucratic state (US govt) that we've ever seen. And yet many comments I've seen so far are along the lines of, "No worries, this stuff happens all the time and is totally normal and okay. Move along now!" I would have expected more skepticism, cynicism and backlash from this crowd. Am I wrong?
No, but I think we had our moment of outrage around widespread surveillance by the US government in 2013 and the years after it. Also, almost none of Weiss's or Taibbi's breathless revelations are about intervention by the US government – a few are about the Democratic Party and most are about Twitter itself. The only response that I see by a sitting Government official anywhere is to suggest that the Twitter ban on a story is against the 1st Amendment [1].
It's not reasonable criticism, because Twitter provided their definition of "shadow-ban" at the time, and it's unambiguously not what Weiss is talking about.
You can disagree with the definition Twitter chose, but you can't retcon your own definition onto Twitter's policy statements.
I'll be frank - I couldn't give a rat's ass about Weiss or Taibii. I'm not familiar with them and they're obviously trying to squeeze as much juice out of this story as they can.
However, I see a lot of people here dismissing the wider and (imo) more valid complaints about veiled moderation tactics by beating up these two and calling it a day, case closed. I don't care what specific narrow definition twitter chose on a whim in some blog post and I'm not concerned with strictly "shadow-banning". The fact is, these global influence platforms are easy to subvert by immensely powerful interests (state actors, billionaires, etc) and the power we're placing in these people's hands is incredible, way beyond what any authoritarian dictator of yesteryear could even dream up. And when how the sausage is made is ever so slightly exposed, it's dismissed and hand-waved away.
Basically every forum uses veiled moderation tactics out of the argument that if they unveiled their techniques then they'd be defeated. Which is what dang argues on Hacker News; in fact, you can't even see if there are penalties on your HN account.
The thread is about the false claims Weiss is making, not about your own opinions on moderation. What you should do, if you want to share those, is start a new top-level thread on this story. I'm sure what you have to say is germane to the story. It's just not germane to the thread you're commenting on.
OP made many points and I responded to one in particular with my opinion. Seems germane to me, although point taken about starting a top-level thread for better visibility/discussion.
You seem very set on keeping this top level thread on the topic you believe you won the argument on, and are refusing to discuss anything else in a very condescending tone. Just thought you should know your thinly veiled attempts at controlling the conversation to "win" aren't going unnoticed.
I'll also add that you're wrong about the topic of the thread, bavell's point is absolutely on topic and the only reason you're refusing to engage and call his argument a red herring is because you know he's right and don't want to admit it.
If a person makes an argument, and you rebut it with a bunch of unrelated arguments, the original arguer isn't obligated to address the unrelated arguments. You think they are, but in fact, that's the coercive argument, not mine.
The assumptive close might sell a used car, but "you just won't admit it" isn't especially persuasive on a message board.
If I wanted to control the debate (or however you'd choose to put it) on this benighted subject, all I'd have to do is keep posting on the thread, which immediately and thankfully got yanked off the front page by the flamewar detector. Oh, wait. You caught me! :)
I very much appreciate your good-faith response even though I'm not entirely convinced (yet?). Getting late for me so I have to bow out for now. I hope we as a community continue to discuss these issues, as it seems to be central to a lot of the problems we face today and will be facing tomorrow.
Reasonable criticism. I suppose Twitter representatives have probably used this same definition to squirm out from questioning before, and it's not a great look. Although siblings comment are pointing out that Twitter did define it as identical to what I'm saying in a blog post; so at least they are consistent in what they were saying pre-Musk.
On the persuasion front – I'll give it a try!
I think the reason that Twitter hid behind the narrower definition of a shadow ban is to avoid saying the harder-to-stomach truth that "information suppression tactics", as you put them, are essential to content moderation. Think about this – is HN's (supposed) voting ring detector an "information suppression tactic"? Is flagging posts? Why is Bari Weiss not posting breathless stories about them? I think the only difference is that zero people in Weiss's circle use this orange web site. I would love to be convinced otherwise, though.
> All around us are these huge, easy-to-abuse, global influence platforms with cozy backchannels to the most powerful bureaucratic state (US govt) that we've ever seen. And yet many comments I've seen so far are along the lines of, "No worries, this stuff happens all the time and is totally normal and okay. Move along now!" I would have expected more skepticism, cynicism and backlash from this crowd. Am I wrong?
No, but I think we had our moment of outrage around widespread surveillance by the US government in 2013 and the years after it. Also, almost none of Weiss's or Taibbi's breathless revelations are about intervention by the US government – a few are about the Democratic Party and most are about Twitter itself. The only response that I see by a sitting Government official anywhere is to suggest that the Twitter ban on a story is against the 1st Amendment [1].
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[1] https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598838041371516929