We hear about accounts being removed, but we never hear about victimized interlocutors being notified. It seems like telling people that they've been misled by malicious actors would be a super important part of this policing process.
Dear Twitter folks, it's not enough to just vanish a messenger after the message has already been delivered.
A private message would go a long way to quietly and personally telling us we have been duped.
While we like to refer to psychological wedges only working on “them”, there is a massive body of sociological / psychological research to show that we collectively are all vulnerable. Addressing it as the collective problem it is, versus an “it happens to them” phenomena, may have an impact on overall reception.
I think the results would hurt Twitter so they won't do it. Imagine vulnerable demographics in swing states getting 10+ notifications over the course of a year. They'd leave twitter.
It's also frustrating that Twitter didn't proactively do this - the DCCC had to figure it out and tell them. Twitter itself is obviously best positioned to detect patterns of suspicious activity, intervene before too much damage is done, and investigate and publish their findings. But they don't seem to take this problem very seriously.
Twitter is being brazenly used as a propaganda tool by terrible actors with terrible agendas. It's infested with strange accounts of dubious authenticity - which I think is fairly obvious looking through the replies to prominent political accounts.
>Twitter is being brazenly used as a propaganda tool by terrible actors with terrible agendas. It's infested with strange accounts of dubious authenticity - which I think is fairly obvious looking through the replies to prominent political accounts.
Look through Rebel HQ's Youtube interviews and you may be surprised to see that these "strange accounts" are probably just heavily brainwashed and weird Americans.
I'd love to see an example of what these accounts were saying. "Discouraging voting in the midterms" doesn't sound like something an account should get deleted for.
If they're referencing the satirical NPC accounts, then I have even more of a problem with it. If Twitter is going to engage in this type of censorship they should provide some transparency. It's extra concerning that it was the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committe pushing Twitter to do that. All the more reason to avoid the impression of impropriety.
It is all very partisan. Like, the official North Dakota affiliate of the Democratic Party ran Facebook ads a day or two ago falsely claiming that people could lose their hunting licenses if they voted in the election to try and scare Republican supporters away from voting, their state senator stood behind those ads, and no-one much cared.
Reuters has some examples. Posing as Democrats, some of the tweets were telling men that they shouldn't vote, because it would be wrongly drowning out the voices of women who needed to be heard more loudly in this election.
”The Tweets included ones that discouraged Democratic men from voting, saying that would drown out the voice of women, according to two of the sources familiar with the flagging operation.”
So yes, they’re pretty much banning satire and jokes not aligned with the Democrats.
I don't think that's how it works, according to everything I've heard reported by the media.
When Twitter or Facebook talk about automated accounts, I believe the people saying that have good (but naive) intentions (in short, I don't think they have much grasp of classical liberal theory or philosophy regarding free speech), but what they actually mean in practice seems to be this: "Only bots display X communication pattern, this account shows a similar communication pattern, therefore this account is a bot." In short, they work backwards. They don't determine something's a bot and then nuke it (they do that too, but that's not what these mass bannings and reporting of it are all about). They observe offensive communications, and if that fits into a certain pattern, the communications alone prove the account is a bot.
I'm sure they do ban bots, true bots, to the best of their ability, with automated detection that blocks signups or blocks accounts from communicating when it can determine that there's unauthorized bot-like behavior on the protocol/timing level. That's not what this is about. This is about (semi-)manually blocking of "bots" based on communication content after their automated detection couldn't be sure the account was a bot. How do you think they know they're bots? If someone held a serious penalty over their heads, and told them if they blocked a single non-bot claiming it's a bot, and got it wrong, they'd be in trouble, do you think any of these "bots" would be blocked?
I'm not even saying they're not bots (I can't know), but that those companies aren't as certain that they're banning bots as you assume they are.
"Bots" seems to have become a code word that also includes agent provocateurs, whether they're Russian operatives or people in some Asian sweat shop being paid to retweet certain things. Newspeak, much? And if you label them truthfully, not as bots, but as propagandists, you have a huge problem because banning based on propaganda is done selectively — provocateurs with some agendas are banned, but others are not.
>Do we agree that harmful inaccurate information should be screened for and eliminated?
What prevents them from removing say, any information about workers rights because THEY deem it harmful? This is a very dangerous road to go down, that leads right to fascism.
If they have a legitimate means of distinguishing automated accounts, why in the hell aren't they automatically culling all of them or dishonoring their signup attempts in the first place?
You misunderstand. The DCCC just informed Twitter, which they should have the right to do. Anyone should have the right to report accounts. Twitter alone made the decision to remove them.
>what confidence should I have that it is accurate?
They provide no example accounts either, so you will never know if it's accurate. It's entirely possible they deleted legitimate accounts of real individuals at the behest of the DCCC.
This is a GREAT reason why Twitter's policy that licensees need to DELETE posts that they delete is a horrible idea.
It prevents people from performing analysis on deleted tweets. This type of data is VERY VERY valuable for this purpose but their ToS requires you to delete a post from your index if the user deletes the post.
Sounds like the DCCC pointed out to Twitter that these accounts were violating Twitter’s terms of service and Twitter agreed. Twitter made the decision to remove the accounts.
What terms of service would they be violating? There are automated bots all over Twitter. Telling people to not vote is not hateful, it's not obscene, there's nothing wrong with it. It's full on censorship of ideas.
Voting is and should be in every citizens interest, no matter which party you support. Telling people not to vote is almost the same as saying that don't trust democracy.
That's not for you, a company, or political entity to decide though. You have the right to also not vote, and express your political opinion as to why you're not voting, and why others may not want to either.
By allowing their platform to be used for a propagandistic disinformation campaign Twitter would be allowing someone else to do exactly that. Some organization wanted to create the illusion of a broad Democratic movement to not vote as a way to persuade other Democrats to not vote. Twitter affirmed that they do not want their platform used in that way.
If you want to blab on Twitter about your awesome plan to not vote, I doubt you’ll have any issues from Twitter itself. Some of your followers might think you’re a little dopey, but that’s entirely their right.
I have a big problem with this whole voting discussion right now, and that problem is fear, blame and shame being used to get people to vote.
What about asking them to vote?
How about there being something positive, compelling to vote for?
The whole frame is odd. Votes are expected, but not required, yet we tell people they have to vote whether or not they find their vote meaningful.
No confidence, opposed to policy visions on the table is a completely valid position to take.
For others, who may be impacted in a negative way to blame people already being impacted in a negative way for refusing to approve or consent, validate more of the same happening is pretty fucked up.
Why are we not having a discussion about why people are not voting in large numbers and what would bring them out to vote for?
Vote against is dominant right now. While that does tend to give us a way to move away from the worst, it does not give us a way to move toward better, just less worse.
Do not get me wrong, I have a full ticket vote lined up.
But, I am doing OK too. I have a clear vote againat argument to work with.
An awful lot of Americans do not. That simply is not clear to them, or it simply is not true.
I will point to the ever growing number of us in economic trouble as to why.
Seems to me leadership is not performing for way too many.
Debate that all you want. I may even agree with you.
It isnt about us. It is all about those people who have had enough, who do not experience the motivation to vote.
Slapping them with fear, blame and shame hardly seems productive.
I know how I respond to those things, and it is not pretty. How about you guys?
There are people out there trying to advance vote for, more positive politics. I think they are onto something personally.
Can anyone tell me: are all these accounts phone activated? I remember trying to setup multiple accounts on Twitter before (as a small experiment - I have too much free time) and was prompted for my phone number, where Twitter would then send a code to my phone for verification. I only had one burner sim at the time to use for one dedicated account. So I imagine whoever is behind these info ops has a lot of sim cards to use exclusively for Twitter? It boggles my mind how these people manage to setup so many accounts. They have to be buying sim cards in bulk.
No, the article’s about actual bots pretending to be Democrats saying they won’t vote at all. The article also notes the bots are likely American, not Russian. No one is being removed from Twitter for announcing their plans to vote GOP.
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[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 139 ms ] threadDear Twitter folks, it's not enough to just vanish a messenger after the message has already been delivered.
A private message would go a long way to quietly and personally telling us we have been duped.
While we like to refer to psychological wedges only working on “them”, there is a massive body of sociological / psychological research to show that we collectively are all vulnerable. Addressing it as the collective problem it is, versus an “it happens to them” phenomena, may have an impact on overall reception.
Twitter is being brazenly used as a propaganda tool by terrible actors with terrible agendas. It's infested with strange accounts of dubious authenticity - which I think is fairly obvious looking through the replies to prominent political accounts.
Look through Rebel HQ's Youtube interviews and you may be surprised to see that these "strange accounts" are probably just heavily brainwashed and weird Americans.
If they're referencing the satirical NPC accounts, then I have even more of a problem with it. If Twitter is going to engage in this type of censorship they should provide some transparency. It's extra concerning that it was the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committe pushing Twitter to do that. All the more reason to avoid the impression of impropriety.
https://www.marketscreener.com/TWITTER-INC-38965267/news/Exc...
So yes, they’re pretty much banning satire and jokes not aligned with the Democrats.
This article is not about deleting accounts of normal human users. It’s about halting coordinated propaganda campaigns.
When Twitter or Facebook talk about automated accounts, I believe the people saying that have good (but naive) intentions (in short, I don't think they have much grasp of classical liberal theory or philosophy regarding free speech), but what they actually mean in practice seems to be this: "Only bots display X communication pattern, this account shows a similar communication pattern, therefore this account is a bot." In short, they work backwards. They don't determine something's a bot and then nuke it (they do that too, but that's not what these mass bannings and reporting of it are all about). They observe offensive communications, and if that fits into a certain pattern, the communications alone prove the account is a bot.
I'm sure they do ban bots, true bots, to the best of their ability, with automated detection that blocks signups or blocks accounts from communicating when it can determine that there's unauthorized bot-like behavior on the protocol/timing level. That's not what this is about. This is about (semi-)manually blocking of "bots" based on communication content after their automated detection couldn't be sure the account was a bot. How do you think they know they're bots? If someone held a serious penalty over their heads, and told them if they blocked a single non-bot claiming it's a bot, and got it wrong, they'd be in trouble, do you think any of these "bots" would be blocked?
I'm not even saying they're not bots (I can't know), but that those companies aren't as certain that they're banning bots as you assume they are.
"Bots" seems to have become a code word that also includes agent provocateurs, whether they're Russian operatives or people in some Asian sweat shop being paid to retweet certain things. Newspeak, much? And if you label them truthfully, not as bots, but as propagandists, you have a huge problem because banning based on propaganda is done selectively — provocateurs with some agendas are banned, but others are not.
Do we agree that harmful inaccurate information should be screened for and eliminated?
That leads to a follow-up question: how do you screen for inaccurate information at scale?
What prevents them from removing say, any information about workers rights because THEY deem it harmful? This is a very dangerous road to go down, that leads right to fascism.
Try not to set up thousands of automated accounts to express your opinion for you. You should be fine.
They provide no example accounts either, so you will never know if it's accurate. It's entirely possible they deleted legitimate accounts of real individuals at the behest of the DCCC.
It prevents people from performing analysis on deleted tweets. This type of data is VERY VERY valuable for this purpose but their ToS requires you to delete a post from your index if the user deletes the post.
Source: Personal knowledge of people expressing dissent who have had accounts removed on a variety of platforms, not just Twitter.
(I'm not saying either side is better)
Key word: automated.
If you want to blab on Twitter about your awesome plan to not vote, I doubt you’ll have any issues from Twitter itself. Some of your followers might think you’re a little dopey, but that’s entirely their right.
What's wrong with saying that? Do you think someone's account should be banned for saying they don't trust democracy?
I have a big problem with this whole voting discussion right now, and that problem is fear, blame and shame being used to get people to vote.
What about asking them to vote?
How about there being something positive, compelling to vote for?
The whole frame is odd. Votes are expected, but not required, yet we tell people they have to vote whether or not they find their vote meaningful.
No confidence, opposed to policy visions on the table is a completely valid position to take.
For others, who may be impacted in a negative way to blame people already being impacted in a negative way for refusing to approve or consent, validate more of the same happening is pretty fucked up.
Why are we not having a discussion about why people are not voting in large numbers and what would bring them out to vote for?
Vote against is dominant right now. While that does tend to give us a way to move away from the worst, it does not give us a way to move toward better, just less worse.
Do not get me wrong, I have a full ticket vote lined up.
But, I am doing OK too. I have a clear vote againat argument to work with.
An awful lot of Americans do not. That simply is not clear to them, or it simply is not true.
I will point to the ever growing number of us in economic trouble as to why.
Seems to me leadership is not performing for way too many.
Debate that all you want. I may even agree with you.
It isnt about us. It is all about those people who have had enough, who do not experience the motivation to vote.
Slapping them with fear, blame and shame hardly seems productive.
I know how I respond to those things, and it is not pretty. How about you guys?
There are people out there trying to advance vote for, more positive politics. I think they are onto something personally.
All propaganda, or just some specific kinds?
Quick, remove them, it's a Russian bot!