I'm not going to "rush to judgment", but will take a "wait and see" approach. That said, as I said on this other related thread (which was unfortunately flagged to death)[1]:
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I'm not going to up and close my Twitter account for no reason, but I did just finally get around to opening an account on a Mastodon server. I've been meaning to start moving more to the Fediverse[2] anyway, so this isn't a complete knee-jerk thing. But all the recent brouhaha over Elon buying Twitter did serve as sort of a nudge to finally take some action in that regard.
I do eventually intend to (at least mostly) wind down my use of all "walled garden" sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc., but I will probably do so gradually. And I may leave the accounts open and populated with a bot that periodically posts a reminder of where I can be found, or something. Not sure yet.
I'm just confused as to why it's not even on the front page of HN.
I was expecting a story with 500 votes and 1000 comments. But it's just crickets. I scrolled through "new", there are a handful of stories with like 5-10 votes and 1-5 comments.
Where is the conversation around this? It's the top headline on the NYT, and here nobody's upvoting anything around it.
Thanks! Interesting -- the top post (156 points, 102 comments, from 14 hours ago) is now ranked #191, you have to go to page 7. Stories don't normally sink that quickly.
In contrast, for example, currently "Artificial Intelligence: The Revolution Hasn’t Happened Yet (2018)" is 68 points from 13 hours ago with 79 comments... and is ranked #41, on the 2nd page. Similarly, "What Is Code? (2015)" is 104 points, 37 comments, 14 hours ago, and ranked #46. This is normal ranking.
So clearly the mods intentionally applied a penalty ranking here (happens all the time) because they don't want it staying on the front page, where it would be seen and keep attracting upvotes and comments. Honestly wouldn't have guessed they'd want to dissuade discussion on this story.
I also didn’t know about this. There’s a problem with features like these - casual user doesn’t even realize it exists, but motivated actors can easily exploit it to correct the conversation.
`flag` is visible on the submission list pages underneath the submission title. It's not hidden in any way. Next to it is also `hide` which is what most people should use for content they're not interested in but that may be appropriate for the site overall. `hide` is also not hidden.
> The basic algorithm divides points by a power of the time since a story was submitted. Comments in threads are ranked the same way.
> Other factors affecting rank include user flags, anti-abuse software, software which demotes overheated discussions, account or site weighting, and moderator action.
To be fair, "flag" is short for "flag for review for removal by moderators", and has been for decades on internet forums. Making flags also downvote is counterintuitive, to say the least.
And people don't usually read the FAQ to double-check that basic forum features work in the intuitive way. :)
What is there to even talk about or discuss? A rich man bought a social network. How is that going to affect my life? Who cares (outside of Twitter employees)?
a lot of people care. but at this point we're only speculating and this has been done previously in the numerous bouts of this purchase. I believe that is why there is no real banger post on HN rn.
Its a headline because of profits. The actual news is 1 sentence conveying "transaction completed". I wish traditional media would relegate stuff like this to their business section but they are profit seeking as well.
Well, if he unbans the former president it has the potential to literally change the outcome of the next presidential election.
Not saying either of those are going to happen, but the probability is large enough that it could actually wind up affecting your life quite a lot.
Not to mention this has a good chance of becoming the biggest free speech "test" of our lifetime (whether you think that's good or bad), which may affect moderation elsewhere as well as laws around them, which could easily directly you affect you as well.
Does that answer your questions? I mean, there's a reason it's the top front-page news story on the NY Times. Because of the democratic and free speech implications that could affect pretty much everyone.
I doubt this reply will be allowed, I'll type it anyway.
Anyone pro-elon-twitter is being brigaded and isn't allowed to speak. I suspect the opposite is true as well. Therefore the subject isn't going to make the front page. It's just a battlefield of shooting at each other and no discussion can be had. Therefore HN downranks it.
It's remarkable to me to see this as well. I expected Hackers to see this positively.
Honestly there is so much improvement possible to current Twitter site that I don't see how Elon could make things worse. Be it advertising, moderation or just fighting spam there is a lot to be done. Also expect some cryptocurrency shenanigans as well given Dogecoin is +40% since last week.
I heard he plans to opensource the moderation algorithms. At least that is a good thing against bias, or at least it is for transparency. I'll just see, I don't even use Twitter, I'm mostly annoyed by how it suddenly slaps me in the face with that sign-up screen and you can't even scroll back anymore. If he changes that, that would be nice.
Are the moderation algorithms grokkable? There are probably a number of different layers, but I assume the real meat is just a bunch of obscure ML weighting.
Good article discusses possibilities, mainly around potential for new lack of employee attention resulting in threats to the product (stability and quality), it's legal compliance, and its users (safety and privacy) increasing in severity and frequency.
Twitter is special among all social networks. It’s text based (unlike Instagram/TikTok), not tied to your real identity (like FB), but has a powerful social graph.
I don’t know what could replace it if it went away. If the users I care about go, they’ll go to Mastodon, Instagram, private Slacks, and some will flat out stop.
They’ll never be in one place again. I won’t be able to get random nuggets of jokes or really interesting threads by experts or do many other things I love about Twitter.
Metcalf’s law is too powerful. It is, for better or worse, irreplaceable. It has its problems but Twitter still feels like bits of the old “fun” internet to me that we’ve lost in so many other ways.
I don’t want to lose it, but I have little confidence it will remain.
- sizeable headcount reduction, revenue per employee is so far out of line with other tech companies that I simply do not see him avoiding it. META 1.5mio USD, GOOG 1.7, TWTR 700k. There might be a discussion as to why it should be lower, but it cannot be half of META. 30-40% minimum as a start.
- Moderation to be reduced, but not as much as some people would hope.
- Where can people leave to? TikTok is the only real alternative but it still has the natsec issues. As much as a lot of people complain that they wouldn't want to be on a less regulated Twitter they have no place to leave to. So no user attrition IMO.
Moderation is important. I can’t imagine how those on the moderation team feel, letting repeat offenders back on the platform. My guess is most would rage quit
Don't really care. This has been "news" for too damn long and it will continue to be.
Twitter has both positively and negatively affected my life. I'm okay with whatever happens, I can't complain. If it gets bad, I'll stop using it. If it gets better, I'll start using it.
Twitter isn't a publicly traded company anymore but is still a company that can receive lawsuits. If anything will be changing they need to start with the Terms Of Service since that is the set of rules that a web company uses to govern users, what they do with their data, etc. and what might be challenged in courts.
If the TOS changes to allow a lot more content that was previously prohibited, un-ban users, etc. we may find out where actual laws may or may not apply to purely user driven content and what party can be held accountable should actions happen as the result of content.
I would expect him to do things to try and get back the $44B he spent/borrowed to purchase. Un-banning people could get more eyeballs and that is ad money. It may be a short term play to increase ad revenue, un-ban people, let them run amok to get more eyeballs until lawsuits or Federal organizations step in - with the goal of extracting as much of the $44B as he can.
If they built the ability to have private groups with a simple timeline based feed with ads on the side (i.e. not in the main feed) they could probably steal a ton of users from FB. Go back to basics - people wanting to share things with people they know while also allowing them to view the circus that is public social media. I would be very surprised if this happens. I'm more expecting what I said above - let people run amok until some entity says no or the lawsuit settlements are greater than the run amok profits.
Another thing which I expect to happen (in order to drive revenue up) would be more Facebook-like approach of walled garden, that you won't be able to even see tweets, unless you are logged in. If I am not wrong, then goodbye Nitter.
After the Alex Jones verdict, can't they just get sued into oblivion for allowing xyz speech? Or more formally, on a long enough timeline it will revert to what it was because of lawsuits and threats of lawsuits.
I probably missed something, but didn't Alex lose because he didn't comply with discovery? My understanding was they never got as far as figuring out if his speach was a problem.
But Alex Jones was quite a bit more than just "speech someone doesn't like". It was publicly saying what is factually false, that defamed/slandered people, repeatedly, for a decade.
There's a reason why libel and slander laws are on the books. That stuff wasn't protected. The Alex Jones ruling didn't change that.
It was a real school shooting. Kids really died. That's fact, not just "data and interpretation".
Alex Jones lied about that. They were really lies, not just "interpretations".
You sound like you don't like that. I'm not sure if it's because you believe Alex Jones, or because you don't like the idea of "fact" and "truth", or what. But some things are actually true, and others are actually false, whether you like that or not.
P.S. Calling someone's position "for elementary school" is not actually an argument. In fact, it's the kind of arguing that would be found in a junior high, even if they use different insults there.
afaik Alex Jones came to the conclusion that Sandy Hook was a psy-op (then I think he changed his mind later); anyone who was not directly involved is simply interpreting video footage. I don't love or hate Alex Jones; I think you play fast and loose with the words "truth" and "facts" and you don't know Jones intentions, so it seems unjust to call him "deliberately lying".
50 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 118 ms ] thread---
I'm not going to up and close my Twitter account for no reason, but I did just finally get around to opening an account on a Mastodon server. I've been meaning to start moving more to the Fediverse[2] anyway, so this isn't a complete knee-jerk thing. But all the recent brouhaha over Elon buying Twitter did serve as sort of a nudge to finally take some action in that regard.
I do eventually intend to (at least mostly) wind down my use of all "walled garden" sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc., but I will probably do so gradually. And I may leave the accounts open and populated with a bot that periodically posts a reminder of where I can be found, or something. Not sure yet.
---
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33367063
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse
I was expecting a story with 500 votes and 1000 comments. But it's just crickets. I scrolled through "new", there are a handful of stories with like 5-10 votes and 1-5 comments.
Where is the conversation around this? It's the top headline on the NYT, and here nobody's upvoting anything around it.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=last24h&page=0&prefix=fals...
In contrast, for example, currently "Artificial Intelligence: The Revolution Hasn’t Happened Yet (2018)" is 68 points from 13 hours ago with 79 comments... and is ranked #41, on the 2nd page. Similarly, "What Is Code? (2015)" is 104 points, 37 comments, 14 hours ago, and ranked #46. This is normal ranking.
So clearly the mods intentionally applied a penalty ranking here (happens all the time) because they don't want it staying on the front page, where it would be seen and keep attracting upvotes and comments. Honestly wouldn't have guessed they'd want to dissuade discussion on this story.
See also this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33366830
And thanks for that (indeed, flagged) link too -- glad I'm not the only one who noticed the glaring absence of this story.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
> How are stories ranked?
> The basic algorithm divides points by a power of the time since a story was submitted. Comments in threads are ranked the same way.
> Other factors affecting rank include user flags, anti-abuse software, software which demotes overheated discussions, account or site weighting, and moderator action.
And people don't usually read the FAQ to double-check that basic forum features work in the intuitive way. :)
Ranking chart: https://hnrankings.info/33371297/
* Afaik, the only motions about closing the lawsuit are the ones on Oct 6th which was opposed by Twitter. [1]: https://law.justia.com/cases/delaware/court-of-chancery/2022...
Not saying either of those are going to happen, but the probability is large enough that it could actually wind up affecting your life quite a lot.
Not to mention this has a good chance of becoming the biggest free speech "test" of our lifetime (whether you think that's good or bad), which may affect moderation elsewhere as well as laws around them, which could easily directly you affect you as well.
Does that answer your questions? I mean, there's a reason it's the top front-page news story on the NY Times. Because of the democratic and free speech implications that could affect pretty much everyone.
Anyone pro-elon-twitter is being brigaded and isn't allowed to speak. I suspect the opposite is true as well. Therefore the subject isn't going to make the front page. It's just a battlefield of shooting at each other and no discussion can be had. Therefore HN downranks it.
It's remarkable to me to see this as well. I expected Hackers to see this positively.
Why do you think HN is so divided?
Good article discusses possibilities, mainly around potential for new lack of employee attention resulting in threats to the product (stability and quality), it's legal compliance, and its users (safety and privacy) increasing in severity and frequency.
Twitter is special among all social networks. It’s text based (unlike Instagram/TikTok), not tied to your real identity (like FB), but has a powerful social graph.
I don’t know what could replace it if it went away. If the users I care about go, they’ll go to Mastodon, Instagram, private Slacks, and some will flat out stop.
They’ll never be in one place again. I won’t be able to get random nuggets of jokes or really interesting threads by experts or do many other things I love about Twitter.
Metcalf’s law is too powerful. It is, for better or worse, irreplaceable. It has its problems but Twitter still feels like bits of the old “fun” internet to me that we’ve lost in so many other ways.
I don’t want to lose it, but I have little confidence it will remain.
- Moderation to be reduced, but not as much as some people would hope.
- Where can people leave to? TikTok is the only real alternative but it still has the natsec issues. As much as a lot of people complain that they wouldn't want to be on a less regulated Twitter they have no place to leave to. So no user attrition IMO.
Lifetime bans are pretty rare so once the ban expires the person is allowed back.
[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-28/musk-is-s...
Twitter has both positively and negatively affected my life. I'm okay with whatever happens, I can't complain. If it gets bad, I'll stop using it. If it gets better, I'll start using it.
If the TOS changes to allow a lot more content that was previously prohibited, un-ban users, etc. we may find out where actual laws may or may not apply to purely user driven content and what party can be held accountable should actions happen as the result of content.
I would expect him to do things to try and get back the $44B he spent/borrowed to purchase. Un-banning people could get more eyeballs and that is ad money. It may be a short term play to increase ad revenue, un-ban people, let them run amok to get more eyeballs until lawsuits or Federal organizations step in - with the goal of extracting as much of the $44B as he can.
If they built the ability to have private groups with a simple timeline based feed with ads on the side (i.e. not in the main feed) they could probably steal a ton of users from FB. Go back to basics - people wanting to share things with people they know while also allowing them to view the circus that is public social media. I would be very surprised if this happens. I'm more expecting what I said above - let people run amok until some entity says no or the lawsuit settlements are greater than the run amok profits.
Kanye Will 'Learn What It's Like To Be' Alex Jones Amid George Floyd Suit https://www.newsweek.com/kanye-west-alex-jones-george-floyd-...
As others pointed out, the discovery was to produce something that didn't exist.
But Alex Jones was quite a bit more than just "speech someone doesn't like". It was publicly saying what is factually false, that defamed/slandered people, repeatedly, for a decade.
There's a reason why libel and slander laws are on the books. That stuff wasn't protected. The Alex Jones ruling didn't change that.
Alex Jones lied about that. They were really lies, not just "interpretations".
You sound like you don't like that. I'm not sure if it's because you believe Alex Jones, or because you don't like the idea of "fact" and "truth", or what. But some things are actually true, and others are actually false, whether you like that or not.
P.S. Calling someone's position "for elementary school" is not actually an argument. In fact, it's the kind of arguing that would be found in a junior high, even if they use different insults there.