djmich
Footballguy
Why do you need AI to protect free speech? That sounds like needing police to help make sure I'm saying the right thing.
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Twitter and Elon Musk (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Joe Bryant
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Distinguishing between allowable speech and prohibited propaganda requires attention, and humans don't read fast enough.
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Agreed. But this is another area where I think Musk would have an advantage here. He's obviously hyper intelligent but he's also struck me as practical.
And when you have relatively unlimited money to put towards a problem, things are easier to solve. So until the AI is there, maybe it's Musk putting 1000 times more humans doing the work that what Twitter allocated to the project.
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djmich
Footballguy
I hear you, but if we're worried about "propaganda" as the source of angst then AI isn't going to help. One person's propaganda is another person's truth, the best cpu picking a side isn't going to change human minds.
I think AI could help. Some claims are supported by decent evidence and other claims are not. Some sources are generally reliable and others are not. A fairly simple AI could take a list of human-curated sources that are deemed reliable or unreliable (it could just lazily borrow the list from Wikipedia) and then check to see if a potentially viral claim is consistent with the universe of reliable sources. A harder project for an AI would be to evaluate sources for their reliability instead of using a human-curated list, and I don't think that's a hopeless dream.
Something like GPT-4 could get us on the right track. Check out the improvement of GPT-3 over GPT-2 and then consider that GPT-4 is expected to be released this summer.
If it were easy, Twitter or somebody else would have already done it. It wouldn't be easy. But Elon Musk exists to do things that aren't easy.
At the very least, an AI should be able to weed out -- or at least avoid specifically promoting -- flat earth stuff and the like. (Flat earth stuff was being promoted hugely by YouTube algorithms for a while. Good discussion of that in the book Off the Edge. And Facebook, the book continues, was worse.)
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Dinsy Ejotuz
Footballguy
Pretty sure you just lost like 92.7% of the audience that wants Musk to build a new platform.
And to be clear, I am not at all suggesting that a social media platform should have editorial standards similar to those of an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias are supposed to aim for containing only true statements. Posts on social media platforms are supposed to be crazy conjectures at lot of the time. Letting people make wrong statements on social media platforms is critical: that's how errors get corrected via lively discussion.
A good example of the kinds of posts that should be banned, aside from personal threats, is anything coming out of a Russian troll farm. They are not getting facts wrong by mistake. They are intentionally spreading misinformation. That should violate the terms of service on platforms where people are trying to avoid propaganda -- and there likely is a market for such platforms.
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Not so fast! Instead Elon raised his stake to 9.2% of Twitter and claimed a board seat.
Indications are that censorship, and specifically the Bee suspension, played a factor in the decision. Crazy times, lol.
Liberals Outraged To Learn 10% Of Twitter Now Owned By African-American
Already stirring it up with a poll asking about an edit button. Should be interesting. https://twitter.com/Football_Guys/status/1511301601138466816?s=20&t=dg5R6nyCjLoxSIBJsLab3w
Dr_Zaius
Footballguy
Given the ubiquitous use of Twitter by all media types, and given Musk's criticisms of some of Twitter's policies, seems like this might be a harbinger of changes that will effect media in the US. After announcing >9% share in Twitter, Musk joins board. He will be limited to owning less than 14.9% of the shares while a board member, so how much control he will ultimately have is unknown.
Thoughts? Significant? Nothingburger? Good? Bad? Curious as to people's take on this.
Thoughts? Significant? Nothingburger? Good? Bad? Curious as to people's take on this.
He’s been very critical of Twitter and feels it’s extremely important to reform it. Last night Tucker predicted that he’ll be called a racist very soon. 
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I think this is huge news by the way. He’s already on the Board. Change is acomin.
Elon Musk says he expects to make 'significant' changes to Twitter now that he's joining the company's board
Elon Musk says he expects to make 'significant' changes to Twitter now that he's joining the company's board
Merged the two threads.
Agrawal trying to put the happy face on it. Will be interesting.
https://twitter.com/paraga/status/1511320953598357505?s=20&t=PwVXcjqURaKdHxrKFfmgTg
https://twitter.com/paraga/status/1511320953598357505?s=20&t=PwVXcjqURaKdHxrKFfmgTg
He’s toast and he knows it. Couldn’t happen to a nicer fascist. Remember when he said this?
Our role is to serve a healthy public conversation and our moves are reflective of things that we believe lead to a healthier public conversation. The kinds of things that we do about this is, focus less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the times have changed. One of the changes today that we see is speech is easy on the internet. Most people can speak. Where our role is particularly emphasized is who can be heard.
GroveDiesel
Footballguy
Good luck to Musk. I think he’s about to find out just how hard it is to find out just how difficult it is to figure out the balance between free speech and allowing a cesspool to form that hurts society.
I’m not so sure that I’m going to place much hope to do the right thing in a guy who has used his enormous wealth and influence to benefit himself and slander others. I don’t really trust a narcissistic billionaire to have the best interests of society at large in mind.
I’m not so sure that I’m going to place much hope to do the right thing in a guy who has used his enormous wealth and influence to benefit himself and slander others. I don’t really trust a narcissistic billionaire to have the best interests of society at large in mind.
Dr_Zaius
Footballguy
Musk is interesting because I'm not sure that for the average person he codes along a red/blue axis. Richest American, electrical vehicle advancer, cryptocurrency, space exploration - these all cut different ways. Add in his penchant for making jokes about things most people think are serious, and I feel he's very polarizing, but not necessarily in the same way that, say Tucker Carlson or Rachel Maddow are.
Will be interesting for sure. The link for the quote. https://www.nationalreview.com/news/incoming-twitter-ceo-said-company-should-focus-less-on-free-speech/
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dkp993
Footballguy
He’s also on the second tier of the board seats so it’s not clear how much power or influence he will ultimately have. Feels like a way to give a “voice” to a 9% owner.
Anyone who owns 9% of a company wields an enormous amount of power. This is a huge deal.
dkp993
Footballguy
Of course, but the board will still do as the board wants. It’s not like Telsa or SpaceX that bends to his will. He will have A voice, not THE voice. That’s clear by his position on the board, in tier 2.
Desert_Power
Footballguy
Makes a ton of sense. Nobody has benefited from Trump being banned on Twitter more than Musk. He has a very similar means of promotion daily to drive his agenda.
It is a similar move to Bezos buying the Washington Post. Another massively rich person trying to secure positive media coverage.
It is a similar move to Bezos buying the Washington Post. Another massively rich person trying to secure positive media coverage.
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IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
Eh, Musk isn't perfect, but he's using his wealth to solve serious problems, namely getting us off fossil fuels and into space. If he wants to mix in a little PT Barnum, he's earned that right.
the moops
Footballguy
I don't think Musk was ever a liberal poster boy. Sure, his advancement of Tesla and EV's in general was amazing and a well applauded move by the left, but he has sort of been his own thing for a while now. And by own thing, I mean not a liberal or conservative, and not really embraced by either contingence
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krista4
Footballguy
Most public companies have classes of directors as an anti-takeover defense. All it means is that they are elected in staggered terms. Twitter, as is typical, has three classes that are elected so that each class comes up in every three-year period. It has nothing to do with powers or authority; every board member has the same authority, voting power, etc. as to the Board (setting aside powers that would come from Committee assignments).
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General Malaise
Footballguy
Grace Under Pressure
Footballguy
The “edit button” discussion is pretty fascinating. I get that typos are annoying, but the chance that edits get abused is problematic.
Leroy Hoard
Footballguy
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dkp993
Footballguy
quick-hands
Footballguy
Juxtatarot
Footballguy
Twitter isn’t going to make major changes to its moderation policies because of Musk. For example, they won’t change course and suddenly allow misgendering and deadnaming.
Captain Cranks
Footballguy
Sorry if this has been covered, but can someone explain to me how free speech pertains to a private enterprise like Twitter?
Here we go!
Yesterday he’s the green energy hero and today he’s a narcissistic billionaire creating a free speech cesspool. So predictable. He’ll be a racist by the end of next week. Book it.How about we try this? Create a narrow list of objective things you cannot do on Twitter, such as threatening violence; doxxing someone’s true identity, workplace or home address… And then let free speech and the marketplace of ideas sort out the rest. You know, the way things used to be before all this bias-laden censorship.
Elon Musk has made it very clear where he stands and what he is fighting against:
“Wokeness basically wants to make comedy illegal. Trying to shut down [Dave] Chappelle, come on, man, that’s crazy. Do we want a humorless society that is simply rife with condemnation and hate basically? At its heart, wokeness is divisive, exclusionary, and hateful. It basically gives mean people a shield to be mean and cruel, armored in false virtue.”
@timschochet - thoughts?
“Wokeness basically wants to make comedy illegal. Trying to shut down [Dave] Chappelle, come on, man, that’s crazy. Do we want a humorless society that is simply rife with condemnation and hate basically? At its heart, wokeness is divisive, exclusionary, and hateful. It basically gives mean people a shield to be mean and cruel, armored in false virtue.”
@timschochet - thoughts?
whoknew
Footballguy
Free speech is a concept. The First Amendment codifies that concept for the government.
So Twitter, as a private company, doesn't have to allow free speech at all. But many people believe they should adhere to the concept for the good of a free, open society.
On the subject of how impressive AI is getting at interacting with text, check this out from Google's language model. The AI is asked to explain jokes:
https://twitter.com/ATabarrok/status/1511329279669329926
It doesn’t. Which means Musk is free to take it over and give it his own Conservative bias. Just don’t complain if it happens.
From my standpoint I’ll be consistent and continue to say that Twitter and social media should be politically neutral.
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Juxtatarot
Footballguy
Because such an app sucks. Trolls, conspiracy theorists, bots, bigots, etc. run rampant and ruin the experience for others.ekbeats said:
Sucky apps don’t make money.
I think there are two immutable laws of the universe:
1. Any decent forum must enforce some rules of decorum.
2. Whatever the rules are, some people will violate them and decry their enforcement.
I think Twitter has done a decent job, but far from perfect. There have been way too many trolls and bots, IMO. But I think Twitter has been better than Facebook or YouTube. Maybe Musk's involvement can improve things further.
1. Any decent forum must enforce some rules of decorum.
2. Whatever the rules are, some people will violate them and decry their enforcement.
I think Twitter has done a decent job, but far from perfect. There have been way too many trolls and bots, IMO. But I think Twitter has been better than Facebook or YouTube. Maybe Musk's involvement can improve things further.
Simple solution - ban the people you don't want to hear from. And if these accounts are a bad as you say, sooner or later they will run afoul of the rules and get banned by twitter, and then they are SOAL. The one things Twitter does phenomenally well is make it extremely difficult for people to set up multiple aliases. You can't get a twitter handle without first providing a valid phone number - and that does NOT include burner phone numbers that online services offer.
GordonGekko
Footballguy
krista4 said:
That's not the long con here. Surprising you lost the context here, maybe all that yoga has dulled your hunting spear.
Based on previous whistleblowers to Congress, Facebook had to answer about the Tasks and Centra platform, where Big Social Media and Big Tech "coordinate" on their enforcement.
In effect, by buying into Twitter, Musk now also has nearly blanket immunity through Facebook (aka Meta), Google ( and everything under Alphabet), YouTube and Instagram.
Musk's ties with the military industrial complex shields him from Apple, Amazon and Microsoft.
Musk also has cult of personality on an international scale. That means like Oprah Winfrey, he has an army of devoted zealots to his "brand" that he can deploy with a force multiplier effect. His flaws are seen as "quirks of genius" He has direct unlimited access to the Western daily media cycle at will.
What Musk bought was total silence. AOC spends more than any other member of Congress on Facebook ads and social media advertising in general, exponentially so, and when she got caught lying about having people try to hunt her down and kill her in Katie Porter's office, Big Social Media made it go away and fast. Prager U spends more than any Conservative outlet with Big Social Media advertising and they also have near pure immunity. This is like any other business, it's a play to play format.
Media Optics 101 - "Show me who you can't criticize, that's who has real power"
The thing a lot of people seem to want is an edit button.
I would be in favor of what Gmail currently offers. If you choose it in your settings, you can delay the transmission of your message for 30 second (or whatever) after hitting send. During that time, you can undo the send and edit the message before resending. But after the message is actually transmitted, it is sent for good.
If you don't want your Tweet to be delayed before it's posted, proofread better.
Allowing people to change the content after it's posted would be terrible, IMO. (It works okay here, but I think it would be worse on Twitter.)
I would be in favor of what Gmail currently offers. If you choose it in your settings, you can delay the transmission of your message for 30 second (or whatever) after hitting send. During that time, you can undo the send and edit the message before resending. But after the message is actually transmitted, it is sent for good.
If you don't want your Tweet to be delayed before it's posted, proofread better.
Allowing people to change the content after it's posted would be terrible, IMO. (It works okay here, but I think it would be worse on Twitter.)
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It's so sad that our country has turned against free speech. It's upsetting really. Let the idiots talk. What the hell are you afraid of? You don't trust the American people to make the right decision? There's an old phrase, "When an idiot talks, the best thing to do is let him keep talking". When you censor speech you give these people oxygen. In a way you almost validate their position. It's nuts. Believe that freedom is a good thing and that people are equipped to deal with it.
