
Twitter apologizes for 'Kill all Jews' trending topic - mudil
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/414571-twitter-apologizes-for-kill-all-jews-trending-topic
======
smacktoward
The problem is using "trending" as a content discovery algorithm in the first
place.

"Trending" just means that the topic is being referenced by the largest volume
of accounts. Even if you can say with certainty that every one of your
accounts represents an actual, legitimate person, you still have the problem
that all "trending" does is surface content that's preferred by whichever of
your users can mobilize the biggest angry mob. And if you _can 't_ say that
with certainty (which bot-flooded Twitter absolutely cannot), "trending"
becomes a wide open battlefield, trivially subject to exploitation by whoever
has the largest budget for sock puppets.

"Trending" isn't an editorial strategy. It is the _abdication_ of editorial
strategy. It's being asked by Twitter among others to do much more than it is
capable of doing, and their users suffer as a result.

~~~
tomp
> "Trending" isn't an editorial strategy. It is the abdication of editorial
> strategy.

Not sure I understand your point. “Trending” is exactly what it says on the
cover. On the other hand, calling topics picked by the editor trending would
be a bit of a perversion of the meaning of the word, no?

~~~
marmaduke
Patent means that editors should help people find new content, not an ML
algorithm under the guise of editorial effort

~~~
tomp
I partially agree; I see value in both.

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adamrezich
>"At times, we do prevent certain content from trending and we have now done
so with this trend."

Really? "At times?" I was under the impression that trending topics haven't
been allowed to appear without human oversight in quite awhile.

~~~
fweespeech
Yeah, that isn't correct.

They react when they see an issue rather than proactively restrict it.

~~~
adamrezich
Well if it's not what they're doing already they really ought to think about
it. Twitter is supposed to be the "safe" micro-blog social network, where one
gives up complete free speech in exchange for being shielded from extremist
hate speech. The supposed benefit of using Twitter over complete-free-speech
alternatives like Gab or certain Mastodon instances is, users are supposed to
be shielded from the extreme hate speech that is permitted on those other
platforms. If they can't deliver on this to the point where users are seeing
"Kill all Jews" trending, then the only edge Twitter has over its competitors
is user count, and that is subject to change if they fail to deliver on their
other supposed advantage.

Basically if you tell me the reason Twitter is better than Gab et al. is that
you don't see hate speech on Twitter because that's their policy, yet a user
logs in and sees the most blatant stereotypical hate speech possible trending
right there at the top of the page, you're not really selling me on what you
tell me is supposedly better about your service.

~~~
gowld
Who said Twitter was "safe"? Twitter blocks some of the extreme end, but not
nearly enough to call it "safe". Twitter hosts credible threats by people who
have attempted murder, like the recent pipe-mail-bomber.

~~~
adamrezich
They've been trying to position themselves as "safe" for years now with their
"Trust & Safety Council" and other such nonsense. They repeatedly use "safe"
and "safety" in their press releases about their new policies.

The replies to my previous comment including yours seem to be missing the
point: of _course_ Twitter doesn't remotely begin to deliver on any of these
promises of "safety," yet Twitter is still presented as the "safe" alternative
to Gab et al. Personally I don't mind seeing "hate speech" because a.) I see
hate speech about my own race, sex, and religion on a nearly daily basis at
this point and b.) I realize that "deplatforming hate" doesn't do anything but
cause it to coalesce elsewhere.

By showing that Twitter isn't as "safe" as they claim to be, I'm questioning
why we're continuing to use it instead of either a completely-free-speech or a
better-curated actually-more-"safe" alternative.

------
Endama
Twitter needs some kind of negative feedback mechanism to allow for the
discovery algorithm to correct for the sentiment of users. A downvote,
dislike, un-heart, something along those lines, would be a good signal to
allow users to signify what kind of content they deem objectionable.

~~~
tomatotomato37
Downvote-type systems aren't that effective since they usually end up becoming
a "I disagree" button and multiply the effect of whatever mob is most active
at the moment. It's one of the reasons HN locks them behind a karma wall.

~~~
Yetanfou
Even that is not an effective way to avoid the negative effects of the
downvote button, especially not here on HN where it actually is meant to be
used as a "disagree" button:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171)

The "karma wall" only keeps the downvote option out of the hands of those who
follow short-lived "mobs", it does nothing to stave off the balkanisation of
the platform.

------
captainmuon
Another way to deal with this would be to not apologize, but to insist the
algorithms are imparital, and to _condemn their users_. Call a big press
conference and say, shit, we found that a big portion of our users are
antisemites. Put that trending topic behind a trigger warning and maybe add
content disclaimers to antisemite's pages. They could say they are protecting
freedom of speech, but also the other side of the medal - freedom to call out
positions you find wrong.

I understand of course that that ship has sailed.

Howver, I also believe that the strategy of "keeping the lid on" positions
that are hateful or morally undesirable does not work long term. It was
completely unthinkable and taboo to voice nazi positions in public in post
WW2-Germany, it is even forbidden by law. But this did not irradicate Nazi
thought, it just pushed it underground. And look, suddenly with some
historical distance it is coming out again. Same in the US with people running
around in KKK hoods and waving the confederate flag. Of course, racism was
never gone or solved (no matter what we thought as white kids growing up in
the 90s), but now it seems to be OK again to be openly racist in certain
circles.

To tie it back to the topic, I believe we should not sweep positions we find
horrible under the carpet, by saying they are taboo, and pretending we (e.g.
Twitter) are impartial and unpolitical. Rather, we have to endure that people
hold these positions, and speak out against them. Even if that means that we
no longer are "politically neutral".

~~~
gowld
You contradict yourselves. Anti-hate-speech laws and culture suppressed the
spread of ideas. That's the concept of "chilling effects" (from the other
side). If suppressing speech didn't matter, no one would be worried about it
being suppressed.

With the rise of _non-suppressed_ hate speech on Reddit and Twitter and Fox
News and the like, we saw a _resurgence_ of terrorism in the US, terrorism
which was very clearly inspired by the hate speech (specifically, it's
conspiracy theories) and spread ideas that people wouldn't have thought up on
their own.

~~~
captainmuon
I'd say it suppressed the _expression_ of ideas, but it was not successful
enough to suppress the _spread_. It certainly did not extinguish the ideas.

I would not say right wing terrorism was only inspired by recent online hate
speech. The US always had militias, people like Timothy McVeigh, white
supremacists, and so on. However, I think that social media made it impossible
to "keep the lid on" these ideas. Before we could censor this pretty good in
the mass media, but then mass media and mainstream society lost their monopoly
of interpretation. Now people with nasty ideas realize they are not alone and
come out, and organize.

------
msie
The Trending Topic is so bad sometimes. The other day I saw that #davies was
trending and the article presented by Twitter was some marriage news of some
unknown couple. It was really trending because of a soccer phenom playing his
last game in Vancouver before heading to the big leagues.

~~~
pkulak
I would contend that MLS is the big leagues. :(

~~~
moate
I would argue that it's the Major League of Soccer in fact!

------
Wavelets
Man, Twitter seems to be eating a lot of crow lately in this domain. They came
out swinging against regulation/"censorship" of their users... but this is
getting out of hand. Twitter, Facebook, etc. need to start taking some
responsibility here or someone is going to do it for them (i.e. the
government).

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MrZongle2
Note that they said nothing about being sorry for being a platform that
facilitates hate, just that _it showed up as a topic_.

~~~
twblalock
Any platform that facilitates people saying what they want to say is going to
facilitate hate speech, because some people are racists.

The platforms can try to prevent that, and Twitter does try. But it is simply
not possible to catch everything unless every single tweet is reviewed by a
human censor. That won't scale, but even if it did, the censors would not
always be trustworthy.

Some people seem to be convinced that we can have large social platforms free
of hate speech and fake news. It's not possible, because of the users.

~~~
gowld
Users have been begging Twitter to try to build abuse controls for years, to
deaf hears.

~~~
camdenlock
I don't understand this argument. Haven't they done just this over the past 4
years or so? Enhanced blocking and muting controls, etc.

What more needs to be done? It's up to individuals to curate their own social
environments.

