
United States Senate Committee Testimony of Twitter's Acting General Counsel - malvosenior
https://www.lgraham.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/4766f54d-d433-4055-9f3d-c94f97eeb1c0/testimony-of-sean-edgett-acting-general-counsel-twitter.pdf
======
ohashi
"Before the election, we also detected and took action on activity relating to
hashtags that have since been reported as manifestations of efforts to
interfere with the 2016 election. For example, our automated spam detection
systems helped mitigate the impact of automated Tweets promoting the
#PodestaEmails hashtag, which originated with Wikileaks’ publication of
thousands of emails from the Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s Gmail
account. The core of the hashtag was propagated by Wikileaks, whose account
sent out a series of 118 original Tweets containing variants on the hashtag
#PodestaEmails referencing the daily installments of the emails released on
the Wikileaks website. In the two months preceding the election, around 57,000
users posted approximately 426,000 unique Tweets containing variations of the
#PodestaEmails hashtag. Approximately one quarter (25%) of those Tweets
received internal tags from our automation detection systems that hid them
from searches. As described in greater detail below, our systems detected and
hid just under half (48%) of the Tweets relating to variants of another
notable hashtag, #DNCLeak, which concerned the disclosure of leaked emails
from the Democratic National Committee. These steps were part of our general
efforts at the time to fight automation and spam on our platform across all
areas."

Relevant portion based on title. Part of an anti-spam effort.

~~~
cabaalis
I've never understood Twitter's "anti-spam" effort. The only "spam" I've ever
seen on twitter is when someone I am following likes another tweet, or it
tells me I should follow someone because someone I'm following follows them.
I'm not interested in either of those suggestions. I'm only interested in what
the exact account I'm following tweets or retweets, because I decided to
follow it.

It seems to me that if the system worked as intended, I would see none of this
mess because I'm not interested in following the bots. They can tweet away all
they want, hundreds of thousand of them, to crickets.

I would venture to say that the "spam" is less of a problem for what users
really want and more of a problem for their efforts that try to increase user
retention/engagement and therefore ad rev.

~~~
wesleytodd
I just recently learned you can hide retweets from your timeline for an
individual user. I don't think you can turn off the likes, but that would be a
good addition.

~~~
dmix
I believe the "don't show retweets for x user" feature is limited to the web
interface and is not available in the mobile/desktop apps, which is basically
the only way I consume Twitter. Which is disappointing. I may be wrong here (I
hope).

~~~
porfirium
You are wrong, it is available in the apps as well.

------
microcolonel
As a Twitter lover, it's been a real letdown to see them sacrifice objectivity
and fairness at the altar of political correctness. The platform is so
seriously broken by their attempts to censor things they deem unpleasant. I
have tried my best to turn off all of their content filtering features, but
they still sometimes censor replies to my own replies. You can sometimes see
the actual number of replies to a tweet next to the reply button, but can not
actually see them at all.

At the same time, they have not done anything to reduce certain types of spam,
such as the repeated reply chains under the President's tweets, which can so
easily be identified as spam by the fact that they are unrelated to the
parent, and appear in the same order under a number of parent tweets.

It's a total mess.

Added: I went back to find an example of the spam chains to reply to
Srslyjosh, but I'm pleasantly surprised that they seem to have finally
eliminated them. I withdraw that specific criticism I guess.

~~~
ivraatiems
This isn't about the right-wing dogwhistle of "political correctness" at all.
It's about not letting networks of fake users (bots and/or individuals
claiming to be someone they aren't) spread false information with no input
from real people. There are plenty of real, unrestricted "politically
incorrect" people on Twitter right now. The difference - as it pertains to
this discussion - is that they are real people, not robot armies paid for by
foreign adversaries.

Yes, some of them have been banned, and sometimes the reasons for those bans
are dubious because Twitter does not consistently enforce their policies. But
that is a separate issue from what's under discussion here.

~~~
adrxyz
Never have I heard the expression "dog whistle" more than in the last two
years, always regarding politics, and always from liberals chastising
conservatives. It's like their "in group" slang.

~~~
ivraatiems
Sure, I'm a liberal and I agree. What's your point?

------
jaytaylor
I noticed this during that time and reported on my observations [1]. I'm glad
to see there is a followup inquiry, even if it's over a year later.

The core issue I had back then still seems unclear. When I noticed the oddity,
the #DNCLeak hashtag was being hidden / censored (at 3 tweets / sec), and
during the same time the pro-democrat hashtag #RNCinCLE was trending strongly
(at 12 tweets / min).

In this document, is twitter saying it was simply their spam detection and
prevention efforts that caused the #DNCLeak to be hidden (and not any ulterior
or political motives)?

[1] [http://scala.sh/twitter-censorship-20160724/](http://scala.sh/twitter-
censorship-20160724/)

~~~
mjcl
> pro-democrat hashtag #RNCinCLE

What? That was the official hashtag, being promoted by Twitter [1].

[1] [https://imgur.com/a/7SX7j](https://imgur.com/a/7SX7j)

------
teraflop
Note that, contrary to what the HN title implies, Twitter doesn't say it
specifically targeted those hashtags or hid them entirely. The testimony
mentions them as examples of tags that were associated with a significant
number of bot/spam tweets.

~~~
sctb
Yes, we've updated the title from the submitted “Twitter testifies to hiding
#DNCLeak and #PodestaEmails during election”.

~~~
iaw
I hit "flag" and the title was already changed.

------
harryf
So Twitters explanation seems to be "Posts related to #PodestaEmails and
#DNCLeak appeared to be being generated by automated systems and were
therefore handled as spam"

> Before the election, we also detected and took action on activity relating
> to hashtags that have since been reported as manifestations of efforts to
> interfere with the 2016 election. For example, our automated spam detection
> systems helped mitigate the impact of automated Tweets promoting the
> #PodestaEmails hashtag, which originated with Wikileaks’ publication of
> thousands of emails from the Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s Gmail
> account. The core of the hashtag was propagated by Wikileaks, whose account
> sent out a series of 118 original Tweets containing variants on the hashtag
> #PodestaEmails referencing the daily installments of the emails released on
> the Wikileaks website. In the two months preceding the election, around
> 57,000 users posted approximately 426,000 unique Tweets containing
> variations of the #PodestaEmails hashtag. Approximately one quarter (25%) of
> those Tweets received internal tags from our automation detection systems
> that hid them from searches. As described in greater detail below, our
> systems detected and hid just under half (48%) of the Tweets relating to
> variants of another notable hashtag, #DNCLeak, which concerned the
> disclosure of leaked emails from the Democratic National Committee. These
> steps were part of our general efforts at the time to fight automation and
> spam on our platform across all areas.

------
kadenshep
Can an admin/mod or whatever change the title? It's blatantly disingenuous if
not out right dishonest.

~~~
plandis
“United States Senate Committee Testimony of Twitter's Acting General Counsel”
seems accurate to me. Why do you think this is a dishonest title?

~~~
sctb
We changed it (see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15613023](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15613023)).

------
Boothroid
The consolation is that the internet probably has far less influence on voters
than Twitter etc. would have you think.

~~~
Knufen
I don't think you could be more wrong.

Edit:
[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7415/full/nature1...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7415/full/nature11421.html)

~~~
Boothroid
One reference only does not an argument make.

~~~
Knufen
Well considering that you made the original claim, the burden of proof is on
you. A simple Google search will also show you are wrong.

~~~
Boothroid
The article isn't accessible so I cannot examine the methodology. Have you
read it in full?

~~~
gruez
[https://sci-hub.io/10.1038/nature11421](https://sci-
hub.io/10.1038/nature11421)

~~~
Boothroid
Doesn't your link infringe copyright?

'Sci-Hub is a website with over 62 million academic papers and articles
available for direct download.[2] It bypasses publisher paywalls by allowing
access through educational institution proxies.'

------
patrickg_zill
If they had taken similar action against the provably bot-ridden tags of some
of the pro-Hillary hashtags... they would have mentioned it in an effort to
appear fair and balanced.

It's a case of "the dog that didn't bark" showing up their actions: Twitter
has shown they are biased.

~~~
kadenshep
Or maybe, now hear me out, there wasn't a reason or motive to have bots
propagate pro-Hillary hashtags. Almost seems too simple to be true.

~~~
patrickg_zill
More like "too simple to be believed"... and easily seen on Twitter, by
examining tweeters of Hillary's tweets and noticing that for instance, 10 or
more accounts that simultaneously retweeted all had precisely the same number
of tweets, in the thousands, and less than 10 followers apiece.

More accessible, however, is simply to notice that the testimony was being
given to a government where the House, Senate, and Presidency are all
Republican. If Twitter could have shown their even headedness, they would have
done so.

~~~
kadenshep
You're just making stuff up, which is far worse than anecdotal data by itself.

~~~
patrickg_zill
Wilful blindness doesn't suit you.

You can very easily find plenty of mainstream media news articles about
Hillary's million plus fake followers, and you can look at election era tweets
and retweets yourself.

~~~
kadenshep
Reports and stories are not the same as evidence. Go ahead and start providing
credible sources and you might actually have a point.

~~~
patrickg_zill
2015 (before election even got into high gear)

Hillary's fake followers:
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3038621/More-2-MILLI...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3038621/More-2-MILLION-
Hillary-Clinton-s-Twitter-followers-fake-never-tweet.html) (many variations of
this story on various sites)

early 2016: [http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2016/04/28/in-world-of-
intern...](http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2016/04/28/in-world-of-internet-
fame-social-media-followers-arent-always-what-they-seem/)

Obvious evidence of Hillary re-tweet fakery:

[http://sadbottrue.com/article/chapter-28-hillarys-junk-
bot-r...](http://sadbottrue.com/article/chapter-28-hillarys-junk-bot-
retweeters/)

[http://sadbottrue.com/article/chapter-27-order-followers-
for...](http://sadbottrue.com/article/chapter-27-order-followers-for-hillary/)

PS:
[https://www.twitteraudit.com/HillaryClinton](https://www.twitteraudit.com/HillaryClinton)

~~~
kadenshep
Yeah, I'm sorry, you must have been confused when I said reports and stories
are not the same as evidence. And then you linked to the daily mail of all
things. And the most credible report you linked to was just completely
unhelpful to the point you're trying to make.

Don't bother me with your unmitigated stupidity again.

~~~
patrickg_zill
You want to be a sheep, it's your choice.

~~~
kadenshep
You are literally saying nothing of substance.

