Twitter employee: a proactive, algorithmic solution to white supremacy would also catch Republicans

[swag]

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3xgq5/why-wont-twitter-treat-white-supremacy-like-isis-because-it-would-mean-banning-some-republican-politicians-too

By Joseph Cox and Jason Koebler
|
Apr 25 2019, 9:21am

. . .

At a Twitter all-hands meeting on March 22, an employee asked a blunt question: Twitter has largely eradicated Islamic State propaganda off its platform. Why can’t it do the same for white supremacist content?

An executive responded by explaining that Twitter follows the law, and a technical employee who works on machine learning and artificial intelligence issues went up to the mic to add some context. (As Motherboard has previously reported, algorithms are the next great hope for platforms trying to moderate the posts of their hundreds of millions, or billions, of users.)

With every sort of content filter, there is a tradeoff, he explained. When a platform aggressively enforces against ISIS content, for instance, it can also flag innocent accounts as well, such as Arabic language broadcasters. Society, in general, accepts the benefit of banning ISIS for inconveniencing some others, he said.

In separate discussions verified by Motherboard, that employee said Twitter hasn’t taken the same aggressive approach to white supremacist content because the collateral accounts that are impacted can, in some instances, be Republican politicians.

The employee argued that, on a technical level, content from Republican politicians could get swept up by algorithms aggressively removing white supremacist material. Banning politicians wouldn’t be accepted by society as a trade-off for flagging all of the white supremacist propaganda, he argued.

. . . more at link

[IADEMO2004]

1. Walks like a duck.................

[Salviati]

9. Or to be more apt...

Steps like a goose...

[IADEMO2004]

10. Much Better!!

[lunasun]

11. Ha Good one

[wryter2000]

2. Well, duh

File it under "No excrement Sherlock."

[RockRaven]

3. Maybe Republicans shouldn't be white supremacists then,

or is that really too much to ask?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

4. The fact that this is what's keeping Twitter from implementing it says so much about Twitter.

ETA: The company and leadership, not the platform. Except for the nazis and misogynists, it's great.

[gratuitous]

5. Wouldn't be accepted by society?

Try us. A lot of decent, fair-minded people would be just fine with white supremacist Republican politicians being erased from any number of social media platforms. The people who would complain the loudest would be white supremacists. If you want to say you're scared of those assholes, then say it; don't blame decent people for their wild-eyed instability.

[SWBTATTReg]

6. Steve King of Iowa is a good example of politicians that need to lose their

platforms of hate etc. There are others too, who easily meet the criteria that need to be blocked or removed.

[Brawndo]

7. Take steps to limit the scope of bigotry or you won't have a society left to like or hate the ban

[sinkingfeeling]

8. It would certainly be acceptable to this member of society.

[Solly Mack]

12. A decent society would accept it.

Course, a decent society wouldn't elect racists in the first place.

[triron]

18. If it indeed did elect them. (hint: maybe they really didn't)

[Maru Kitteh]

13. So the GOP would finally be forced to address the institutional white supremacy they

have courted and flamencod with for so very long?

[Justice]

14. Wow.

[tanyev]

15. And?

[ProudLib72]

16. If you read down further, you'll find the real reason

“Most people can agree a beheading video or some kind of ISIS content should be proactively removed, but when we try to talk about the alt-right or white nationalism, we get into dangerous territory, where we’re talking about [Iowa Rep.] Steve King or maybe even some of Trump’s tweets, so it becomes hard for social media companies to say all of this ‘this content should be removed,’” Amarasingam said.

Twiiter's new slogan: We Like Being A Cesspool

[Yavin4]

17. The nearest neighbor is the nearest neighbor

Supervised machine learning classification algorithms don't care about your feelings.

[Initech]

19. Well duh!!! White supremacists are the GOP's base!

Not to whore mongers, racists, sexists, xenophobes and homophobes - you know, Trump's "very fine people".