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Showing Original Post only (View all)Twitter employee: a proactive, algorithmic solution to white supremacy would also catch Republicans [View all]
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3xgq5/why-wont-twitter-treat-white-supremacy-like-isis-because-it-would-mean-banning-some-republican-politicians-tooBy Joseph Cox and Jason Koebler
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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 cant 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 hasnt 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 wouldnt be accepted by society as a trade-off for flagging all of the white supremacist propaganda, he argued.
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Twitter employee: a proactive, algorithmic solution to white supremacy would also catch Republicans [View all]
swag
Apr 2019
OP
The fact that this is what's keeping Twitter from implementing it says so much about Twitter.
WhiskeyGrinder
Apr 2019
#4
Take steps to limit the scope of bigotry or you won't have a society left to like or hate the ban
Brawndo
Apr 2019
#7
So the GOP would finally be forced to address the institutional white supremacy they
Maru Kitteh
Apr 2019
#13