X scraps tool to report electoral fake news

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66944123

by vinni2 • 3 years ago

20 72 3 years ago

Report to whom? Who are the Fake News Police and why are they more qualified than Community Notes?

To X. You know, X runs a website, X has some responsibility that what it presents on that website isn't actively harmful to democracy. Both a moral responsibility everywhere it operates, but a legal responsibility in many jurisdictions. And if they don't manage the content on the website themselves in many jurisdictions they open themselves up to fines and regulatory penalties.

To be honest it's a pretty uniquely American view to say "Well yes, Elon owns the website, Elon runs the website, Elon personally intervenes to boost and endorse wild disinformation and conspiracy theories, but I just don't think you could possibly expect Elon to be held responsible for that".

nailer5• 3 years ago

X has some responsibility that what it presents on that website isn't actively harmful to democracy.

Yes, that's why the team that pushed false narratives about the Biden laptop being "Russian disinformation" have been removed.

nvm0n27• 3 years ago

There's no general responsibility to not "present" things "actively harmful to democracy". And there's nothing uniquely American about that. I'm a European living in Europe and there's no such obligation or responsibility here either. Please don't insinuate there is.

That's especially important because a significant chunk of the left no longer use the dictionary definition of the word democracy, so there isn't any chance of agreement on what it means. They seem to be using it either to mean the unelected institutions (courts, media, academia, civil service agencies) or sometimes to mean left wing policies. So if a conservative politician wins an election then that's a "threat to democracy", example:

The AfD has achieved top municipal office for the first time in Sonneberg, Thuringia [...snip...] Green Party leader Ricarda Lang has interpreted the result as a warning to all supporters of democracy. [...snip...] Robert Sesselmann’s win is an alarm signal for democracy, said Martin Schirdewan, co-chairman of the Left Party

https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/afd-sonneberg-...

unsupp0rted5• 3 years ago

To be honest it's a pretty uniquely American view

Interestingly, my comment was sitting at 3 points all day in European Time, and quickly got downvoted to -1 when America woke up this morning. So I agree there is some geographical/culture disparity in views on this topic.

JumpCrisscross3• 3 years ago

I’ve had a pet theory which I don’t take too seriously but which is comedically difficult to empirically dismiss.

Musk recognises Twitter for the albatross it is. Unfortunately, he has too much reputation tied up in it. He needs a way for someone else, preferably a bogeyman, to kill it. The perfect bogeyman would be an unelected bureaucrat.

Cut to Musk systematically disbanding Twitter’s electoral guardrails, including by laying off its European team, right after the European Commission told him not to [1][2].

[1] https://twitter.com/ThierryBreton/status/1662194595755704321...

[2] https://www.disinfo.eu/advocacy/how-the-digital-services-act...

throwawayqqq11• 3 years ago

But isnt Musks inability to let his megalomaniac illusions loose the reason he ended up in this kuvafle?

JumpCrisscross3• 3 years ago

Musks inability to let his megalomaniac illusions loose

Twitter’s LBO followed a few weeks of poor impulse control followed by frantically trying to reverse course. If a court would have let him out of his deal to buy Twitter, he’d have taken it.

unsupp0rted5• 3 years ago

Musk doesn't need a bogeyman to make his decisions for him. He regularly makes widely-derided decisions. If he wanted to ditch Twitter, he would.

Grimblewald5• 3 years ago

I think everyone is giving musk to much credit. Here's a dude who lies through his teeth from his credentials to what companies and products he represents can deliver.

The dude isn't smart the dude is a grifter born to money. The only thing musk is a great example of, is the fact inheritance tax is way to damn low.

nvm0n27• 3 years ago

Doesn't seem like a very good theory given that Twitter's political bias was one of the driving motivators for him to acquire it in the first place. He's done some unpredictable stuff but this is entirely expected and consistent with everything he's said.

As for the EU killing Twitter, lol. Twitter has very little staff footprint in the EU now Musk has done so many layoffs and recentralized things in SF. He can just tell the EU to take a hike, publicize all their ham-fisted attempts to censor their ideological opponents and ignore any fines that are levied. The EU can then try to escalate with payment blocks or outright internet censorship, which in turn will just lead to people in the EU getting a worse Twitter experience. The EU doesn't care what Europeans think of course, that's part of its appeal to a certain type, but "we are breaking your Twitter access because we want to censor the internet" isn't going to go down well.

drt5b7j• 3 years ago

Twitter scraps tool to report electoral fake news.

FTFY

bdcravens3• 3 years ago

The owner of the company changed the name. No one's opinion changes that.

mikeravkine• 3 years ago

It's now called Xitter (with the X pronounced 'sh')

bamboozeell9• 3 years ago

You want to give any pseudoanonymous actor in the world access to the thoughts and desires of anyone else - you got it! Thanks Big Tech!

Honestly, China has more like the right approach when it comes to allowing its citizens access to the internet.

leosanchez• 3 years ago

China has more like the right approach when it comes to allowing its citizens access to the internet.

Really?

hfuyf654• 3 years ago

It is kinda fascinating is it not? A person genuinely clamoring for the state to carefully control what they they can say/do/think.

Grimblewald5• 3 years ago

The state has motivation to self preserve, so is unlikely to suck a population dry. Making the state the only source of fuckery then means fuckery won't kill us. Opening up access to population wide fuckery to the highest bidder however is different. The highest bidder does not care for the life and well-being of the livestock, they care to see their investment pay off.

While I don't agree china has it right, both approaches are wrong as humans are not livestock, we shouldn't even treat livestock the way we do, the Chinese approach is like choosing to sell 50% of all children born while Twitter is like selling as many children as buyers will take.

bamboozeell9• 3 years ago

Yes, in that they don't allow unfettered access to the internet outside their borders. As a soverign nation who cares for their citizens' state of mind as well as physical security, why would you not do this in addition to defending your border?

nailer5• 3 years ago

It sounds like this tool was produced by the previous "Trust and Safety" team which is known for attempting to manipulate public discourse and was sacked.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1707147926789554422

Obviously this article is the BBC, a competing media platform.

jdiff2• 3 years ago

It is not known unless you take every attention-seeking word of Musk literally and at face value. As they released the whole mess that was the "Twitter Files" they repeatedly lied by omission and disproved themselves with the fragments of actual files they released.

nailer5• 3 years ago

The NYTimes has confirmed the laptop is real. So have most other media outlets.

Do you think the letters from the FBI pressuring Twitter to remove the story are false? What evidence do you have to support this theory?

victortan83• 3 years ago

What is electoral fake news may turn out to be true. Kinda foolish to ask platforms to decide what is true and what is not.

Remember the Hunter Biden laptop story? Was it fake news?

bdcravens3• 3 years ago

I tend to agree with your first point, and feel that for user-driven content, allowing users to submit context to be displayed below the source is a good middle-ground.

As for the second point, I think that most critical thinkers understand that the laptop changed hands several times, undermining the "news" of the matter.

Georgelemental5• 3 years ago

As far as I am aware, the laptop's original owner has not denied that the content that's been made public is genuine. If the info had been tampered with, I think Hunter Biden would have said so.

HumblyTossed2• 3 years ago

How was/is Hunter Biden "electoral news". He never ran for office.

Georgelemental5• 3 years ago

His father did, and was involved in his son's business deals.

infotogivenm• 3 years ago

the biden laptop story was temporarily banned for less than 24hrs as it violated various twitter rules for hacked content and nudity. The “Twitter Files” (cue x-files theme) show us this - it was certainly not banned because users reported it as fake news using a tool like this.

pauldenton3• 3 years ago

From Twitter yes. But NYPpost being banned and 50 intelligence agencies saying it had all the hallmarks of Russian Disinformation kept the ball out of the court until after the election.

X scraps tool to report electoral fake news

Related Stories