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0 pointsgexla7y ago0 comments

Twitter has a social graph and communities much like Reddit. This adds more information. There are people posting information who I trust and even know IRL.

> All of those constraints are invisible. It's dangerous to think you have more control or insight there.

And yet you are commenting as if these results aren't invisible to you? The machinery behind Google search results aren't invisible? Are you trying to say that one invisible thing is more "X" than another invisible thing?

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KirinDave7y ago· 1 in thread

> And yet you are commenting as if these results aren't invisible to you? The machinery behind Google search results aren't invisible?

Because of my unique and fortunate work history I understand the internals of these systems better than many people do. I'm objecting to the distinction you're drawing, not suggesting an alternative order of transparency. There really isn't much difference between the two companies output in the regard we're discussing.

gexlaOP7y ago

I agree that Twitter may not be much different from Google if you are relying on the algo. Notice that I mentioned Twitter as a community next to Reddit though. Everyone has different usage patterns for these services. I follow (and have been an active participant) in a number of niche communities on Twitter. In some cases, I could do a search for a term and most results would be from people I have interacted with through Twitter and other channels. Each of those people carried a reputation within that niche and some I knew better than others. I wouldn't use Twitter as a general search returning a large number of untrusted results. Sure, even search results on a specific user could be biased, but at least it would be from familiar territory.

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