It's been legally and scientifically established as outright misinformation. The genesis of that theory was a disgraced researcher who pushed fraudulent claims with misrepresented data. The paper was retracted for "scientific misconduct".
And yet now moderating false claims that have a detrimental effect on public health outcomes is seen as a "leftist government conspiracy".
"But that will make them to stop that part of their business entirely, or make it way more expensive and force them to take an actual editorial stance! And their viral-ness will suffer a ton!"
Yes, exactly, that's the point.
They've created this medium, then they decide what to push with it. They should be responsible for that, or else back away from how they're currently operating.
E.g. not all issues are as cut and dry as your example.
It is biased. As is any and all moderation, inherently.
Biased toward science. A bias toward the rational is a positive, healthy bias.
Rather than cowering about bias, Twitter should very openly and very aggressively stake out a clear and biased position; ie, this is our ground: we're pro science, pro vaccines, and we're going to hold that ground, period (whether anyone else likes it or not, and our algorithms will bias this way accordingly).
I surrender. I agree, we absolutely should be doing something. The point elon is planning with the open sourcing is to simply make it public. I figure most political folks wont really argue over the autism thing.
>It's been legally and scientifically established as outright misinformation. The genesis of that theory was a disgraced researcher who pushed fraudulent claims with misrepresented data. The paper was retracted for "scientific misconduct".
Here is the interesting thing. Do we fix the conversation by banning people from talking about it?
When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say. -George R. R. Martin
Or would it be better to allow people to talk about it and just post a warning that it's discredited and link?
>And yet now moderating false claims that have a detrimental effect on public health outcomes is seen as a "leftist government conspiracy".
I chose vaccines cause autism because it's a great example of something that is harmful to society. Something that might be worth censoring but when you block or even secretly shadowban this subject. It even makes me want to know more. Sure looks like conspiracy to me.
But I also kind of point to NYTimes and incoming CNN ceo who are telling their journalists to break out of their twitter echo chambers.
twitter censors far more than this subject. The anticonservative bias that twitter creates also ends up forming echo chambers for the left. Who then dont see criticism of their work. The consequence that NYTimes for example sees is that they stop reporting properly, they report on their echo chamber. They then fundamentally break journalism ethics rules.
Would you support this sort of unbiased moderation being expanded to telephone calls?
Not the same reach. Telephone calls are ostensibly private exchanges between two willing parties. Twitter is much more akin to a "crowded theater" than a telephone call.
