But establishing what is currently more than a mixture of vague principles and technical details could be much more complicated than he proposes. See what can happen if Musk pursues his ideas of freedom of speech, the fight against spam and the opening of the “black box” of artificial intelligence tools that amplify trends in social media. FREE SPEECH CITY SQUARE Musk’s most formidable priority – and the one with the most vague roadmap – is to make Twitter a “politically neutral” digital city square for global speech that allows as much freedom of speech as any country’s laws allow. He acknowledged that his plans to reform Twitter could anger the political left and, in particular, to please the right. He did not specify what he would do about the ousted President-elect Donald Trump or other right-wing leaders whose tweets violated the company’s restrictions on hate speech, violent threats or harmful misinformation. If Musk goes in that direction, it could mean bringing back not just Trump, but “many, many others who were removed as a result of QAnon conspiracies, targeted harassment of journalists and activists, and of course all accounts removed after January.” 6 “, said Joan Donovan, who is studying misinformation at Harvard University. “This could possibly be hundreds of thousands of people.” Musk has not ruled out suspending some accounts, but says such bans should be temporary. His latest criticism centered on what he described as an “incredibly inappropriate” Twitter block in 2020 of a New York Post article on Hunter Biden, which the company said was wrong and corrected within 24 hours. OPEN SOURCE ALGORITHMS Musk’s long-standing interest in artificial intelligence is reflected in one of the most specific proposals he outlined in the merger announcement – the promise of “making open source algorithms to increase trust”. Talks about systems that categorize content to decide what appears in user streams. Part of the skepticism, at least for Musk’s supporters, is the tradition among US political conservatives about the “shadow ban” on social media. This is a supposedly invisible feature to reduce the reach of misbehaving users without disabling their accounts. There is no evidence that Twitter’s platform is biased against conservatives. Studies have found the opposite when it comes to conservative media in particular. Musk asked for the underlying computer code that feeds the Twitter news feed to be posted for public inspection in the GitHub encoder hangout. But such “code-level transparency” gives users little idea of how Twitter works for them without the data the algorithms process, said Nick Diakopoulos, a computer scientist at Northwestern University. Diakopoulos said there are good intentions in Musk’s broader goal of helping people find out why their tweets are being promoted or downgraded and whether human moderators or automated systems are making those choices. But this is not an easy task. Excessive transparency about how individual tweets are ranked, for example, can make it easier for “dishonest people” to play the system and manipulate an algorithm to get the most out of their cause, Diakopoulos said. ‘NITAS OF SPAM BOTS’ Spam bots imitating real people is a personal nuisance to Musk, whose popularity on Twitter has inspired countless imitation accounts that use his image and name – often to promote cryptocurrency scams that appear to come from him. CEO of Tesla. Certainly Twitter users, including Musk, “do not want spam,” said David Greene, director of civil liberties at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. But who defines what counts as a spam bot? You mean, like, saltines and their ilk, eh? I choose to follow it. Is it not allowed to exist? ” he said. There are also many Twitter accounts full of spam that are managed, at least in part, by real people running from product distributors to those promoting polarized political content to get involved in other countries’ elections. “RATIFY ALL PEOPLE” Musk has repeatedly stated that he wants Twitter to “check the identities of all people”, an ambiguous proposal that could be related to his desire to get rid of junk mail accounts. The rise of underworld authentication – such as two-factor authentication or pop-ups asking which of the six photos a school bus shows – could discourage anyone from trying to raise an army of fake accounts. Musk may also be considering offering a “blue check” to more people – the verification check mark displayed on notable Twitter accounts – such as Musk’s – to show that he is what they say he is. Musk suggested users buy check marks as part of a premium service. However, some digital rights activists worry that these measures could lead to a “real name” policy that resembles Facebook’s approach of forcing people to validate their full names and use them in their profiles. This seems to contradict Musk’s focus on freedom of speech by silencing anonymous informants or people living in authoritarian regimes, where it can be dangerous if a message of dissent is delivered to a particular person. TWITTER WITHOUT ADVERTISEMENTS? Musk backed the idea of an ad-free Twitter, though it was not one of the priorities outlined in the merger’s official announcement. This may be because cutting off the company’s main way of making a profit would be a big deal, even for the richest man in the world. Ads accounted for more than 92% of Twitter revenue in the January-March financial quarter. The company launched a premium subscription service last year – known as Twitter Blue – but does not appear to have made much progress in getting people to pay for it. Musk has made it clear that he is in favor of a more powerful model based on a Twitter subscription that gives more people a choice without ads. This would also suit his push to ease Twitter content restrictions – which brand favors greatly because they do not want their ads to be surrounded by offensive and hateful tweets. WHAT ELSE? Musk has tweeted and voiced so many suggestions on Twitter that it can be hard to know which ones he takes seriously. He joined the popular call for an “edit button” – which Twitter says is already working – that would allow users to edit a tweet shortly after it was posted. A less serious proposal by Musk suggested turning Twitter headquarters in downtown San Francisco into a homeless shelter “since no one shows up anyway” – a comment taken more as a Twitter pandemic workforce excavation than as an altruistic vision for the building. Musk did not return an email request to clarify his plans. ——- AP Technology author Barbara Ortutay contributed to this report.
title: “Elon Musk S Big Plans For Twitter What We Know So Far Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-24” author: “Linda Armstrong”
Estimated reading time: 5-6 minutes
PROVIDENCE, RI – Tesla CEO Elon Musk has unveiled some bold, albeit vague, plans to turn Twitter into a “fun place” once he buys the $ 44 billion social networking platform and makes it private. . But establishing what is currently more than a mixture of vague principles and technical details could be much more complicated than he proposes. Here is what can happen if Musk pursues his ideas of freedom of speech, the fight against spam and the opening of the “black box” of artificial intelligence tools that amplify trends in social media.
Free speech in the town square
Musk’s top priority – and the one with the most vague roadmap – is to make Twitter a “politically neutral” digital city square for global speech that allows as much freedom of speech as any country’s laws allow. He acknowledged that his plans to reform Twitter could anger the political left and, in particular, to please the right. He did not specify what he would do about the ousted President-elect Donald Trump or other right-wing leaders whose tweets violated the company’s restrictions on hate speech, violent threats or harmful misinformation. If Musk goes in that direction, it could mean bringing back not only Trump, but “many, many others removed as a result of QAnon conspiracies, targeted harassment of journalists and activists, and of course all accounts removed after January.” 6 “, said Joan Donovan, who is studying misinformation at Harvard University. “This could possibly be hundreds of thousands of people.” Musk has not ruled out suspending some accounts, but says such bans should be temporary. His latest review focused on what he described as an “incredibly inappropriate” Twitter block in 2020 of a New York Post article on Hunter Biden, which the company said was wrong and corrected within 24 hours.
Open source algorithms
Musk’s long-standing interest in artificial intelligence is reflected in one of the most specific proposals he outlined in his merger announcement – the promise “to make open source algorithms to increase trust”. Talks about systems that categorize content to decide what appears in user streams. Part of the skepticism, at least for Musk’s supporters, is the tradition among US political conservatives about the “shadow ban” on social media. This is a supposedly invisible feature to reduce the reach of misbehaving users without disabling their accounts. There is no evidence that Twitter’s platform is biased against conservatives. Studies have found the opposite when it comes to conservative media in particular. Musk asked for the underlying computer code that feeds the Twitter news feed to be posted for public inspection in the GitHub encoder hangout. But such “code-level transparency” gives users little idea of how Twitter works for them without the data the algorithms process, said Nick Diakopoulos, a computer scientist at Northwestern University. Diakopoulos said there are good intentions in Musk’s broader goal of helping people find out why their tweets are being promoted or downgraded and whether human moderators or automated systems are making those choices. But this is not an easy task. Excessive transparency about how individual tweets are ranked, for example, can make it easier for “dishonest” people to play the system and manipulate an algorithm to get the most exposure for their cause, Diakopoulos said.
“Defeats spam bots”
Spam bots imitating real people have been a personal nuisance to Musk, whose popularity on Twitter has inspired countless imitation accounts that use his image and name – often to promote cryptocurrency scams that appear to come from him. CEO of Tesla. Certainly Twitter users, including Musk, “do not want spam,” said David Greene, director of civil liberties at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. But who defines what counts as a spam bot? “You mean all the robots like, you know, if I follow a Twitter robot that just takes historical fruit pictures? I choose to follow it. Isn’t it allowed to exist?” he said. There are also many Twitter accounts full of spam that are managed, at least in part, by real people running from product distributors to those promoting polarized political content to get involved in other countries’ elections.
“Verification of the identity of all people”
Musk has repeatedly stated that he wants Twitter to “check the identities of all people”, an ambiguous proposal that could be related to his desire to get rid of junk mail accounts. The rise of underworld authentication – such as two-factor authentication or pop-ups asking which of the six photos a school bus shows – could discourage anyone from trying to raise an army of fake accounts. Musk may also consider offering more people a “blue check” – the verification check mark that appears on reputable Twitter accounts – such as Musk – to show that they are what they say they are. Musk suggested users buy check marks as part of a premium service. However, some digital rights activists worry that these measures could lead to a “real name” policy that resembles Facebook’s approach of forcing people to validate their full names and use them in their profiles. This seems to contradict Musk’s focus on freedom of speech by silencing anonymous informants or people living in authoritarian regimes, where it can be dangerous if a message of dissent is delivered to a particular person.
Twitter without ads?
Musk backed the idea of an ad-free Twitter, though it was not one of the priorities outlined in the merger’s official announcement. This may be because cutting off the company’s main way of making a profit would be a big deal, even for the richest man in the world. Ads accounted for more than 92% of Twitter revenue in the January-March financial quarter. The company launched a premium subscription service last year – known as Twitter Blue – but does not appear to have made much progress in getting people to pay for it. Musk has made it clear that he is in favor of a more powerful model based on a Twitter subscription that gives more people a choice without ads. This would also suit his push to ease Twitter content restrictions – which brand favors greatly because they do not want their ads to be surrounded by offensive and hateful tweets.
What else?
Musk has tweeted and voiced so many suggestions on Twitter that it can be hard to know which ones he takes seriously. He joined the popular call for an “edit button” – which Twitter says is already working – that would allow users to edit a tweet shortly after it was posted. A less serious proposal by Musk suggested turning Twitter headquarters in downtown San Francisco into a homeless shelter “since no one shows up anyway” – a comment taken more as a Twitter pandemic workforce excavation than as an altruistic vision for the building. Musk did not return an email request to clarify his plans. ×
