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Comment by slfnflctd | Hacker News Reader

Jack Dorsey has responded to this question multiple times in several places-- I heard him address it in the Making Sense podcast by Sam Harris some time in the past year. He seemed to show a firm grasp of the nuances involved.

Here is a quote from him: "Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial Tweets would hide important information people should be able to see and debate,” [...] “It would also not silence that leader, but it would certainly hamper necessary discussion around their words and actions.”

He apparently feels there will be wider discussion from all parts of the political spectrum if things are left as they are. Should Trump move to a platform where he has more control over the format, it might just make it easier for him to suppress or obfuscate dissent.

I don't know if Dorsey is making the right call here, but he has clearly thought about it a lot, and discussed those thoughts publicly.

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Dorsey is right to want to encourage broader discussion across the political spectrum on topics. But the current fact-checking approach is flawed as it requires human judgment, which is hobbled by people's biases and potential lack of topical expertise.

A better approach may be to offer a resource page that shows every news article on the topic, with guidelines on political leaning, how credible each article is etc so that readers can exercise their critical thinking to figure out what to believe. For example: https://story.thefactual.com/news/story/239362-Social-Media shows 285 related articles.

Disclosure: above page is from my startup, The Factual.

Can you cite exactly how Twitter isn't ensuring that bias + topical expertise are being disregarded in their fact checking routines...? They generally have in-house people + partner companies doing it.

Your entire post just reads like an advertisement for your project, which a number have tried and hit the limits of effectiveness on.

The page you linked doesn't contain explanation at all, what is a very important part of fact checking (if it can be automated, it can be tricked). It should probably contain a mix of automatic links with multiple independent human fact checkings that explain why a side should be picked over the other.

>But the current fact-checking approach is flawed as it requires human judgment, which is hobbled by people's biases and potential lack of topical expertise.

This is a true statement.

>A better approach may be to offer a resource page that shows every news article on the topic, with guidelines on political leaning

...seems to just introduce another level of bias. Every "media bias" website touts "objective analysis" while in the FAQ they admit to relying on a panel that they assure you is 100% objective. How do you guarantee that these ratings are not "flawed as it requires human judgment, which is hobbled by people's biases and potential lack of topical expertise"? See: allsides.com[1] and Media Bias Fact Check [2].

Looking at your employee page, you seem to have exactly zero employees with any significant background in journalism. What "topical expertise" does Factual provide that a layperson doesn't have? How do you minimize human judgement?

This reads to me as "You shouldn't use Facebook because you're the product, not the customer, which leads to bad incentive alignment. Use Twitter instead."

[1] https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-rating-method... [2] https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/methodology/

> I don't know if Dorsey is making the right call here, but he has clearly thought about it a lot, and discussed those thoughts publicly.

Similarly, I'm conflicted. I understand Jack's argument, but I'm not sure he's making the right call here. It is highly unlikely Trump could build a platform or co-opt one that has the reach of Twitter. And arguably, the terms of service should apply equally to everyone on the platform. Trump has engaged in hate speech and targeted his followers against individuals in a way that probably destroyed their lives (death threats, etc.). IMHO, Twitter should enforce their TOS against all users in a fair and equal way, regardless of whether they are POTUS or a normal citizen.

> It is highly unlikely Trump could build a platform or co-opt one that has the reach of Twitter.

Thought experiment: if instead of posting on Twitter, he sent an e-mail to a few thousand journalists?

I never use or consume Twitter, but I see screen captures of things Twitter posts all the time.

Granted: one big thing this approach misses is the back and forth. I gather Trump re-tweets quite a bit of stuff, and responds to others. I guess that could be simulated via e-mail.

My point is that as far as his ability to be heard, I don't think Twitter is necessary.

He can't control the narrative if he depends on what journalists choose to report (or not), and how the story will be editorialized.

Twitter gives him direct access to his electorate, which is extremely valuable.

How that wouldn't be replicated in a matter of weeks? He can just start posting on donaltjtrump.ru and people will check it. They can throw together a notification app.

If Dorsey banned his account, it would probably be a shitshow. Right wing trolls would come out in droves (even more than they do now).

If Twitter did ban his account, what about other equally bad but smaller accounts? How many can they ban?

It seems like Twitter is in a lose-lose situation here.

Twitter is in a very winning situation. Before Trump took office and started tweeting a lot, the relevance of Twitter was often up for debate. Now they're a place where people get the latest updates from a world leader. That's great for Twitter.

> what about other equally bad but smaller accounts

Twitter bans many other equally bad ... and many other much less bad accounts.

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