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Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

I think the crux of the issue here is that the recommendation algorithm isn't built to say "find ISIS material and promote it". It says "find content that will generate more engagement for this user". Reddit is in a similar situation -- it promotes what other people upvote. Some submissions will be removed due to their specific content, but nothing is promoted because of it.

This is where Twitter could get into hot water -- if the code that was released is accurate, they were specifically promoting tweets by certain people and with certain content. They can't claim "it's just the algorithm" because their algorithm is intentionally biased based on the content itself.

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The Twitter example is a really good one. Google obviously choose to take things to the extreme by arguing that even deliberately pro-ISIS algos should get protection, but one more moderate outcome could be something like "YT is only liable if they specifically designed their algo to recommend the problematic content".

Are you talking about the Musk tag used to measure visibility? I don't recall them hard coding promotion of specific accounts? Seems like it should be a major talking point.

We only have musk's word that tag was used to measure visibility. Wouldn't a random sample with users of different sizes and types make more sense for that?

Even if it was, that could have the same effect. If they test every change and only keep the ones that don't harm Musk's visibility that is in effect making the algorithm consider Musk specially.

Lots of changes will be made every day at Twitter that will have to keep the Musk metric healthy. Even if the changes aren't explicitly designed to promote Musk's own tweets, having the metric visible to all employees will at minimum eliminate any change that would demote Musk's tweets. Over time, the Twitter algorithm will become biased towards promoting Musk-like content.

Would promoting Twitter Blue Subscribers content over non-subscribers be promoting specific accounts? Musk has said this was going to happen and I think we saw it in the code + it sure feels like when using the site.

Seems like that would could even be considered hardcoding - Buy Twitter Blue get higher on replies on threads.

companies have been offering paid boosts for many years though. not sure how this is different. i guess as long as anyone can buy it it's ok?

>It says "find content that will generate more engagement for this user".

Actually, I think its probably "find content that will maximise monetisation through more engagement for this user".

>I think the crux of the issue here is that the recommendation algorithm isn't built to say "find ISIS material and promote it". It says "find content that will generate more engagement for this user".

Which would be a good point to argue, and a good distinction for the law to make, but Google's defense is that even a deliberately pro-ISIS algorithm would be exempt under 230. From the article:

>>They argue that in an internet brimming with content, there is literally no way to present things that doesn’t involve some deliberate prioritizing of what to show. Taking their argument to its logical extreme, Google’s lawyers even claimed that Section 230 would protect a platform against suit over a deliberately pro-ISIS algorithm.

When making legal arguments you'll often do things like: "this recommendation algorithm is legal because any algorithm would be legal, but even if you don't accept this then this algorithm is legal because it didn't consider the content of the video in making a recommendation, but even if you don't accept this then..."

That they asserted that any algorithm would be legal doesn't tell us that their case stands or falls on that assertion alone.

Sure, they want to argue the most extreme interpretation of 230 to get the court to either side with them completely or "compromise" by getting to what I wrote.

At the same time they are lobbying congress to keep 230 the way it is but do what I wrote as a compromise if they have to.

They just don't want to lose Section 230 protection because it would mean the end of user generated content. Without 230 protections, every user submission would have to be reviewed before going live, even here.

> Without 230 protections, every user submission would have to be reviewed before going live, even here.

Yep. And if that goes, then the last major good thing about the web will be destroyed. Or second-to-last, since some real people still actually do still put up their own noncommercial websites.

I don't think that they made this argument because they want to promote ISIS. I think they made it because they want to promote content for CNN, MSNBC, Pfizer, Fox News and whoever else gives them money to do so.

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