Twitter Updates Developer Rules in the Wake of Bot Crackdown (mashable.com)

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Twitter Updates Developer Rules in the Wake of Bot Crackdown (mashable.com)

Posted by msmash on Thursday February 22, 2018 @03:20AM from the setting-precedence dept.

Twitter is getting serious about its bot problem. From a report: Hours after a massive bot purge that prompted the #TwitterLockOut hashtag to trend, the company is announcing new rules for developers meant to prevent bots from using third-party apps to spread spam. According to the new rules, developers that use Twitter's API will no longer be able to let users: Simultaneously post identical or substantially similar content to multiple accounts. Simultaneously perform actions such as Likes, Retweets, or follows from multiple accounts Use of any form of automation (including scheduling) to post identical or substantially similar content, or to perform actions such as Likes or Retweets, across many accounts that have authorized your app (whether or not you created or directly control those accounts) is not permitted.

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Let the whining begin! by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 03:25 · Score: 1

Cue the alt-right cries of censorship...
1. Re:Let the whining begin! by CaptSlaq · 2018-02-22 03:30 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Cue the alt-right cries of censorship...
  Cue the droning on of $FAVORED_PARTY saying $UNFAVORED_PARTY crying about $PERCEIVED_SLIGHT.
2. Re:Let the whining begin! by slack_justyb · 2018-02-22 03:38 · Score: 1
  
  Cue the blaming $ANY_PERCEIVED_CHANGE as reason for $PERCEIVED_SLIGHT. Doesn't just happen in politics, but I totally agree that I'm so done with the knee jerking happening on $ANY_SOCIAL_PLATFORM_WHERE_COMMENTING_IS_EASY_AND_FREE.
3. Re:Let the whining begin! by GameboyRMH · 2018-02-22 04:07 · Score: 0
  
  It was hilarious how they were all like "OH NOES THEY'RE PURGING CONSERVATIVES!!1!"* but it was because a good fraction of all the centipedes on Twitter were Russian bots XD
  *Funny how those on the far-right routinely call everyone from moderate Republicans to actual nazis "conservatives" and don't seem to get any pushback on using that broad brush.
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
4. Re:Let the whining begin! by p4nther2004 · 2018-02-22 04:09 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  No...the funny part is that the party of "free enterprise" is constantly complaining that PERCEIVED_SLIGHT="they want to run their company their way".
5. Re: Let the whining begin! by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 04:47 · Score: 0
  
  For some reason, calling yourself a Nazi still leads to opposition and bad feelings.
6. Re: Let the whining begin! by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 05:05 · Score: 1
  
  It was especially funny because they were clearly too dumb or egotistical to realize that's why half their "followers" disappeared. I assume those who did realize, or had organized their own bots, just kept quiet.
7. Re:Let the whining begin! by sg_oneill · 2018-02-22 05:07 · Score: 0
  
  I waa skeptical at first about the russian thing, but watching one particularly dubious account I noticeed it acciidently posted its 'ra ra americana trump is the best' thing as coming from Moscow on the twitter geolocation thing. Big old HMMMMM from me on that one.
  So yeah, theres definately something fishy going on with these bots and troll accounts.
  
  --
  Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
8. Re:Let the whining begin! by cascadingstylesheet · 2018-02-22 05:42 · Score: 1
  
  So yeah, theres definately something fishy going on with these bots and troll accounts.
  If a bunch of Twitter accounts can actually influence an election, then banning bots isn't going to help much.
  I'm sure for the cost of busing their constituencies around to multiple polling places, the Dems could pay for quite a few human tweets.
  If not they should hire some Russians, amazing marketers and so cost effective!
9. Re:Let the whining begin! by DRJlaw · 2018-02-22 06:10 · Score: 0
  
  No...the funny part is that the party of "free enterprise" is constantly complaining that PERCEIVED_SLIGHT="they want to run their company their way".
  But they totally have a right to express their customer dissatisfaction! If they're not appeased they might just stop paying for... umm, posting to reach the audience of... um, organizing on...
  Godd*mn network effects of free services.
  They'll build their own service, with blackjack and hookers! Like Gab... Gab is totally succeeding at grabbing desirable market- and mind-share from Twitter.
10. Re:Let the whining begin! by Tsolias · 2018-02-22 06:21 · Score: 0
  
  Erm... sites that hospitalize, em I mean shelter the so called left, you know those gender-unknown communists, become a shitfest when they are left alone, or at least openly hunt down their political, biological and ideological opponents.
  Have you seen tumblr lately? Have you checked deviantart? Do you remember neogaf?
  The alt right has been exiled from many platforms, I don't think that it will bother anyone to skip twitter, facebook, youtube, e.t.c. and move to something else.
  In fact, expect the left to migrate to wherever the alt-right moves. Do you know why?
  Because left only sites are a time bomb, like what happened with neogaf recently, and usually it takes something minuscule, such as hitting on a girl in a bar, to bring a multimillion-user site down.
  Half the alt-right is already with one leg over to gab and after the TDS purge from cloudflare, most alt-right sites are now hosted also on Tor.
  If you try to generalize your findings on the industry in general, google, apple and other pro-"diversity" companies, you'll see that shitfests are quite frequent.
11. Re:Let the whining begin! by Teun · 2018-02-22 06:44 · Score: 1
  
  Won't work.
  The problem with alt-right/left/ extremists of any flavour is these people live in a bubble, they only look at what seems to confirm their preconceptions.
  So they'd never start to follow what they see as 'the enemy'.
  
  --
  "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
12. Re:Let the whining begin! by epine · 2018-02-22 07:56 · Score: 1
  
  If a bunch of Twitter accounts can actually influence an election, then banning bots isn't going to help much.
  Probably also true: if a bunch of Twitter accounts can actually influence an election, then not banning bots means nothing else you might do will help much, at all.
  Low chance of success by doing v. zero chance of success by not doing.
  When it comes to defending democracy, I'll take epsilon over zero every day of the week and twice on Tuesday.
13. Re:Let the whining begin! by DamnOregonian · 2018-02-22 08:52 · Score: 1
  
  When it comes to defending democracy, I'll take epsilon over zero every day of the week and twice on Tuesday.
  This is exactly what it comes down to. You have to do *something*
14. Re:Let the whining begin! by slashdotiscompromisd · 2018-02-22 09:31 · Score: 1
  
  PUBLIC AREA
  USED NEARLY UBIQUITOUSLY
  ITS CENSORSHIP
  That you would try to argue otherwise does not speak well of your intelligence or humanity.
  For some reason you feel the need to side with a clearly malicious institution in our society.
  For some reason you devote your energy to furthering these malicious interests instead of resisting them.
  Whatever this reason is does not matter. You have no place in this society and you will soon be driven out.
  
  --
  My karma was manually wiped by site staff https://slashdot.org/~slshdtisctrldbysjws 18 mod up, 10 mod down = bad karma
15. Re:Let the whining begin! by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 11:14 · Score: 0
  
  I'm a card carrying socialist, and I follow wherever the alt-right goes. Would you like to know why?
  I make a LOT of money exploiting their ignorance. Thus it is in my financial interest to ensure I keep them sharing my fake news articles. Also I help fund national antifa chapters with money the alt-right generates for me. It's pretty much free money to help the left organize, all it requires is keeping the alt-right clicking on bullshit, and boy do they!
16. Re:Let the whining begin! by Tsolias · 2018-02-22 16:40 · Score: 1
  
  I make a LOT of money exploiting their ignorance
  0.02 shekels have been deposited to your account.
  
  I help fund national antifa chapters with money the alt-right generates for me.
  Good for you, now that the funding has ended https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
  Don't forget, more non-sense next time.
False Positives by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 03:25 · Score: 0

How are they going to determine similar content? There needs to be a process for false positives.
1. Re:False Positives by gnick · 2018-02-22 03:28 · Score: 2
  
  How are they going to determine similar content?
  Any tweet with the phrase "no collusion" is going to be tossed out.
  
  --
  He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
2. Re:False Positives by AHuxley · 2018-02-22 03:36 · Score: 1
  
  Verified cell-phone number?
  
  --
  Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
3. Re:False Positives by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 03:47 · Score: 0
  
  Simple word count will suffice. Maybe along with a thesaurus? All they are saying is keep it original. The rules against automated likes and responses and spamming are quite reasonable. You know, like really, Slow down, cowboy!
4. Re:False Positives by AmiMoJo · 2018-02-22 04:47 · Score: 1
  
  Just look at the accounts using this hashtag. They have have something in common.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
5. Re:False Positives by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 04:58 · Score: 0
  
  Simple: they identify anything that's similar to liking Trump or Republicans.
  Twitter employees have stated before that they specifically target those.
6. Re: False Positives by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 05:28 · Score: -1
  
  They disagree with you on a number of important political issues?
  Yeah, definitely need to purge that shit. Can't have AmiHomo's echo chamber reverberate with any voice but xis own.
7. Re: False Positives by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 05:59 · Score: 0
  
  They disagree with you on a number of important political issues?
  Yeah, definitely need to purge that shit. Can't have AmiHomo's echo chamber reverberate with any voice but xis own.
  No they want to get rid of the echo chamber that makes extreme views look like it's coming from mainstream when really it's very few people and a whole bunch of bots.
8. Re:False Positives by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 06:04 · Score: 0
  
  Citation needed
9. Re: False Positives by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 07:22 · Score: 0
  
  No they want to get rid of the echo chamber that makes extreme views look like it's coming from mainstream when really it's very few people and a whole bunch of bots.
  And what is an "extreme" view? Oh right, the ones that disagree with AmiMojo.
  And what is an echo chamber? Oh right, only those who perpetuate things AmiMojo disagrees with. When people perpetuate things AmiMojo agrees with, well that can't be an echo chamber. Not one to worry about at least.
  To borrow from Bill Maher:
  Someone saying "men are better than women" - Boo! deplorable sexist scum!
  Someone saying "women are better than men" - cheers from the crowd! Go girl power!
10. Re:False Positives by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 07:24 · Score: 0
  
  Just look at the accounts using this hashtag. They have have something in common.
  I didn't realize that Twitter flagged brain damage...
11. Re: False Positives by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 08:43 · Score: 1
  
  No they want to get rid of the echo chamber that makes extreme views look like it's coming from mainstream when really it's very few people and a whole bunch of bots.
  And what is an "extreme" view? Oh right, the ones that disagree with AmiMojo.
  And what is an echo chamber? Oh right, only those who perpetuate things AmiMojo disagrees with. When people perpetuate things AmiMojo agrees with, well that can't be an echo chamber. Not one to worry about at least.
  To borrow from Bill Maher:
  Someone saying "men are better than women" - Boo! deplorable sexist scum!
  Someone saying "women are better than men" - cheers from the crowd! Go girl power!
  More like:
  Someone says Bill Maher should get the death penalty for smoking marijuana. There's loud cheers! - The majority of the crowd looks around with a confused look and see's one person in the corner with a bunch of amplifiers.
12. Re: False Positives by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-23 02:44 · Score: 0
  
  More like:
  Someone says Bill Maher should get the death penalty for smoking marijuana. There's loud cheers! - The majority of the crowd looks around with a confused look and see's one person in the corner with a bunch of amplifiers.
  Nope, not like that. Remember what AmiMojo said:
  
  Just look at the accounts using this hashtag. They have have something in common.
  He's not saying look for guys with amplifiers/bots. He's saying look at what is being said (the hashtag being used) and who is saying it (the account using the hashtag)
  So no, it's what I said. Somebody posts using hashtag #WomenBetterThanMen, CHEERS! No investigation needed
  Somebody using #MenBetterThanWomen? BOO! Make up an excuse (like botting) to discredit and deplatform him!
How? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 03:37 · Score: 0

I've never seen an explanation of just exactly how they know a bit from a real person.
Seems to come down to, if they don't like what you post, yer a bot.
Q is back! Biggest intel drop of all time by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 03:41 · Score: -1

http://qanonposts.com/ (http://archive.is/YclO5)
Take down of deep state in progress. Biggest take down operation in history.
Q predicted:
10000+ Sealed indictments of deep state pedofiles network.
100s of CEO resignation.
2/3 of senators allowed to retire outside prison if they give up reelection.
Rothschild helicopter crash.
Saudi coup.
FBI tweets.
POTUS tweets.
Podesta disappearance.
Hillary/McCane wearing ankle bracelet disguised as leg injury. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGoY0U2AJwU)
Airport blackouts.
Many more.
Feb 21 2018 01:58:12!UW.yye1fxoQb0b86f448465â'
>>448410
Big post. @Jack thought he was protected.
No sleep since drop.
Tasked [3] to remove followers in drip order and restrict.
Coincidence?
HOT in DC. No sleep. Stay tuned.Q
Feb 21 2018 01:51:08!UW.yye1fxoQb0b86f448399â'
The gun found by the USSS was an intercept we provided.
This is not a game.
Protect code went live.
Code signals clean.
We are moving up the timetable.Q
Feb 21 2018 01:44:40!UW.yye1fxoQb0b86f448338â'
Stay tuned. Everything has meaning or a purpose.
@Jack - getting nervous?
Phase [2]. Q
Feb 18 2018 20:41:03!UW.yye1fxoQ104â'
@SNOWDEN
WHERE ARE YOU?
NOT RUSSIA.
[EYES ON]
YOU ARE NOW A LIABILITY.
HELPING @JACK?
PROJECT DEEPDREAMv2[A]].
WE WILL NEVER FORGET. ES FAILED.
WHERE IS ES? JOHN PERRY BARLOW.
DEFINE THE END?
THE DAY OF RECKONING IS UPON US.
JOHN 3:16 Q
Feb 5 2018 12:16:50!UW.yye1fxoQ472124275544â'
Why did the #Memo drop a Friday [& before the SB]?
Did this seem strange to you?
Watch the news.
Rothschild estate sale [Black Forest].
Stock market DIVE [666 - coincidence?].
Soros transfer of wealth.
Dopey FREED.
Marriage for POWER, not LOVE.
Hilton/Roth.Soros/Clinton.Etc.
News unlocks MAP.
Think Mirror.Which team?THEY don't know.APACHE.
These people are EVIL.
New to Q? Watch this:
Basics of the #QAnon Phenomenon
Q is back:
Qanon 2.21.18 - Q is BACK! @Jack Is afraid - Censoring hard
#QANON SÎ--OCÎsING NEW Î(TM)NÎEL: THIS WILL HAPPEN BY ÎND OF ÎoeARCÎ-- 2018 (REVEALED)
BREAKING Qanon DECODE - [SIG_5:5_READ] Trump Signals IN THE OPEN. Godless SHILL among us.
2.21-Disaster Performers, Twitter Lockout, New Q
Your comment has too few characters per line Your comment has too few characters per line Your comment has too few characters per line Your comment has too few characters per line Your comment has too few characters per line Your comment has too few characters per line Your comment has too few characters per line Your comment has too few characters characters per line Your comment has too few characters
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Please try to keep posts on topic.Please try to keep posts on topic.Pleas
1. Re:Q is back! Biggest intel drop of all time by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 04:05 · Score: 0
  
  Looks like APK is semi lucid at the moment with this rant.
Never thought there were any humans on Twitter by xxxJonBoyxxx · 2018-02-22 03:53 · Score: 2

>> developers meant to prevent bots from using third-party apps to spread spam

I thought that was the whole point of Twitter: bots posting to other bot's feeds. During my brief time in marketing, that was my general experience anyway: we'd package up some piece of clickbait, link it to an article we planted on Slashdot or similar forum, and then drop it into a bot hopper somewhere to bounce around an extended bot ecosystem, in the hopes that the occasional tweet/link would eventually get posted to a notable news source and increase our SEO midichlorians. As for anyone actually READING Twitter? That's something that only happened when we needed to retune existing bots or build new ones. Long story short, as a human, "I ain't got time for no Twitter!"
1. Re:Never thought there were any humans on Twitter by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 09:00 · Score: 0
  
  Congratulations on being a piece of shit.
Cut the crap by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 03:58 · Score: 1

Just turn off API access to Twitter.
1. Re: Cut the crap by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 04:45 · Score: 0
  
  This right here.
  So the API doesn't streamline spam like posting and liking and retweeting? People will just make a script that does it.
2. Re:Cut the crap by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 04:55 · Score: 0
  
  Agreed. They've already shat on their existing developer base so much, the API is utterly useless. Just like twitter.
3. Re:Cut the crap by tepples · 2018-02-22 18:16 · Score: 1
  
  Without API access, bots will screen-scrape.
New rules for bots by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 03:59 · Score: 0

Don't do anything bot-like.
What a cesspool twitter is.
What developers? by SuperKendall · 2018-02-22 04:07 · Score: 3, Insightful

It seems like they could have just called and let the handful of people with grandfathered unlimited Twitter API access know this.
Everyone else gets limited Oath keys so they can't support many Twitter users at once anyway, which would seem to limit bot use...
I really doubt bots are coming in through the API, they are coming in via the website by bots pretending to be a browser.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
1. Re:What developers? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 07:53 · Score: 0
  
  The last sentence specifically -- using an API for bots isn't how it's done anymore -- one simply simulates human actions by automating the browser, and there isn't a directly easy way to protect against this -- there are super interesting and complex ways to combat this though but that's a different conversation.
  The recent changes are just one in the chain of a lot of things that need to happen to help combat this sort of behavior.
2. Re:What developers? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 08:01 · Score: 0
  
  I really doubt bots are coming in through the API, they are coming in via the website by bots pretending to be a browser.
  Yep. Exactly right. Most bots of worth do shit through the website by simulating a real person.
  Some even simulate the atypical smarter person by looking as if they block ads and such.
  This will do nothing but eliminate the small time spammers.
  Equally all it will do is push them towards these virtual person bots, making spam even worse as more find out about it.
  Great job, ya idiots.
  Next major headline after this : Twitter adds a captcha, everyone whines.
  Calling it.
3. Re:What developers? by DamnOregonian · 2018-02-22 08:57 · Score: 1
  
  Wouldn't it seem logical that since they claim to have identified the bots, they know how they are accessing their system?
  I see a lot of people second-guessing their mediation. When I fix problems in my systems or on my network, I don't roll out solutions that don't stop the problem...
4. Re:What developers? by slashdotiscompromisd · 2018-02-22 09:32 · Score: 1
  
  amazing work detective, stating the completely obvious and taking mod points from the free speech discussion
  
  --
  My karma was manually wiped by site staff https://slashdot.org/~slshdtisctrldbysjws 18 mod up, 10 mod down = bad karma
5. Re:What developers? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 11:23 · Score: 0
  
  This is what I do. Plus my fake news site will generate more clout for my twitter accounts by auto-following them if they have a twitter cookie. Thankfully very, very few conservatives are computer savvy enough to block those scripts :) That could be a real pain in the revenue.
6. Re:What developers? by Slashdot+Junky · 2018-02-22 16:05 · Score: 1
  
  I suspect presenting captchas in a pseudo-random distribution where, say, 20% of tweets get hit at any given time would do a lot to shut down non human usage. The more a party tweets, the more likely he, she, or it is to see a captcha.
  
  --
  .
  Landfill Mining Co.
  Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
WGAF? by Mnemennth · 2018-02-22 04:14 · Score: 1

Seriously.
mnem
Pants are highly overrated.
Because of Pressure or Integrity? by eepok · 2018-02-22 04:16 · Score: 2

I'm genuinely curious as to whether this decision came from public pressure, social pressure, legal pressure, or the that very minor sense of integrity that says that even if we allow individuals to have more than one voice, they shouldn't be allowed to use all of them at literally the exact same time.

Unless there's a piece of software that can automate the screaming of one particular statement in timed intervals to circumvent these new rules, of course.
1. Re: Because of Pressure or Integrity? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 04:56 · Score: 0
  
  There's little room for integrity in the corporate world. It might appear in the excretions of the PR department but experience has shown that it doesn't affect the bottom line so is an unnecessary input to the business model.
The great contraction. by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 04:21 · Score: 0

This will be interesting. If anyone had multiple accounts and were using it in a way now prohibited by the rules, they will now need to abandon all accounts except 1.
Expect collateral damage.. by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 04:26 · Score: 0

Unless they have some other sauce mixed with this, expect a lot of false positives. Users on several sites like Twitch use Twitter to announce things automatically. When they go live for example. Those tend to be based on fairly static templates.
Capatcha: quaqmire. Giggity :)
no, you're not by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 04:27 · Score: -1

I'm genuinely curious
you are not curious at all, you're 100% convinced that your opinion is correct
and that also makes you a fucking liar
WHaT IS TwITTER, GRAnDPa? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 05:04 · Score: 0

Tim
Interesting. by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 05:51 · Score: 0

The real news is Jared Taylor suing Twitter because California law specifically protects the freedom of speech in privately owned public spaces.
1. Re:Interesting. by Tsolias · 2018-02-22 06:27 · Score: 1
  
  privately owned public spaces
  could you elaborate on that fam?
2. Re:Interesting. by bracktra · 2018-02-22 07:51 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe this case of protesting in a shopping mall? http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12...
Mass exodus by Okian+Warrior · 2018-02-22 07:49 · Score: 1

Cue the alt-right cries of censorship...
Cue the droning on of $FAVORED_PARTY saying $UNFAVORED_PARTY crying about $PERCEIVED_SLIGHT.
All I know is Gab.ai got a massive bundle of new users in the last day or so.
Does that sound like something bots would do?
I think Twitter has reached the "we don't care about users" stage.
Next up will be the "We see some problems on the horizon" phase, followed by the "we've changed our direction" phase, then the "please come back - we're sorry" phase, then a couple of "we've reorganized and eliminated 10% of our employees" phases.
After that, maybe a year or two from now, we will look back on twitter with the same fondness as AOL and Yahoo.
(For those who didn't already know, Gab.ai is a replacement that promises free speech. Offensive posts are handled at the user's end - you are allowed to mute other people or words that you don't want to see in your feed. This ensures that you won't be offended, while allowing everyone else the right to speak their minds.)
1. Re:Mass exodus by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 11:08 · Score: 0
  
  Gab is super fun to bot too. My coworkers and I have a lot of fun trolling on there. We've got people believing the most insane things, and then link back to my fake news site as "evidence". It's damn good money too! I can't thank Gab enough for creating a reliable pool of ignorant clickbait clickers for us smarter people to exploit financially :)
2. Re: Mass exodus by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 12:18 · Score: 0
  
  Timmy!!
Not just a bot purge by bracktra · 2018-02-22 07:59 · Score: 1

My understanding is that it was not just a bot purge, it was also an ideological purge to a non-trivial degree. Anecdotally, a number of conservative users were locked out, some with no recourse and others allowed back in if they provided additional identifying details like a phone number.
It defies logic to believe the company's reaction to events in the political sphere could in any way be apolitical.
1. Re:Not just a bot purge by crmarvin42 · 2018-02-22 08:17 · Score: 1
  
  I think the ideological component is correlated to the degree that accounts affiliated with specific ideologies rely more or less on bots to inflate their following (knowingly or not). If twitter really wanted to enforce some sort of ideology, they could ban the president for the shit he posts. Instead they've chosen to pretty much ignore anything he says, suggesting they are not pushing a liberal ideology here so much as trying to reduce the overall signal to noise ratio (with bots = noise, regardless of ideology).
  
  --
  Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
2. Re:Not just a bot purge by DamnOregonian · 2018-02-22 09:03 · Score: 1
  
  Your understanding isn't backed up by significant evidence. It is refuted by quite a bit of evidence, though.
  
  More likely, Twitter is a company that survives on advertising revenue. Bots don't click ads. Bots that do nothing but amplify the perceived size of an audience and add garbage to the platform as a whole are not profitable. The vast majority of bots right now are doing this amplification in the name of a particular ideology, due to a certain world state deciding it was the best way to fuck with an adversary. A number of conservative users may have been locked out, a number may not have been. Some of them may have been legitimate, some may not have been. There's almost certain to be collateral damage, but at the end of the day, if the Twitterverse were really conservative-leaning, they wouldn't dare piss off those eyeballs. They've identified the amplification factor, and have decided to clean it up. The most likely explanation to all of this, is they know something you don't- that the vast majority of viral conservative-leaning tweets simply aren't real.
3. Re:Not just a bot purge by bracktra · 2018-02-22 11:20 · Score: 1
  
  Your statements might persuade me if Twitter operated like other normal businesses. I'm skeptical they even are a business. Twitter has enough cash reserves to lose money for centuries. So do you have any other evidence to disprove my hypothesis? Unfortunately, lacking some kind of third party polling of current and ex Twitter users, I suspect all arguments will be based in anecdote for the foreseeable future.
  Try it on for size, though; imagine the people running Twitter do have ulterior motives. If you wanted to control or direct the cultural zeitgeist while masking your intentions, could you come up with a more effective, sneakier, or addictive way to do so?
  The 24 hour news cycle was bad enough before Twitter existed, but now it is steeped in the platform -- both as a source and outlet. Twitter can tweak who can participate in the conversation, the size of their audience, the topics du jour, etc. with no worry of going out of business. They have no concerns about competition because no VC firms bother funding a competitor against a war chest of that size, and even if they do (like gab.ai), there is a duopoly of gatekeepers that conveniently share the same cultural stances to lock them out (Google, Apple).
This will be a problem for the alt-left by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-22 09:20 · Score: 0

Looks like they're purging the communist propaganda.
Expect disability advocates to sue by tepples · 2018-02-22 18:18 · Score: 1

If a website operator deliberately makes a public website inaccessible to users with disabilities, it risks a lawsuit from National Federation of the Blind or foreign counterparts.
1. Re:Expect disability advocates to sue by Slashdot+Junky · 2018-02-23 00:03 · Score: 1
  
  There must be support in the law to support mechanisms such as captcha, because I often see them when using Google Search and other websites. Its either this or there is little risk to the operator of legal action.
  
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