UKC

How would it change?

In reply to diffdiff:

Lasers. 8 o'clock, day 1.

youtube.com/watch?v=ZlJaIREGnaM&

In reply to diffdiff:

Oh, the people who could return! The sad, inadequates who can't face apologising for their racism, sexism, misogyny, personal abuse, misinformation, the multiple accounts, the sock puppets! It would be awesome. 

In reply to diffdiff:

Mars topo?

In reply to diffdiff:

He'd go after bots and fake accounts. How would that make you feel?

In reply to diffdiff:

As well as up and down votes there'd be a button for when you want to call the poster a paedo.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

Hope it buys it ASAP in that case

In reply to diffdiff:

The space baron fanboys hereabouts would be delighted

Musk would be able to call anyone he wanted a paedophile

In reply to diffdiff:

I for one welcome our new overlords. 

In reply to Longsufferingropeholder:

and people who says bad things about tesla or dare to suggest his solutions arent the best thing since sliced bread.

In reply to gravy:

Would he?

I am pretty sure ownership of a platform doesn't mean you can't be sued for libelling someone on it! 

In reply to diffdiff:

1/10

you are Elon Musk

In reply to Sir Chasm:

I gave you a like.  I was trusting that your last sentence was an honest mistake.

In reply to spenser:

Or fall foul of the forthcoming EU law on moderation:

https://www.dw.com/en/eu-reaches-deal-on-major-law-aiming-to-regulate-tech-...

In reply to diffdiff:

UKC wouldn't change.

Musk would take stuff onboard then go away and rethink the Tesla so it evolved into an Octavia.

In reply to diffdiff:

Elon Musk, is that the pedo guy?

In reply to spenser:

His lawyers seem to be able to let him get away with labelling someone a paedophile in the international media, why would his platform be any different?

In reply to diffdiff:

This is such a good question 

In reply to Dave Garnett:

Makes me vom a little bit in my mouth when anyone ever says ‘the science’.

In reply to diffdiff:

It would be like the old days, great.

In reply to UKC:

Thanks for removing that post. It illustrated one of the key threats to all our futures perfectly: truth itself is at stake from proven liars who want unhindered public mass access for their lies and misinformation.  This includes libertarians with serious power (a few with almost unimaginable financial clout) who claim to be absolute bastions of free speech, getting so very upset about facts and clear scientific consensus (let alone different politics) that contradict some of their dubious and at times dishonest positions.

The libertarians massively exaggerate (and at times complete invent) threats to freedom of speech, utilising well intentioned public concerns, to try and reduce or remove actual public freedoms, like protection in law from hate, or protection of standards on public health information. We should all be entitled to our opinions but it is not acceptable to publicly broadcast seriously dangerous shit; be that political opinion so extreme it is illegal, to specifically incorrect health information, that could kill people (like the ongoing MMR anti-vax lies, that is fast leading to a major public health disaster with measles in the UK).

Those banned from Twitter usually knowingly broke the posting rules, some of the most infamous did so egregiously. Those heavily dissenting scientists and medics in the pandemic response (detailed in the deleted post) never lacked a public audience, they even get lauded by some dishonest journalists,  some even got published in low standard scientific publications; their unproven (or proven false) ideas simply couldn't pass peer review to get published in journals with proper scientific standards.

In reply to Offwidth:

I confess I was confused by Musk saying he wanted Twitter to become a beacon of truth, and reports suggesting Trump's account would be reinstated. Those seemed to be diametrically opposed positions.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

The functionality of the button would not only include calling someone a "pedo guy" and "child rapist" because they disagreed with you, but conveniently include deleting the comments automatically a few days later. Elon Musk has the same "flexible" memory/recall skills of Boris Johnson and Prince Andrew and this can be automated.

In court he said: "I did not accuse Mr Unsworth of being a pedophile.”

In reply to Offwidth:

I disagree with some of your post. I don't know what the deleted posts contained so my response has nothing to do with those.

What I don't agree with is the idea that alternatives views to science can't be voiced.

There is no such thing as a universal truth that we understand. There is only a general consensus of our current understand and it's critical that this can be challenged and apposed for the following reasons:

1. It allows experts to defend their reasoning giving the public more information.

2. It gives people who are skeptical the information on both sides of an argument so they can come to their own conclusion

3. It removes blind agreement with authority which could easily be exploited by the wrong people.

I want to be able to say that my commonsense doesn't agree with your professional view, that way my understanding can either be improved by the reasons given as a response or potentially my original views reinforced by the response.

Unfortunately the above comes with some negatives, but I think to deny people a voice pushes them underground where we don't know what they are saying and we can't challenge it to give people more information.

Where I draw the line is direct abuse, bullying and threats. Opposite views, crack on.

In reply to montyjohn:

I have no problems with people expressing alternative views to science or even within science. I do have problems with specific views which are proven to be seriously dangerous being publicised unhindered on mass media. A healthy modern democracy should  being able to carefully define very wide limits on freedom of speech, as most countries in western Europe already do.  It is seriously dangerous to society to have leaders who lie with impunity, thanks in part to exploiting unlimited freedom of speech (like Trump  and Boris); just as it is to have rogue doctors or scientists making claims that have been proven to be almost certainly wrong. Social and broadcast media in the UK and US have repeatedly failed to hold both of these scenarios properly to account. While some obsess on freedom of speech, the public loses from freedoms of our rogue leaders, medics or scientists to lie and cheat.

Science can't function based on opinion. It has to be repeatable and although nothing in science is an absolute fact.. we do have excellent models of the world which meet current evidence levels. The scientific community rightly expects change to those models to be handled carefully within peer reviewed practice: this can sometimes hinder new development and is always a bit political but does keep out bogus information from many fools and charlatans. 

On your specific numbered points:

1 fails if those views are not properly aired.

2 fails if sceptics are being bamboozled as two sides are being presented with false equivalence or non equal attention to truth.

3 has failed and failed again, and has even achieved the opposite, as despite extensive freedom of speech in the US and UK, Trump and Boris exploit blind agreement to improve chances of being elected.

The restrictions we have on freedoms of speech in western Europe hasn't led to an underground epidemic of liars, crooks and extremists (those who are so bad their words get banned from the likes of Twitter) nor do we face their lies, crime and extremism not being exposed somewhere in public media (just the opposite);  let alone developments leading to some revolution based on festering bad ideas. In contrast there is plenty of misinformation spreading through poorly regulated public echo chambers, leading to dangerous movements, despite widespread freedom of speech...... and widespread distribution of dangerous pseudoscience; and liar leaders who thrive.

The libertarian view on freedom of speech is deliberately dishonest (it reduces their public accountability) and in broadcast terms is part 'coolaid' and part 'smoke and mirrors'.

In reply to diffdiff:

I'd be up for that.

Alan

In reply to montyjohn:

Although those wrong people are far to busy exploiting the wrongheaded idea that an “opposite” view to an evidence based mainstream view is equally worthy of air time and merit.

The root problem is with the “wrong people”, they will exploit any situation to their advantage.

In reply to Offwidth:

Were you ok with anything from the Babylon Bee and Trump to reports on Hunter Biden's laptop or the lab-leak theory being censored?

Have you considered that the "rise of the right" might be directly linked to the Left's apparent comfort with partisan censorship on these platforms, which does more to reinforce every concern they hold far more than any fake narratives?

The proles are too thick to be trusted and a threat to the status quo of social media monopoloies, with opaque standards and massive left bias, is actually the concern? What Elon may bring, and more even- handedness with viewpoint diversity, can only be negative?

Few here seemed to be complaining about the proclivities of Twitter management until Elon took over and pledges more transparency. Now everyone is deeply troubled?

In reply to Alan James - Rockfax:

$44B do you...?

In reply to diffdiff:

There would be an option to buy a Tesla with seats made from Organic Bouldering Pads.  This would cost £4,000 extra.  Per seat.  And you couldn't specify the colours but each would be unique.

The Tesla software would tie in with Rockfax, so you could drive to parking at the crag (while asleep) and it would tick your climbs for you, when you get back to the car.  Then it would drive you to the nearest climber's pub or cafe - depending on how you'd set you preferences -  Beer / coffee / cake would be automatically ordered on the way.

In reply to captain paranoia:

Ideally not all in Twitter shares

jk

In reply to Offwidth:

Too much to unpack in your message so going to focus on what I think is most important.

Your assumption here however is that these publicised views convert people to have the same views. Whilst this undoubtedly happens, what's more important is how the opposite reaction could drive even more people to have similar views.

Here's a scenario. There's a pandemic and a vaccine (as if right?). The government says you must have the vaccine and it's illegal to discuss, question or challenge the vaccine in any way, shape or form, verbally or written. I think you'd find very few people are willing to take the vaccine under these conditions. It smells fishy.

A much much much milder version of the above occurred with Covid. Except instead of the government making it illegal, twitter, facebook and to a lesser extent the media took it upon themselves to police the discussion around vaccines. Even UKC are doing this. Don't know what he said, but someone got banned today. Maybe if I read it, I'd agree, I don't know.

I am of the option (I can't prove it, nor can you disprove it), but I strongly believe that controlling the narrative around vaccines created more vaccines skeptics than the spread of vaccine skepticism through conspiracy theories. Any attempt to close down conversation breeds skepticism and speaks much louder than the conspiracy theory itself. 

I think my views are very moderate and damn right sensible if I do say so. However I still found myself re-reading the above to check if UKC would find any reason in there to ban me for my views and how it related to Covid and the vaccine. This really just shouldn't happen.

For the record.

    I am not anti-vax

    I am not a covid denier

    I believe the benefits of free speech outweigh the harms

That should cover it I think.

In reply to montyjohn:

It's not an attempt to close down conversation, it's an attempt to prevent a few deranged individuals violating the site rules to post the same garbage a thousand times over from a hundred different accounts.

I've not seen anyone state they've been drawn to the anti-vax side of things by the deletion of endless trolls on here - you perhaps have some links to suggest otherwise?  

I'm surprised you find yourself re-reading it, as you are presumably not one of the few people who have been abusing hundreds of accounts to post the same garage thousands of times over, and as I assume you're smart enough to spot the difference between genuine debate and astroturfing trolls.

Yeah, no.  The vast quantity of organised faux-"grass roots" campaigning, sham companies, trolls and a small assortment corrupt/corrupted professionals I think had far more impact.  Nor can you prove or disprove it, but I can find far more examples of people endorsing their content than of stating they're going to decline a vaccine because some troll got deleted, which seems to me like a spitefully stupid argument. (spitefully as in cutting off their nose to spite their face).

Edit: (after reading another thread) - oh, back in the sock drawer with you.

In reply to wintertree:

Just to be clear, I'm not talking about content of deleted posts and banned individual from this site because I haven't read what they've said and I might well agree with removing them (I know that sounds hypocritical, but there's no such thing as absolute free speech. I think the 9pm watershed is a great example that I think everyone would agree with, probably).

that's not really what I was trying to say. I don't know any strong anti-vaxxers, but I do know some mild ones and their reasons are purely down to trust (or lack of it). Their distrust for the media comes from the control of the narrative. With children it seems to work, hide the bad, tell them what they need to know to be good. It doesn't work with adults.

Really. Hold a slightly alternative view and the other side can be truly nasty.

I'm not convinced it matters how many people endorse their content in the context of our conversation. If you feel distrust for the system you'll run into the open arms of whichever conspiracy group you find makes the most sense to you. 

I think it's a push rather than a pull effect.An interesting social experiment would be to ban conversation on flat earth discussion. I bet their online presence would multiply exponentially and so would their numbers.

How very dare you suggest such a thing

In reply to diffdiff:

I would delete my accounts within milliseconds...

CB

In reply to montyjohn:

Misrepresentation.  You were talking about your fear of being banned, which would have been done by the site owners, not the other side of the debate.

Here, let me remind you of what you said:  However I still found myself re-reading the above to check if UKC would find any reason in there to ban me for my views and how it related to Covid and the vaccine.

If you genuinely think you could be banned for saying what you wrote, you're delusional.  It rather has a whiff of trying to create an impression that free speech is under far more threat than it is.

Or perhaps you are claiming the site owners are truly nasty?  Risibly out of touch with the moderation policies here I would suggest.

In reply to montyjohn:

Given how reasonable, rational and discerning people drawn to conspiracy theories appear when engaged with I'm not sure how you come to that conclusion!

Do you support militant Islamists' rights to free speech, what about a group like the Paedophile Information Exchange* and their rights to free speech? Absolute free speech is a dystopian fantasy and I very much doubt you do actually support it.

*thankfully history, too recent history but still.

jk

In reply to wintertree:

I re-read it for a number of reasons and wasn't clear. Buzz words that could lead to a ban. i don't know how much time UKC put into reading posts and deciding. Youtube use algorithms to decide who to de-monitise. Maybe UKC do a better job, I just don't know. Probably best to be on the safe side and check.

I also like to check how it will be interpreted by other readers so i don't get responses from people foaming at the mouth. It happens from what i consider to be reasonable comments and that is not my intention.

You're just inferring what you want at this point. I don't think UKC are nasty, I think they have an impossible job to get right. Think I'll leave it there.

In reply to jkarran:

Maybe I'm being thick but not sure what you are trying to say here.

I quite agree and even said so. 

I said earlier there no such thing as absolute freedom of speech and gave the 9pm watershed as an example.  I also said "I draw the line at direct abuse, bullying and threats" so any calls for violence and the abuse examples you gave obviously can't be tolerated. I don't believe I've suggested otherwise.

In reply to Offwidth:

It's pretty easy to get banned on Twitter without breaking their rules. They don't allow any appeal and they enforce hidden guidelines known only to themselves rather than the letter of the rules. There's no way to make an argument that you didn't break the rules by comparing what you said to the rules point by point. 

I got banned on Twitter for a week for saying the EU should tell the Tories to 'f*ck off and die' after they decided to break the agreement they'd signed and told I'd get a permanent ban instantly if I said anything else.  You can also get banned for calling them c*nts.  That's not in the Twitter rules but they make sh*t up and ban you anyway.

Also their 'algorithm' basically mutes people they don't like silently in the background without you even knowing it is happening except that you get no response when you post even though you've allegedly got thousands of followers.  You've got to wonder when they appoint a British Army reserve officer in the Psy Ops brigade https://www.ft.com/content/53017272-e37f-11e9-b112-9624ec9edc59 as an executive how much influence the UK government has on Twitter UK.  Not to mention the bias of having the people making the decisions on bans in London and therefore having the anti-SNP politics of London.  Twitter is full of unionist bots paid for by Tory donors and probably the UK government with the millions Gove allocated to fight independence and does nothing about them. Not really surprising when the manager is in the UK army department which runs them.

In reply to montyjohn:

Oh hai

In reply to Longsufferingropeholder:

What does that mean? Google tells me:

"a greeting or exclamation said with an exaggerated high pitch, sass, enthusiasm and emphasis on the "haaay." Often used to indicate sexiness or a vivacious attitude."

I don't think that's what you meant.

In reply to diffdiff:

He's not going to buy UKClimbing. He might buy the UK or he might buy climbing* but UKClimbing is too small to register.

*like the full kit and caboodle, venues, means of production, history, bragging rights you name it. He's a collector.

In reply to Offwidth:

It's worth noting that the MMR anti-vax lies do a lot of harm to the autistic community as well, it effectively sends the messages that those people would rather have their children die of measles than possibly be autistic. It also promotes the idea that it's a curable disease which is a gateway to all manner of nasty attitudes about people who have done nothing wrong whatsoever.

In reply to dread-i:

If I had the like buttons switched on, I'd give you a big thumbs up for a) an awesome answer and b) reminding me of a film I absolutely love!

In reply to montyjohn:

I think you are misunderstanding what I mean by dangerous. I'm talking about proscribed organisations as agreed in a healthy democracy (democratic but with proper establishment checks and balances). I'm talking about pseudoscience and disproven scientific work being presented as scientific proof. I'm talking about standards of freedom of speech and limitations that broadly already apply in western europe.

Generally such misinformation and lies don't convert people but they do sow doubt and build misunderstanding and anger in some quarters, especially when we have disadvantaged groups suspicious of govenment.

In covid and covid vaccine terms this was clearly evidenced by all the sceptics I knew. I had no issue with their scepticism but time after time they cherry picked false or dubious evidence, available publicly, that should have had a health warning or in the worst cases have been banned from the beginning (but publicise and any dishonesty explained in media and government messages). I copied easily available fact checks, and explained further when questioned, but these rarely dispel the doubt; as I fully expected from Brandolini's law.

The 'scientific method' and political application of science struggled with covid for several reasons: the public health specifics had been a bit under-supported and detached from the political centre, being a black swan type area of work;  the time taken to evidence didn't match the speed of initial spread; we had too much modelling based on unfortunate assumptions that more experienced scientific and medical experience of real outbreaks might have countered ; we had a few genuine dirty secrets 'hidden under stones',  like the US funding of gain-of-function work in Wuhan that the US government tried to hide and distract from and where the lead US scientist in the WHO investigation turned out to have a massive conflict of interest.

If any country cannot control the narrative due to freedom of speech it should be in the US yet misinformation was as bad there as in any western nation and even encouraged by Trump as president. The social media companies tried to close the stable door after most of the horses had bolted but even then there were always very obvious sources of alternative truths (notably Fox news).

You seem to think this is about absolute freedom of speech helped counter covid when all the evidence points in the opposite direction. The western countries who handled things best did have tougher limits on freedom of speech than the US, alongside a govenment message linked clearly to trusted public health systems.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

I have no particular wish to defend Twitter. I don't like the company and don't use the platform, beyond viewing occasion tweets. I'm just arguing that some limits on freedom of speech are needed in a healthy social democracy and would prefer to see some independence of the setting those limits from the platform (who will be conflicted).

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

Maybe they just don't like Scottish Nationalists 🤣

Problem I have with Twitter etc, is the way people quote tweets as actual factual evidence. I used to think quoting Wiki was bad!

In reply to Offwidth:

A friend who grew up in Northern Ireland had an interesting perspective on free speech. He said free speech lead to deaths when incendiary speeches stoked tensions.

In reply to montyjohn:

No, I was replying to what you wrote. You are now claiming you weren’t clear.  You were very clear, but it seems you actually meant something else.  If I reply to what you actually wrote, that’s not “inferring what [I] want”.  It’s taking a logical interpretation of what you actually said.  You massively backpedaling on that doesn’t make my interpretation self-driven as you now claim, if just means I was interpreting a post of yours you now effectively disown.

Not a very honest style of debate you seem to be engaging in here.

In reply to Offwidth:

It's a plausible argument. I often wish some serial commentators would just shut the f*ck up.

I'm not directing that at you by the way.                     For me, freedom of speech encompasses an equal freedom to keep your gob shut, but other folk believe it's a charter to be gratuitously offensive.

In reply to wintertree:

Any sentence starting with "Or perhaps you are claiming" is quite clearly inferred. I explained that my response wasn't clear and that I never said I think the site owners are nasty.

Not really sure why you want to keep arguing about it. 

In reply to montyjohn:

Hai means shark in Finnish if that's helpful.

In reply to TobyA:

Or "yes" in Japanese.

In reply to Maggot:

They don't because they are in bed with the UK government and their UK office is in London and therefore staffed with people with the politics of England. If they ran it out their office in Dublin or opened an office in Glasgow the staff making banning decisions would have quite different views on Scottish Independence.

The main problem with Twitter is the one that Musk identified. Nobody knows what is in the 'algorithm'.  I've allegedly got about 7,500 followers yet if I Tweet from my own account I'll be lucky to get a single response. But if post the exact same thing in reply to some unionist Tory's Tweet I get a ton of response.  Maybe there is some legitimate reason for this, but there's absolutely no way of knowing. There could be code specifically to mute particular posters or political views and amplify others, it could be a hidden sanction for almost getting banned, there could be AI trained with a particular set of biases or it may just be a side effect of an algorithm which is honestly designed with the sole goal of making Twitter money. 

In reply to Offwidth:

Personally, I'd rather see the people making the decisions associated with the platform and have the choice of several platforms than have them associated with the UK government and getting Tory views imposed on every platform.

They are already saying they expect every TV company broadcasting in the UK to have 'Distinctive Britishness' which means they want it to promote unionism. They'd take the same approach to regulating social media.  They even want control of the Electoral Commission - which in my view means Scotland should instantly remove the UK electoral commission from any role in Scottish elections and particularly independence referendums.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

If you hold those views on it , the best thing you can do is close your account and ignore it like just like lots of other people. 

In reply to deepsoup:

So important to get clarification if you are asking "is it safe to swim here?"

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

Your paranoia is a great demonstration of why the claims about twitter being biased really needs treating with suspicion.

Are you really claiming that any staff who end up working for twitter in London regardless of where they were born automatically has a pro unionist bias?

Because by all accounts there isnt "a" algorithm

Not exactly a difficult one to figure out is it? Your tweet in itself doesnt manage to trigger your fellow fruitcakes but when in response to one of those evil english lovers a pile on insues.

In reply to TobyA:

Or German.

In reply to mondite:

There is an MP in the Japanese parliament who, although now a Japanese citizen, was born and brought up Finnish. So it would work for him at least.

"Hai?"

"Hai!"

Runaway!

In reply to cb294:

Oddly, I knew that (although had subsequently forgotten it) after listening to a podcast that was a cultural history of the "Baby Shark" song phenomenon. Quite possibly it was German long before the Koreans got their hands on it and translated it into English (?!).

In reply to montyjohn:

Fair enough, I wasn't very clear.

I'm saying that most people at a vulnerable moment or more generally predisposed to believe nonsense 'conspiracy theories' evidently cannot be reasoned out of them nor swayed by exposure to a plurality of ideas including those that are well supported by evidence, experience and reason once they've 'seen the light'. Your idea, if I've understood, that they wouldn't gravitate toward nonsense-contrarian positions if those positions were simply embraced and considered part of a healthy online dialogue doesn't ring particularly true to me.

I suspect few of the people lost to the conspiracy rabbit-hole would invent their own socially harmful web of fantasies were they not frequently exposed to those pushed by others for one reason or another. I don't think indulging conspiracists and contrarians does less harm to our society or vulnerable individuals than quieting them online. I might agree that silencing them completely would, some conspiracies are afterall real!

jk

In reply to mondite:

No. And this is a sh*tty debating tactic. I didn't say anything like that. I didn't say or imply that everyone in London is against Scottish independence, I made a statement about the relative prevalence of support for independence. Obviously you could find a few SNP supporters in London but the population of London will have proportionally far fewer independence supporters than Glasgow or Dublin. 

When Twitter is hiring executives who are reserve officers in the British Army psy-ops I'm not filled with confidence about their hiring procedures in the parts of the company with an influence on who gets banned or which posts get amplified or muted.  Media companies shouldn't be hiring anyone with that background. 

Whether it is one algorithm or multiple algorithms is irrelevant: there's code in there that decides which posts get seen.

My 'fellow fruitcakes'  don't get to see it in the first place. I have 7,500 followers and my Tweets get between 40 and 150 impressions. The algorithm has decided to mute me (as it does a lot of other people) and there is no visibility into why.

And calling independence supporters 'fruitcakes' is an excellent illustration of why having English people in London make decisions on Tweets about Scottish politics is biased towards unionism and unfair. The SNP has won every national election in Scotland and support for independence is a little over 50%. 

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

Yes you did. You claimed the offices were "staffed with people with the politics of England." If you have ever dealt with the London offices of the big tech companies that is frankly nonsense and so the only way it could be achieved is to selectively hire.

Why not? Aside from anything else I suspect you have the hiring approach the wrong way round.

I would guess there would be a lot more people overlapping since generally for that sort of specialist reserve unit they will be recruiting people who work in the closest civilian profession.

Maybe, maybe not. It could just be a mess of dodgy AI blackbox.

No I called people who followed you fruitcakes. On the grounds that unless you have a massively different personalty on twitter none of the sane independence people would be following you.

In reply to mondite:

Fairly obvious that if you locate in London you get London politics.  The people making decisions on bans aren't tech workers, they are low level customer service workers who happen to work for Twitter.

Because working in psy-ops for the Army should be completely incompatible with working for a media company in a democracy.  Doesn't matter which way round the hiring went - you should need to choose: either you work for Army psy-ops or you work for Twitter. Not both.

I don't see much of a difference between training an AI and putting it in production when the biases it has developed suit your views and writing algorithmic code to have biases that suit you. Except, maybe that the AI is less open to scrutiny because it is more opaque and it is easier to claim the bias is not intentional.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

Aren't you perhaps getting the hiring thing the wrong way around and it's the Army that have hired him on a part time advisory basis due to his expertise in Industry as opposed to Twitter hiring him for the stuff he does on behalf of the Army?

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

Have you been to London recently? Do you really think one of those low level workers will be fully brought into that evil unionist propaganda. At a guess I would doubt most would really think about it and those who do would be Scottish.

Also you seem to be jumping around from low level moderators which I am not sure they have any in London and the skilled data scientists and developers who would be writing the sort of rules which would victimise yourself and other heroes.

Why? Seems like a perfect fit for a modern media company.

Well yes thats a big difference and advantage. It also rules out those low level workers writing it.

In reply to FactorXXX:

Like I said I don't think it matters which way round.  If he was working for Twitter first he should have been told joining Army psy-ops was incompatible with keeping his job.

You can't work for the government in an Army organisation whose job is to manipulate social media in support of UK government policy and expect people to believe when you go to work for Twitter on Monday morning you are politically unbiased.

In reply to mondite:

I think you are absolutely right, they won't think about it, they'll just take the conventional English view in the English media which happens to be different from the view of many and arguably most Scottish people.

Scotland has not voted Tory in a national election since the 1950s.  It's a different country with different views.

Actually what needs to happen is that the Scottish Government should be in charge of media regulation in Scotland but the English realise that if they didn't control the media they'd have zero chance of stopping independence.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

The bloke in question is in the TA. He's probably called Gareth, has an NVQ in marketing and bores his mates stupid about he's reached the dizzying heights of 2nd Lieutenant and presents powerpoint presentations under extreme conditions on Tuesday nights and  half a dozen weekends a year.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

Twitter are fully aware of his role within the Army and have no issues with it.  Unless of course you think that Twitter are knowingly employing him as a Government mole that is...

You seem to be under the illusion that the Army unit in question (77th Brigade) role is to support the implementation of Government policies on a UK political level and to the degree that they're trying to interfere with Scottish Independence.
That's absurd, they might try and influence foreign policy in the times of war , but to suggest that their peacetime role is to somehow get involved with domestic politics is frankly insane. 

In reply to FactorXXX:

"The 77th Brigade website details tasks including “planning information activity” and conducting “adversary analysis”, as well as “engaging with audiences in order to influence perceptions” and creating products “that aim to influence behaviours”."

i.e. running bots and making fake news for social media.

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/twitter-executive-british-army-officer-p...

It is frankly insane to think they aren't and haven't got involved in domestic politics in issues like Northern Ireland and Scottish Independence.  Anything which involves the break up of the UK state is going to have government opposing it through the military, civil service and BBC.  They don't even claim otherwise. Gove openly got £3.5 million of taxpayer money to fight Scottish Independence.  Which is in itself completely f*cking outrageous.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

You should look up how such people helped in the pandemic ….MandS, Tesco etc …logistical support .that should get you on your high horse 

In reply to neilh:

First of all that's a pile of sh*te and second of all whether the  Army should be delivery drivers in a pandemic has zero to do with whether Army psy-ops have any place in a social media company in a democracy.

Tesco employs 3x as many people in the UK as army, navy and air force regulars combined. The army doesn't have enough regular army HGV drivers or familiarity with food delivery equipment to make any serious difference in logistics.  It's just PR. Territorial army HGV drivers are already working as civilian HGV drivers it is totally pointless to call them up to 'help'.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

As always you talk a pile of rubbish. Look up how the top logistics and sourcing people at Tesco,etc were involved. 
 

Heaven forbid it would not surprise me if half of them were not Scottish or Welsh  or from the North .

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

If he was barred from the role for allegedly having a pro-Union bias, would you also exclude any candidates who share your own political views? Barring one political perspective and not the other isn’t unbiased. 

His TA role is fairly irrelevant to your point, which is that you think he’s politically biased. We all are. I don’t know if he’s the right candidate or not, but lots of people do different jobs and voluntary roles and have no trouble carrying out different tasks and roles in each.

In reply to Stuart Williams:

His Army role is the point. I wouldn't care as much if he was driving a tank but his role in the Army is psyops and their own website describes the 77th brigade as

“engaging with audiences in order to influence perceptions” and creating products “that aim to influence behaviours”."

Those are the complete opposite of what Twitter employees should be doing.  It is a huge conflict of interest. 

The whole Cambridge Analytica sh*t started out with money from US and UK army funded psyops during the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan then when those wound down the people got into f*cking with elections and referendums in the US and UK.

In reply to neilh:

Look up how many of them will get honours for helping Tory PR.

The regular UK army doesn't have that many HGV drivers. Territorials who'd be driving trucks anyway in civilian life don't add anything to overall capacity.

In reply to FactorXXX:

About as insane as sending people to Rwanda, banning demonstrations and making the electoral commission report to Michael Gove - the same guy who got several million pounds taxpayer funding to campaign against Scottish independence and who commissioned opinion polls on independence and refused to obey a court order to reveal the results.

The Tories do not hide spending UK taxpayer money and expecting every government department to back the union. As far as they are concerned unionism is completely legitimate for government organisations like the Army and BBC to promote and they are expected to do so.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/feb/25/boris-johnson-sets-up-comm...

In reply to FactorXXX:

I'm pretty sure that is exactly what Tom was claining earlier; that Twitter are an active partner in the Westminster anti-independence conspiracy:

"They don't because they are in bed with the UK government and their UK office is in London and therefore staffed with people with the politics of England."

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/off_belay/if_elon_musk_bought_uk_climbing...

In reply to FactorXXX:

I'm pretty sure that is exactly what Tom was claining earlier; that Twitter are an active partner in the Westminster anti-independence conspiracy:

"They don't because they are in bed with the UK government and their UK office is in London and therefore staffed with people with the politics of England."

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/off_belay/if_elon_musk_bought_uk_climbing...

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

Just ignore twitter and close your account. Less people on it the better for all of us

But you will never do that will you.

In reply to neilh:

No. There's a lot wrong with Twitter but as long as it is the dominant platform for online political debate I will engage with it.

This is also the reason the UK government and the Tory donors behind them want to have influence over Twitter and Facebook.  

In reply to captain paranoia:

Twitter is a US tech company which is out to make money for its founders and large shareholders.

This is where it starts getting dodgy. The UK government and the London mayor have connived to get all the large US tech / social media companies Twitter, Google, Facebook to put their UK HQ in London.  The tech companies see that London property has been made a one way bet by the government policies and they see that they need political influence to protect their sweetheart tax deals and defend themselves from privacy regulations which might limit their ability to sell targeted advertising. They also want a share of the UK government's advertising spend, which was absolutely huge during the Covid pandemic. To have political influence in the UK you have to locate in London and recruit senior people from the 'London elite' to create personal networks into government and the civil service.  They are just copying the banks.

Once you get into a cozy relationship with government you need to play along when government agencies want to place a few people on their staff or government wants to push certain debates in a particular direction.  When I worked for a US tech company they had a small number of employees in the US army reserves who were clearly there to help the company sell to spooky programs of the US government and to give the US government insight and influence inside the company. I don't have much of an issue with that in an electronics company but social media and military psy-ops is a lot more dodgy.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

It’s only dominant because of posters like you who get sucked into it.

In reply to neilh:

Well yeah, but me leaving isn't going to change Twitter's market share.  I'm not on Twitter because I think it is great as a messaging platform, I'm on it because the people I want to interact with are on it.  Even Trump isn't getting anywhere with his attempt to replace Twitter.

In reply to neilh:

No, it is dominant because too many people are too brain fu-ked to understand politics in more than 10 words. Every complex problem has at least one simple, easy to understand, wrong solution...

Unfortunately, if you are in any way politically engaged (e.g. as an environmental activist or, to pick a random example, to support Scottish independence) you have to engage with these platforms in the same way that you have to get your POV across in newspapers orT V talk shows, regardless of how disgusting you find these platforms.

Indeed, you will get your hands dirtier in social media as the intermediate (e.g. journalist or editor) is missing, but needs must.

CB

In reply to cb294:

 You do not have to engage as you are not reaching any target audience other than people like yourself.Preaching to the converted.  It’s a self fulfilling bubble leading to assumptions that everybody is like you. 
 

Waste of time.

In reply to diffdiff:

For starters ending the overtly woke left wing bias of UKC would be extremely positive. 

In reply to diffdiff:

My wife and I decided to take a trip to Malham on Saturday. Driving the last few miles through Kirby Malham and to the parking at the edge of Malham itself, we were following a Tesla with the plate M333 USK.

In reply to neilh:

Even reaching your own tribe, e.g. to keep engagement up, is a worthwhile aim.

Mobilization of your core voters is generally more important in most elections than convincing former voters of your opponents (or undecided swing voters) to switch allegiance. Tha almost never works.

It really takes exceptional circumstances, typically focussing the election on some key issue that does not normally dominate the debate or define the different camps, to pull off such a switch on a significant scale.

Recent example include e.g. Brexit and the 2019 election in the UK, or the Fukushima disaster that toppled the former conservative stronghold of Baden Württemberg here in Germany and led to the election of the first Green prime minister.

CB