Seems Brazil's court (the TSE) banned platforms from recommending (via 'feeds' and similar) ~700 accounts related to its election, to avoid 'amplification' (unless the user already follows the account, in which case it's permitted).
I'm not sure if this is a good or bad idea. But if I were Brazillian, I'd be immediately following all ~700 accounts (and probably unfollowing all 700 after the election).
Love or hate X, it deserves a massive hat tilt for its transparency here.
They didn't ban recommendations because they thought it was a "good idea".
They banned it to have reality comply with Brazilian electoral law which is written so that every candidate has the same amount of airtime.
It is not the job of the judiciary to determine whether a law should or shouldn't exist, but to make sure all laws are correctly enforced. Remembering this fact isn't optional.
Said differently, arguments about such decisions should revolve around whether the law says what the courts say it does or whether it was applied correctly—not whether the law should exist.
To make reality comply with a specific government's jurisdiction is such an absurd proposition, that people would've laughed at someone 100 years ago if they suggested this as a practical option.
> But if I were Brazillian, I'd be immediately following all ~700 accounts (and probably unfollowing all 700 after the election).
I would certainly not, as it is most likely propagandists; these aren't interesting.
But either way, the purpose of this is to protect democracy, and by mentioning the very accounts, this could have a Streisand effect. That by itself is influencing the election, and Musk knows this. That is the purpose of his action. Musk does the same with regards to other democracies, such as AfD in Germany.
They’re not propagandists, they’re the official accounts of candidates in the election. I don’t see any problem with this as long as it’s applied to all candidates equally.
These laws don't "protect democracy," even the most charitable interpretation of them is that they protect liberal values against democracy. They're inherently counter-majoritarian. Democracy doesn't mean liberalism. E.g. If Iran's ayatollah was elected by free and fair elections, but otherwise the country's laws and policies were the same, that would still be democracy.
Your reasoning sounds like levels upon levels of paranoia. Read out loud to yourself what you are saying. You're saying that it's 1. Good to limit certain people from being heard and 2. Bad to let the public know which people have been censored.
I couldn't think of a seasoned KGB commander with more totalitarian reasoning than what you are voicing. Not even the censors you are defending have anything against the public knowing which accounts are limited and why.
Well Musk has interfered in elections and riots before so it’s definitely a good idea to hold him under extremely close scrutiny. Being the world’s richest person and one of the most powerful influencers comes with responsibility, a responsibility that Musk has shown to be lacking.
Sure, but what does this have to do with what I wrote? The other poster is arguing that people shouldn't be allowed to know who has been censored. That's deep into 1984 or Soviet / Chinese censorship territory.
> That's deep into 1984 or Soviet / Chinese censorship territory.
Not if you consider the context of external influence, e.g. [1], and not wanting a Jan 6 in Brazil. Not letting such know their efforts are ineffective, is a tool to combat their effort. It is akin to shadowbanning.
Amplification of radical right by external entities is nothing new, btw. Russia did this in 2016. Musk does it now. But Musk won't show those parts of his machine. He still does shadowbanning, too.
Why not let them say whatever they want, but just cancel the election after the fact if you feel like the result endangers democracy? It’s worked before. It seems a little more honest and above-board, as well. No smoke-filled back rooms, just “election cancelled”.
Ultimately the only antidote to US propaganda is nationalism. Anyone in my country who is caught funded with US money may as well hang themselves they are electorally dead as a dodo.
This to be fair is why the CIA had to move suitcases with money instead of bragging about it on Fox News...
> But if I were Brazillian, I'd be immediately following all ~700 accounts (and probably unfollowing all 700 after the election).
I wonder how many normal people actually follow political accounts like this. I follow my local government because they sometimes tweet emergency info but I don’t follow candidates at all. I don’t follow political influencers either. It’s far too noisy.
>Starting August 16, Brazilian election law requires providers that use recommendation systems to exclude from their recommendations the official accounts of candidates registered with the Electoral Court and the posts from those accounts.
>On X, these accounts and their posts will no longer be recommended in the “For You” tab during the election period unless the user explicitly follows the account. Official candidates are not suspended, and their content will remain available on their profiles. This measure is expected to affect the visibility and reach of these profiles and their content.
>We are implementing this measure to strictly comply with TSE Resolution No. 23,610/2019. This is neither a penalty nor a change to X’s rules. We are committed to setting a new standard of transparency regarding our algorithms. Follow our work here: https://github.com/xai-org/x-algorithm
Brazilian electoral law tries to ensure all candidates have equitable access to media air time prior to the election. This filtering apparently exists to prevent distortions like X itself pushing candidates.
But incumbents have a natural advantage, right? So any type of control trying to ensure similar levels of access is clearly going to be to the advantage of incumbents.
It is interesting that attitudes, laws and initiatives that would be called "censorship" against traditional media are more and more accepted against social media platforms, all over the world in very democratic countries.
I am not against these attitudes. I just want to point to that.
A possible reason is that these platforms are seen as either monopolies or American imperialism agents. In both cases these are very damming perceptions. Both Musk and Zuckerberg have been disastrous in branding their platforms.
Do you know if this applies to explicitly partisan media, such as media directly funded or run by political parties? Many newspapers in the US used to be openly run by political factions, a century ago.
It's still called censorship when it's against a social media company.
What interests me more is that Elon has completely reversed his anti-censorship stance. He was always censoring while opining against censorship and getting sued for millions of dollars for ignoring a Brazilian censorship law. Now he's just quietly complying with Brazilian censorship law.
I miss his feuds with the supreme court. Trump actually got the judges sanctioned under Magnitsky too, then dropped the sanctions not too long after. No clue if Elon helped with that.
Censorship targets subversion. Censors seek to prevent the spread of antiestablishment information and ideas. So one can hardly claim that a universal ban on algorithmic recommendation for all candidates is censorship.
Anyone sensible doesn't call this censorship. It might sound complicated if you live in a country where elections are won by who spends most money for airtime, but granting candidates equal airtime on traditional media is how it works if you want to hold normal elections. Since that can't work on algorithmic platforms where everyone sees different content, you just block their reach to avoid anyone gaming it.
Normal countries also have media silence for the day or two before the votes.
Restricting the reach of politicians is an absolute good.
> It might sound complicated if you live in a country where elections are won by who spends most money for airtime
Which country are you referring to here? I’m not familiar with any that work like this. In the United States, Trump famously spent less than his competition and won both times. Bloomberg outspent his competitors by multiple orders of magnitude and endured a humiliating loss.
Seems Brazil's court (the TSE) banned platforms from recommending (via 'feeds' and similar) ~700 accounts related to its election, to avoid 'amplification' (unless the user already follows the account, in which case it's permitted).
I'm not sure if this is a good or bad idea. But if I were Brazillian, I'd be immediately following all ~700 accounts (and probably unfollowing all 700 after the election).
Love or hate X, it deserves a massive hat tilt for its transparency here.
They didn't ban recommendations because they thought it was a "good idea".
They banned it to have reality comply with Brazilian electoral law which is written so that every candidate has the same amount of airtime.
It is not the job of the judiciary to determine whether a law should or shouldn't exist, but to make sure all laws are correctly enforced. Remembering this fact isn't optional.
Said differently, arguments about such decisions should revolve around whether the law says what the courts say it does or whether it was applied correctly—not whether the law should exist.
To make reality comply with a specific government's jurisdiction is such an absurd proposition, that people would've laughed at someone 100 years ago if they suggested this as a practical option.
I'm not sure what you mean, so it's hard to agree someone would have laughed at it.
It is almost a perfect definition of sovereignty—to shape reality such that it fits what the state deems appropriate.
This by no means imply it's perfectly effective, but that's besides the point. We're debating what the state ought to do, not whether it succeeds.
> It is not the job of the judiciary to determine whether a law should or shouldn't exist
The brazilian judiciary legislates on a daily basis.
> But if I were Brazillian, I'd be immediately following all ~700 accounts (and probably unfollowing all 700 after the election).
I would certainly not, as it is most likely propagandists; these aren't interesting.
But either way, the purpose of this is to protect democracy, and by mentioning the very accounts, this could have a Streisand effect. That by itself is influencing the election, and Musk knows this. That is the purpose of his action. Musk does the same with regards to other democracies, such as AfD in Germany.
They’re not propagandists, they’re the official accounts of candidates in the election. I don’t see any problem with this as long as it’s applied to all candidates equally.
These laws don't "protect democracy," even the most charitable interpretation of them is that they protect liberal values against democracy. They're inherently counter-majoritarian. Democracy doesn't mean liberalism. E.g. If Iran's ayatollah was elected by free and fair elections, but otherwise the country's laws and policies were the same, that would still be democracy.
Your reasoning sounds like levels upon levels of paranoia. Read out loud to yourself what you are saying. You're saying that it's 1. Good to limit certain people from being heard and 2. Bad to let the public know which people have been censored.
I couldn't think of a seasoned KGB commander with more totalitarian reasoning than what you are voicing. Not even the censors you are defending have anything against the public knowing which accounts are limited and why.
Well Musk has interfered in elections and riots before so it’s definitely a good idea to hold him under extremely close scrutiny. Being the world’s richest person and one of the most powerful influencers comes with responsibility, a responsibility that Musk has shown to be lacking.
Sure, but what does this have to do with what I wrote? The other poster is arguing that people shouldn't be allowed to know who has been censored. That's deep into 1984 or Soviet / Chinese censorship territory.
> That's deep into 1984 or Soviet / Chinese censorship territory.
Not if you consider the context of external influence, e.g. [1], and not wanting a Jan 6 in Brazil. Not letting such know their efforts are ineffective, is a tool to combat their effort. It is akin to shadowbanning.
Amplification of radical right by external entities is nothing new, btw. Russia did this in 2016. Musk does it now. But Musk won't show those parts of his machine. He still does shadowbanning, too.
[1] https://medium.com/dfrlab/election-fraud-narratives-surge-on...
Why not let them say whatever they want, but just cancel the election after the fact if you feel like the result endangers democracy? It’s worked before. It seems a little more honest and above-board, as well. No smoke-filled back rooms, just “election cancelled”.
These are specifically the accounts of every registered candidate in the election (regardless of party affiliation).
if anything, I would completely unsubscribe from US-controlled social platform before the election anywhere outside US
Ultimately the only antidote to US propaganda is nationalism. Anyone in my country who is caught funded with US money may as well hang themselves they are electorally dead as a dodo.
This to be fair is why the CIA had to move suitcases with money instead of bragging about it on Fox News...
> Ultimately the only antidote to US propaganda is nationalism.
Ironic, isn't it?
> But if I were Brazillian, I'd be immediately following all ~700 accounts (and probably unfollowing all 700 after the election).
I wonder how many normal people actually follow political accounts like this. I follow my local government because they sometimes tweet emergency info but I don’t follow candidates at all. I don’t follow political influencers either. It’s far too noisy.
Transparency for something that was well known, reported on and legally documented?
For context: https://x.com/XBR/status/2088341967864320507?s=20
https://nitter.net/XBR/status/2088341967864320507?s=20
DeepL:
>Starting August 16, Brazilian election law requires providers that use recommendation systems to exclude from their recommendations the official accounts of candidates registered with the Electoral Court and the posts from those accounts.
>On X, these accounts and their posts will no longer be recommended in the “For You” tab during the election period unless the user explicitly follows the account. Official candidates are not suspended, and their content will remain available on their profiles. This measure is expected to affect the visibility and reach of these profiles and their content.
>We are implementing this measure to strictly comply with TSE Resolution No. 23,610/2019. This is neither a penalty nor a change to X’s rules. We are committed to setting a new standard of transparency regarding our algorithms. Follow our work here: https://github.com/xai-org/x-algorithm
> Official candidates are not suspended, and their content will remain available on their profiles.
Sounds good to me. Filtering all recommendations is fair, and they are not censoring the profiles.
I don't know anything about this specific case, but in elections more generally, wouldn't filtering all candidates equally simply favor incumbents?
Brazilian electoral law tries to ensure all candidates have equitable access to media air time prior to the election. This filtering apparently exists to prevent distortions like X itself pushing candidates.
> equitable
Proportionally to their incumbency.
Some company distorting the reach is way worse than favoring the incumbents. But the access is not even supposed to be equitable.
But incumbents have a natural advantage, right? So any type of control trying to ensure similar levels of access is clearly going to be to the advantage of incumbents.
Eh, I think it'd favour whoever has the bigger media apparatus running other accounts supporting them... which also seems like a weird decision.
Bluesky creators: How are you feeling right now
I don’t think people on bluesky particularly care about X. Twitter turned horrible, so they left to do their own thing. Each to their own.
Does Bluesky have an opaque algorithm based filter?
Good.
It is interesting that attitudes, laws and initiatives that would be called "censorship" against traditional media are more and more accepted against social media platforms, all over the world in very democratic countries.
I am not against these attitudes. I just want to point to that.
A possible reason is that these platforms are seen as either monopolies or American imperialism agents. In both cases these are very damming perceptions. Both Musk and Zuckerberg have been disastrous in branding their platforms.
I think it's a fair limit. Preventing social media companies from invisibly favoring any candidate seems sensible to me.
Censorship is deletion of the candidate's social media presence.
There are various laws in many countries that ban traditional media from straight up recommending specific candidates.
Do you know if this applies to explicitly partisan media, such as media directly funded or run by political parties? Many newspapers in the US used to be openly run by political factions, a century ago.
This is not censorship, and traditional media have always been forbidden from picking a candidate and promoting them in Brazil.
It's still called censorship when it's against a social media company.
What interests me more is that Elon has completely reversed his anti-censorship stance. He was always censoring while opining against censorship and getting sued for millions of dollars for ignoring a Brazilian censorship law. Now he's just quietly complying with Brazilian censorship law.
I miss his feuds with the supreme court. Trump actually got the judges sanctioned under Magnitsky too, then dropped the sanctions not too long after. No clue if Elon helped with that.
The posts are not being forbidden or excluded. Candidates are still free to post. It just can't be recommended in algorithmic feeds.
And those platforms are absolutely agents of American imperialism. Latin American countries in particular should be very wary of these.
That's how Elon always does censorship. "Freedom of speech, not freedom of reach." Restricting reach is still censorship.
That would be a fair argument, were it not for the fact that every candidate is being excluded from algorithmic recommendations.
Were it just one or two candidates, then it would indeed be a form of "soft censorship". That doesn't seem to be the case here.
What's wrong with saying that it's censoring every candidate?
Censorship targets subversion. Censors seek to prevent the spread of antiestablishment information and ideas. So one can hardly claim that a universal ban on algorithmic recommendation for all candidates is censorship.
Elon actively censors on his platform points of view he dislikes.
Brazilian regulations just dictates that candidates cannot be recommended, regardless of party.
Candidates are forbidden of doing many things to keep elections free and mostly fair.
Anyone sensible doesn't call this censorship. It might sound complicated if you live in a country where elections are won by who spends most money for airtime, but granting candidates equal airtime on traditional media is how it works if you want to hold normal elections. Since that can't work on algorithmic platforms where everyone sees different content, you just block their reach to avoid anyone gaming it.
Normal countries also have media silence for the day or two before the votes.
Restricting the reach of politicians is an absolute good.
> It might sound complicated if you live in a country where elections are won by who spends most money for airtime
Which country are you referring to here? I’m not familiar with any that work like this. In the United States, Trump famously spent less than his competition and won both times. Bloomberg outspent his competitors by multiple orders of magnitude and endured a humiliating loss.
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