Joe Rogan Experience #1258 - Jack Dorsey, Vijaya Gadde & Tim Pool

Jack Dorsey (CEO) and Vijaya Gadde (global lead for legal, policy, and trust and safety) from Twitter recently was interviewed on Joe Rogan's podcast along with Twitter critic and journalist Tim Pool. Link to the stream here: [VIDEO] I have some criticisms of Twitter that tightly align with what Dr. Doyle experienced, what was discussed on Rogan's podcast, and my own experiences: * Twitter is not a free speech platform, regardless of what Mr. Dorsey and Ms. Gadde say. They have prior assumptions that guide their decision making especially when it comes to identifying what is called hate speech. * Twitter is largely guided and controlled by progressive ideals. The people that make decisions there admittedly live in a bubble. Tim Pool does a very good job of pointing this out. * Twitter is a giant echo chamber. The limited functionality of the platform make it that way. * Twitter cannot be completely free speech because it allows it's algorithms to run wild. We've already seen where ML can be viewed as racist ( [LINK] , [LINK] ). Presumably Twitter's algorithms can be shaped in such a way to allow extreme progressive ideals to make decisions. * Unlike Reddit, which has decentralized command over it's sub-reddits, Twitter has a centralized decision making body of which is too small to look closely at the nuance and detail of every report. * The suggested jury review system only re-enforces the echo chamber problem Twitter already has. It's different than American/English common

I wish larger tech companies would follow Jack Dorsey's path and have more open communication about their policies. His debate with Tim Pool on the Joe Rogan podcast[0] especially provided insight into why they're making these type of decisions. [0] [VIDEO]

While I agree with you, Tim Pool (as well as many others) made a good point recently about the fact that when platforms are as powerful as being able to influence elections, maybe allowing them to define the structure within which we communicate might not be a good idea. I am a free market guy, so for me these companies ought to have the right to determine the parameters within which their users can operate on their service. However, with things such as EUCD and GDPR rules, introducing competitors to the established networks becomes harder and harder for each day, which only benefits the existing platforms. So when the platforms are biased and competition is hindered by red-tape and regulations, we cannot expect alternatives to popup that can compete with said entities. All of this leads me to believe that things will only get worse as I don´t see a way out of this clusterfuck we´re in. [VIDEO] Edit: why the downvotes? :S

I hope the average HN user sees that Silicon valley companies have whole heatedly adopted the exact same totalitarian formula to suppress and censor conservative speech [1] Tianamen:China :: Conservative-Speech:SV-Companies [1]: [VIDEO]

Tim Pool raised an interesting point on the Joe Rogan interview with Jack Dorsey: as Twitter becomes more powerful and important in shaping political discourse in the United States, banning someone from Twitter could be argued to be a restriction of political speech: [VIDEO] Personally, I think the mute and block options are all adults on twitter need if they encounter speech they don't like or makes them uncomfortable.

> Why are free speech absolutists only supporting fascists? They aren't. You're totally free to advocate instituting a Marxists state, the execution of the bourgeoisen masse, and forming a communist society on Gab. Gab has the blanket policy that any legal speech is okay on their platform (and yes, calling for the execution of the bourgeois is legal in the US. Non-specific threats of violence are legal as per Brandenburg v. Ohio). There's nothing fascist about that in and of itself. The fact that Gab is filled with fascists is because of displacement. Fascists got banned from all the major platforms, so the only ones that don't ban them like Gab and 4chan are full of them. Free speech absolutists are disproportionately made of up right wingers these days, likely because the right wing is being subject to harsher censorship. I think it's unambiguously true that most big tech platforms are overtly biased in their policing. People are getting banned for tweeting "learn to code" to journalists (in mockery of how some suggested that laid off coal miners should learn to code). And by comparison, verified leftist Twitter users outright advocated for the doxxing and violence of the Covington high school students with no apparent repercussion. This podcast with Jack Dorsey, Twitter's global lead for trust and safety, and Tim Pool gives some good insight into the situation: [VIDEO] > Where are the people advocating for the destruction of intellectual property rights, for widespread dec

This comic routinely used as a "Gotcha". However it so over simplifies the position that we are in. Youtube now totally owns online video, there isn't any competitors that are even close. Facebook has almost half the world signed up to its platform. This isn't someone's online forum or a news site. These companies completely own their respective parts of the industry. The major social media sites like Youtube, Twitter, Facebook are so large they are considered to be a "public private space" (I forget the exact legal term). These platforms agree to DMCA safe harbour where they are considered to be a "platform" and not a "publisher". That means they shouldn't be censoring anyone on their political opinions and must be politically neutral (otherwise they are taking on the role of a publisher as they are acting as an editor), now IANAL but there is certainly an argument that can be made. Whether a judge would rule it so, who knows. This is worth watching: [VIDEO] Tim Pool in this video manages to point out quite clearly how Twitter terms of service are political and they don't even realise it.

>>>They're banning violations of their ToS. As long as that is performed equitably Except it isn't, as Tim Pool demonstrated on the Joe Rogan Podcast when he ripped Jack Dorsey and Vijaya Gadde a new one, with examples. [VIDEO]

I don't agree with every call Twitter makes, but I find Dorsey to be by far the most interesting public figure in the social media game. His two JRE interviews[0][1] and his Tales from the Crypto interview[2] are all worth checking out, IMO. He seems to think Twitter should use a blockchain in the future, and that small social circles should have a system for internally moderating content without needing it to be okay by Twitter's standards, but obviously they're still currently taking down content that breaches their policies in $CURRENT_YEAR. I'm really interested in seeing where Twitter goes, I think Dorsey plays realpolitik sometimes but I don't think he has the same goals as Zuckerberg. I could be wrong, and Dorsey could just be a next-level showman, but I'm hopeful that he might do something truly interesting with the platform. I've still never made a Twitter account. [0]: [LINK] [1]: [VIDEO] [2]: [LINK]

I know I will be downvoted, but I don't care: why are people using Twitter? To me it's the most vile and disgusting platform: no signal, just noise. On top of that, the people that run it are effectively coming up with arbitrary progressive left-wing policies on restricting free speech: for proof, watch this: [VIDEO] after seeing I realised Twitter/Facebook/Google/Apple are evil corporations taking away your freedom with you cheering to it. Why are you using Twitter's platform? For business? Do you want to make business from Twitter's users which are mind-numbed angry, twitching zombies? Are there no business opportunities elsewhere? Anyone who is doing any sort of business related to social media is wasting their time: it's a broken system that deserves to be boycotted. To anyone who would call me angry: I am saying this so you open your mind about the pointlessness of social media: I dont use it, and I seem to live a nice life, only time I get angry is when I think about social media, like in this post. Oh well, this is HN after all, born and bred in silicon valley where such blasphemy will not be tolerated. But lets see.

I encourage you to watch a Joe Rogan episode from last year when he brought Jack Dorsey, a Twitter VP, and Tim Pool. [1] The reason this episode is relevant to your comment discussion is that Pool presents that there is this paradigm problem where certain policies intended to bring "inclusion" end up excluding something like half of the U.S. population. This paradigm Twitter management is stuck in prevents them from understanding how people outside their paradigm view their actions, and this results in effectively banning a enormous set of the population from popular discourse. It is hard to evaluate if this is exclusively an American issue because, really, there are so few other countries that speak English. [1] [VIDEO]

I would imagine that accounts of "important" people are handled personally rather than by automated algorithm. As Jack Dorsey points out in this[0] Joe Rogan podcast, the reported tweets by public or algorithm are manually checked at some point. Approx. 4000 employees of Twitter all around the world. Every day 100k (edit: 100M) tweets are sent. The reports of tweets that violate the platform policy are (reported by public) enter a queue. These are then inspected by personnel hired by Twitter (number varies proportionally to the scale reports in the queue). The personnel then go through a series of steps to take an action such as making you verify again, delete those tweets, suspending the account, or in the last resort ban the user permanently. [0] [VIDEO]

The episode -- linked below -- with Tim Poole, Jack Dorsey, and Vijaya Gadde (who manages Twitter policy) was mostly just Rogan sitting back and watching Poole go back and forth with Dorsey and Gadde, mainly only stepping in to deescalate when things started getting heated or to ask a question about which he was curious. I don't recall if it was in that episode (or a previous interview just with Tim Poole) that they debated Twitter's place in electoral politics given that all candidates are conducting direct-to-voters communication via the media and whether it would run afoul of Federal Election law to ban, limit, or even censure in any way the tweets of a candidate for office. I thought that was a pretty intense debate and one that has significant importance give it's election year. Link: [VIDEO]

> Ultimately, the hearing won't reveal any surprising facts about these companies and will likely feature some theatrics, as is often the case with antitrust hearings. The article says it best at the very end. Wherever you lie on the spectrum of blaming these tech companies for doing obvious things to continue to drive the bottom line to their investors, the problem here is that this is just a show. And everyone involved knows it. There are no mechanisms in place for making competent adjustments at this scale, ESPECIALLY in the United States government. If you’ve ever tried to watch any of these, it’s clear the legislatures either aren’t competent enough in the field to challenge these prepared talking points. There’s more of a chance of legitimate, competent discussion in a forum like Joe Rogans podcast where he gets people like [1] Jack Dorsey and Tim Pool in a room (albeit with the babysitter counsel) to have a back and forth. I think the key to moving forward as a decision making body of any kind is to merge the two. Clearly, nothing can come of the Joe Rogan show of note, but imagine: what if it could? What if there could be more transparency and accountability for these huge companies and we could objectively examine what they actually do rather than just hear their talking points and move on? I guess I’ll end my rant here. It’s just very discouraging that, despite the fact that this hearing is occurring, there’s a next to nothing chance that anything useful for the adv

He sat in a Joe Rogan podcast twice. Tim Pool told him exactly what he needed to do. [VIDEO] In the last 3 years, what exactly did he do? Nothing. The situation got significant worse. Worse yet, because of their size they are 'too big to fail' and so they flagrantly allowed to break the law and violate free speech? Section 230 liability protections limits their ability to censor. Twitter is certainly in violation of Section 230. They simply need to stop doing this. That's it. Fire any twitter employee who isn't a free speech absolutist. Eventually Twitter will hit the wrong topic to censor and they will collapse so rapidly just like digg and how many others. I am very surprised it hasn't happened to date. Hunter Biden's laptop is real now? Censored on Twitter because it's 'hacked' or illegitimate or whatever. How many Trudeau Tyranny trends have been censored for no valid reason. We are counting. Meanwhile, the givesendgo hacked information of freedom protest donors was not only allowed... it was bumped up into trending. CBC covered it widely. Government then used hacked data to seize people's bank accounts. I dont see parler/mastodon/gab as true alternative to twitter yet. Twitter can fix themselves. They can move into compliance with Section 230. They can return free speech to their platform. If someone comes along to hostile takeover twitter and makes this change... they are going to be worth a trillion $.

I highly recommend anyone who wants to know about Vijaya: [VIDEO] >Gadde did more for free speech on the internet than almost anyone else I can think of. Call an ambulance! Medical emergency! I'm dying right now of laughter.

That's weird because I watched as left-leaning accounts got banned one after the other over the years. Maybe you think it's biased a certain way because of who you follow and listen to. I never thought I would recommend an episode of Joe Rogan, but the one where he had Vijaya Gadde on provided a lot of insight into how Twitter thought about moderation. It was a lot more nuanced than I expected. [VIDEO]