Twitter Commits Social Suicide

TECH

 

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1/26/2012 @ 10:22PM |

Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world. We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why.

With those words earlier today, in a blog posting titled “Tweets still must flow” the management of Twitter went over to the dark side and may well have dug their own grave.

Shocker! Twitter Censorship Shows It's Just a Business, Not a SaviorJeff BercoviciForbes Staff

In what can only have been a fit of corporate insanity, Twitter announced that it has the ability to filter tweets to conform to the demands of various countries.

Thus, in France and Germany it is illegal to broadcast pro-Nazi sentiments and Twitter will presumably be able to block such content and inform the poster why it was blocked.

[UPDATE: Please see below for the reason that the sections discussing computer mediated filtering are deleted.]

Quite obviously, Twitter’s management believes that there is some kind of value in being able to filter in this way but given that, over the course of 2011, the number of tweets per second (tps) ranged from a high of almost 9,000 tps down to just under 4,000 tps, any filtering has got to be computer-driven.

So, consider this tweet:

@FactsorDie Nazi Germany led the first public anti-smoking campaign.

Could that be considered to be pro-Nazi? How will a program accurately make that determination?

What concerns me is that if the algorithm Twitter uses registers a false positive (i.e. determines that the tweet is pro-Nazi when it isn’t) and the tweet has any time sensitivity to it then that attribute will be completely nullified by the time the tweet makes it out of tweet-jail if it ever does.

On the other hand if the software makes a false negative (i.e. determines that the tweet is NOT pro-Nazi when it is) then the filtering is useless and Twitter will be held accountable by every political group with an axe to grind.

Now it might be argued that some percentage of false positives or false negatives will be acceptable but what is that percentage? 0.0000o01%? That equates, at a minimum of 4,000tps, to 3,456 misclassified tweets per day or 1,261,440 per year!

And will the filtering software be able to detect irony and sarcasm? I rather doubt it.

And what about the fact that Twitter will be implicitly editing all tweets? Doesn’t that attract legal issues in that they are taking on an editorial responsibility and therefore become a lightning rod for lawsuits?

I see Twitter’s management having made an epic mistake. In trying to appease the demands of political pressure they’ve dug themselves a huge hole that they won’t be able to climb out of. The mere fact that they have published a blog posting claiming that they can filter seals their fate.

I really like Twitter; it’s a unique and amazingly rich social platform but Twitter’s management may have just diminished if not wiped out their edge and their global relevance.

You can’t service all of humanity if you allow the needs of politics to triumph over the needs of the people. And if you can’t service all of humanity, what is your relevance?

CORRECTION: I received the following comment from a Jodi Olson, part of the communications team at Twitter.  Jodi wrote:

I saw your piece on our news today and wish you would have checked in with us for perspective on the story–your piece is inaccurate and misleading.

What’s new today is that we now have the ability, when we have to withhold a Tweet in a specific country, to keep that Tweet visible for the rest of the world. We hold freedom of expression in high esteem and work hard not to remove Tweets.

The key is that this reactive only.  It’s on a case-by-case basis, in response to a valid request from an authorized entity.  This is not a change in philosophy. Twitter does not mediate content, and we do not proactively monitor Tweets.

Also key is that we’re making a clear effort to be transparent.Our policy in these cases is to 1) promptly notify the affected users, unless we are legally prohibited from doing so; 2) withhold the content in the required countries only, rather than worldwide; 3) clearly indicate to viewers that a Tweet or Account has been withheld, and 4) make available any requests to withhold content through our partnership with Chilling Effects.

To put the news in context, see this post from the EFF’s Jillian York.

Could you please update your story to make the accurate corrections?

I stand corrected over the point that the filtering is reactive (and presumably human-driven) versus proactive (and computer-driven) … Twitter’s original blog posting obviously wasn’t clear on this issue and in many ways the willingness of Twitter to acquiesce  to “authorized” entities raises even more questions. I find Jodi’s wish that I “would have checked in with us for perspective” remarkably naive … wouldn’t you think that what Twitter writes in its own official blog would be what they mean and not require spinclarification. That said, I have replied to Jodi and I’ll update this posting whenI hear back from her.

Hope, but Not Much Change

OP-ED COLUMNIST

Josh Haner/The New York Times

David Brooks

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: January 27, 2012

The Simpson-Bowles report wasn't just a policy document. For a few months, it expanded the national debate. Everybody seemed to realize that the country was beset by large challenges that could no longer be neglected: soaring debt, lagging growth, wage stagnation, family breakdown, political dysfunction.

Suddenly, there was a sense of urgency. There were grand plans coming from all directions.

A bipartisan group of 65 senators gathered to think about government afresh. The Times had a fantastic online budget calculator to let readers reinvent government according to their own priorities.

The Peter G. Peterson Foundation asked six think tanks from across the political spectrum to offer fiscal solutions. The proposals teemed with big ideas: fundamental tax reform that would simplify the code and boost growth; fundamental entitlement reform to restrain cost; doubling spending on science, pre-K education and adult retraining; taxing fossil fuels to spur innovation; shifting from a consumption-led to an investment-led economy.

It's sad to compare that era of bigness to the medium-sized policy morsels that President Obama put in his State of the Union address. He had some big themes in the speech, but the policies were mere appetizers. The Republicans absurdly call Obama a European socialist on the stump, but the Obama we saw Tuesday night was a liberal incrementalist.

There was nothing big, like tax reform or entitlement reform. There was no comprehensive effort to restore trust in government by sweeping away the tax credits and special-interest schemes that entangle Washington. Ninety percent of American workers work in the service economy, but Obama spoke mostly about manufacturing.

Instead, there were a series of modest proposals that poll well. In that sense, it was the Democratic version of Newt Gingrich's original "Contract With America" - a series of medium-size ideas with 80 percent approval ratings.

Some of Obama's ideas are outstanding. Presidential nominees should get an up-or-down vote within 90 days. We should connect community colleges more closely with labor markets. We should raise the income tax rates for millionaires back to Clinton-era levels. We should responsibly promote fracking to develop natural gas.

Some of the ideas were lamentable. Instead of simplifying the tax code, Obama would muddy it up with more tax loopholes for corporations as long as they conformed to this or that industrial policy.

Some of the ideas were just inexplicable. Is the government really going to defund Ivy League science labs if Ivy League colleges raise their tuitions?

But the core point is that these policies are incremental, not transformational. You could pass them all and the country might be slightly better off or slightly worse off, but it wouldn't be on a different trajectory.

It's odd that an administration that once wanted to do everything all at once now should be so gradualist. Maybe its members were scarred by the traumas of health care and the 2010 election. Maybe they just want to win the election, so every policy has to be politically easy instead of politically challenging.

Maybe the president's aides believe that most of our problems are overhyped. I have heard them hint that in dozens of interviews. To balance the budget, we only need to bend revenues and taxes a bit. To compete with China, we only need to shift the playing field a bit.

Maybe the president's cautious tendencies are just coming out.

In normal times, that sober, incremental approach would be admirable. In normal times, the best sort of change is gradual, flexible and constant. But these are not normal times. This is not Clinton's second term, or Eisenhower's. The fiscal train wreck is coming. The current U.S. growth model is insufficient. The American family and the American political system are cracking up.

Legislatively, the president has to build a center-left governing majority that can overwhelm those Republicans who will never support him. That can be done only with ground-shifting policies. Politically, the president has to resonate with voters who feel the country is on the wrong track. Prudentially, the president has to prepare for the likelihood that the economy is going to hit another rough patch this year - if Greece leaves the euro or if the French banks implode or if the Iranian crisis comes to a head. If any of that happens, the desire for profound change would be overwhelming and the candidate with a few carefully targeted tax credits would get blown away.

This election is about averting national decline. The president is making a mistake in ceding the size advantage to the Republicans. The Republicans at least speak with epic alarm about the nation's problems. They are unified behind big tax and welfare state reforms that would purge Washington and shake things up.

The president is making a mistake in running a Sunset Boulevard campaign: I am big; it's my presidency that got small.

America and Israel: An Unbreakable Bond

Uploaded by BarackObamadotcom on Jan 19, 2012

Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Benjamin Netanayahu, and other leaders describe how President Obama has strengthened the relationship between the United States and Israel.

Senate OKs drug-smuggling bill, Giffords' last

Published January 26, 2012

| Associated Press

WASHINGTON –  A day after Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' emotional departure from Congress, the Senate on Thursday passed and sent to the president the final legislative act sponsored by the Arizona Democrat who was severely wounded in an assassination attempt a year ago.

The legislation, passed by voice vote, increases penalties for those flying ultralight planes to smuggle drugs into Giffords' home state and other states along the border.

The bill "will not only help to secure our southwest border, but it also affords us the opportunity to honor an incredible colleague," said Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M, a sponsor of a Senate counterpart measure.

The House passed the legislation on a 408-0 vote Wednesday, minutes after Giffords formally submitted her resignation surrounded by hundreds of House members gathered to pay tribute to their wounded colleague.

A year ago, the 41-year-old Democrat was shot in the head and severely injured by a would-be assassin who opened fire at a meet-and-greet event outside a Tucson supermarket, killing six and wounding 13. Giffords, who is undergoing speech and physical therapy, said she wanted to devote all her time to her recovery.

The House passed a similar version of Giffords' bill in 2010, but it was not taken up by the Senate. She reintroduced it on Jan. 6, 2011, just two days before she was shot.

Drug smugglers using ultralight planes have been subject to weaker criminal penalties than those flying larger aircraft because the single-seat planes that can fly low enough to evade radar detection have not been classified as aircraft under existing federal law.

The legislation would close the legal loophole that gives ultralight plane smugglers lesser penalties than those using other airplanes or cars and add a provision to aviation smuggling law to allow prosecutors to charge people other than the pilot who are involved in aviation smuggling.

It directs the Defense Department and Department of Homeland Security to work together to identify equipment and technology that could be used by customs officials to detect ultralights.

Udall said that hundreds of ultralight aircraft carrying drugs cross the border every year, each capable of carrying hundreds of pounds of narcotics.

"Congresswoman Giffords is committed to taking this crucial step that would help secure the border against drug smugglers," Giffords' chief of staff, Pia Carusone, said in a statement. "That's why she decided this would be the last bill she introduces before she steps down."

Rivals launch into Gingrich's lunar vision

Republican contenders spar over US space programme during Thursday's debate, with Newt Gingrich promising "moon colony". Chris Arsenault Last Modified: 27 Jan 2012 19:53 Setting up a base on the moon would cost hundreds of billions of dollars, experts say [GALLO/GETTY] Forget Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine – Newt Gingrich wants to colonise the moon. "By the end of my second term [2020], we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American," the Republican US presidential hopeful told a cheering crowd in Cocoa, Florida, a town with links to the space industry. A whopping budget deficit and cuts to the military do not seem to have dampened Gingrich’s astronomically expensive plans for a lunar colony with 13,000 residents. "I want you to help me in Florida and across the country so you can someday say you were there the day it was announced that we’d have commercial space, moon colony and moving toward Mars," he said on Wednesday, comparing himself to John F Kennedy and the Wright Brothers [who invented airplanes]. “We clearly have a capacity that the Russians and the Chinese will never come anywhere close to matching." Out of this world Candidates clashed over the space programme, and Gingrich’s plans, during Thursday’s Republican debate. "I spent 25 years in business. If I had a business executive come to me and say they wanted to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on the moon, I’d say, ‘You’re fired,’" Mitt Romney, Republican front runner, told the audience in response to Gingrich’s plan. Rick Santorum, another Republican challenger, called Gingrich’s space plans "crass politics" which pandered to voters in Florida without addressing the US’s fiscal problems.   NASA, the organisation which would manage such a scheme, declined to comment on the plans. A spokesman told Al Jazeera the agency could not speak about anything related to the campaign. "Until oil runs out, I don't think the idea of mining the moon will be mentioned in the board rooms of big companies" - Jeff Faust, editor of spacepolitics.com Alan Boyle, an award winning science journalist who follows the US space programme, said that just to put humans on the moon would cost more than $100bn. "Building a base would require significantly more expense," he told Al Jazeera. "Gingrich thinks private-sector innovation would produce some savings", but plans of this nature would "require a dramatic upswing in NASA spending". Republicans generally claim to detest "big government" spending initiatives – and a moon base, like the military, certainly fits into this category.  In an attempt to deflect criticism of a promise which would almost invariably require massive outlays of federal cash, Gingrich said he will entice the private sector to increase its involvement by offering "prizes", although specific details have not been forthcoming.   "How big would the prizes need to be to stimulate commercial plans for a base?" wondered Jeff Faust, editor of spacepolitics.com. "The space programme has gone through an extended period of uncertainty," he told Al Jazeera. 'Cold War mentality' In Pictures: The space shuttle era Images from three decades of NASA's shuttle programme. ( 21-Jul-2011 ) A final flight, or flights of fancy? NASA plans 'most powerful rocket' China launches first module for space station   Rivals launch into Gingrich's lunar vision During the Cold War and the space race against the former USSR, the US committed about five per cent of its GDP to the Apollo space mission, said Ian O’Neil, a space science producer with Discovery News. "NASA gets less than half a per cent of today’s GDP; they simply can’t afford this," O’Neil told Al Jazeera. "He is trying to invigorate a Cold War mentality, which is very different from the world we live in today." Romney, for his part, promised to create a commission of experts to study the space programme. Barack Obama, the US president, established a similar body – the Augustine commission – where experts could make recommendations for NASA’s future. In 2010, Obama announced plans for a new spacecraft, designed for long journeys, to be operational by 2025. He wants humans to be able to orbit Mars by the mid-2030s. "Bush, in 2004, wanted to get back to the moon by 2020," Faust said. "NASA was behind schedule, according to Obama’s committee [established in 2009], and [Obama] decided not to develop Constellation – the next generation of space ships – but focused on commercial travel instead." "Debates about space often blur party lines," he said, adding that no one, including Gingrich, has provided a convincing reason for building a moon base, other than "national prestige".   Major oil companies are some of the only commercial entities with the resources to finance moon projects. Prospects of commercial mining on the moon, specifically related to the energy resource Helium-3, have been cited as a reason for establishing a long-term human presence. "There is a lot of research going into fusion power plants," O’Neil said of an energy technology that experts hope will work in a similar fashion to the sun, generating plentiful, pollution free power here on earth. "Helium-3 covers the moon’s surface and it would be a viable fuel source to generate power", however, the technology with which to establish fusion reactors with the moon’s plentiful energy source is at least "decades away" he said. "Until oil runs out on earth," Faust told Al Jazeera, "I don’t think the idea of mining the moon will be mentioned in the board rooms of big companies."  shortcomment Steve  If Newt makes minors moon miners, how many moon minerals might many minor moon miners mine?

Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012

Daybook

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8:00 AM	Newt Gingrich Speaking at 2012 Lincolon Day Brunch Willoughby Golf Club, 3001 SE Doubleton Drive, Stuart Fla.
8:15 AM	Mitt Romney Holding a veterans rally The Fish House, 600 South Barracks St.,Pensacola, Fla.
11:00 AM	Ron Paul Hosting town hall at University of Southern Maine Hastings Formal Lounge, 37 College Ave., Gorham, Maine
1:30 PM	Ron Paul Hosting town hall at Freeport Town Square 95 Main St., Freeport, Maine
1:45 PM	Mitt Romney Holding a grassroots rally Eastern Ship Building, 2200 Nelson St., Panama City, Fla.
5:00 PM	Ron Paul Hosting Alfred town hall 16 Saco Road, Alfred, Maine
6:20 PM	Newt Gingrich Speaking at Orange County Lincoln Days inner Rosen Shingle Creek resort, 9939 Universal Blvd., Orlando, Fla.
7:00 PM	Newt Gingrich Speaking at West Palm Beach Lincoln Day dinner Kravis Center, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach, Fla.

Ask President Obama

Uploaded by whitehouse on Jan 25, 2012

On January 30, President Obama will answer your top-voted questions in a special post-State of the Union interview from the White House. To participate, visit www.youtube.com/whitehouse and submit your question. YouTube videos you submit will drive the interview and will be used to select a few lucky people to join a live Google+ Hangout with the President.

The deadline to submit is January 28 at midnight ET.

NOTE: The White House and President Obama will not review any of the questions submitted before the interview and will not know which questions will be asked.

Open for Questions: State of the Union 2012

Senior Administration officials take questions from a live audience at the White House as well as from Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ about the President's State of the Union Address. January 24, 2012.