As opposed to using Twitter to "naturally" amplify information, just like our forefathers did out in the wild back when we were still in touch with nature and Twitter didn't contain any pesticides or plastic :)
> user "the account was “artificially” amplifying information".
Where does it say the information was false in that sentence? The newspeak worked.
and to go from "artificially" to bots and fake accounts... OK, maybe. But how do you know? Not because they told you in that sentence, that's for sure.
The meaning is clear, and kudos to Twitter for defining it well. But if you think through the usual meanings of the word "artificial" and apply it to this situation, you end up with some amusing conclusions.
Definition of artificial
1 : humanly contrived (see contrive sense 1b) often on a natural model : man-made
// an artificial limb
// artificial diamonds
2a : having existence in legal, economic, or political theory
b : caused or produced by a human and especially social or political agency
// an artificial price advantage
// Within these companies, qualified women run into artificial barriers that prevent them from advancing to top positions in management.— James J. Kilpatrick
3a : lacking in natural or spontaneous quality
// an artificial smile
// an artificial excitement
b : imitation, sham
// artificial flavor
4 : based on differential morphological characters not necessarily indicative of natural relationships
// an artificial key for plant identification
5 obsolete : artful, cunning
Definition 1 doesn't apply: Twitter is an artificial construct to start with.
Definition 2 doesn't apply, or if it does it's a bit of a stretch.
Definition 3 clearly applies. So, "lacking in natural or spontaneous quality".
So, what "amplification" activities on Twitter have a natural or spontaneous quality? Intentional clickbait or flamebait? Using tools to schedule posts in advance to maximize engagement? Jumping on trending hashtags? Paying a person to manage a Twitter account for you? Setting up a bot to automatically post articles from a website? All of these are allowed and can be used to amplify information, but none sound "natural" or "spontaneous" to me.
The meaning is clear and Twitter's rules are (IMO) very reasonable, but there is definitely something euphemistic about the phrase. The literal phrase would be "disallowed amplification", because the only real criteria for what is considered "artificial" are Twitter's own rules for what is allowed and what is not.
I do know what newspeak means because I was directly subjected to it as a kid until late 1989 (am from Romania). In this instance the powers that be just outsourced their censorship to private entities for plausible deniability (I think that’s the correct term). Imo that makes it worse because while one can stage a revolution against a government that is seen as despotic the same cannot be done against private entities in a society like ours.
Yes, and the Dutch East India Company was just a trading operation that had no long-term repercussions on the world. They're both transnationals (something that is an abomination against humanity, in my opinion).
There is no good faith reason to be on Twitter's side unless:
1). You work there, and it aligns with your interests for your current employer to continue to operate and generate profit (likewise if you hold Twitter stock).
2). You genuinely believe Twitter is furthering your goals, and you believe your goals to be parallel with the common good.
Otherwise, Twitter is not a person with a life, emotions, and hardships. It's a hollow corporate shell that's only purpose is to generate profits for shareholders.
Or 3). You still believe in the constitution and first amendment. They have their right to free speech just like I do, and I don't plan on chipping away at that right. If you have such issues with these massive companies perhaps we should address that, instead of trying to strip people of their constitutional rights?
> There is no good faith reason to be on Twitter's side unless:
Where did I say I was on Twitter's side? That's a whole loaded comment full of completely unfounded assertions.
Y'all are raising pitchforks when you haven't actually heard Twitter's side, just their automated message responses.
Personally, I think Twitter is a net negative for society, but there is an implication here that there is some totalitarian government control (i.e. anti first amendment) which is simply not true.
Try to work out the meaning that is clearly in front of you, see if there's anything there, instead of using the dictionary as an artificial body part
Also: You happen to be absolutely wrong. "Newspeak" does a very good job here. Twitter is using dodgy language not in use before to prevent the wrongthink of people questioning their censoring. And it worked quite well!
I am genuinely curious as to why you seem to assert that "Orwellian" can only apply to governments. I personally sense that we are entering an age where corporations can wield power and influence on the same level as governments themselves. And, that they are able to utilize many of the same tactics that states used in the past century.
Why, in your view, would it be incorrect to apply the term to the actions of these private/publicly traded companies?
> I am genuinely curious as to why you seem to assert that "Orwellian" can only apply to governments.
Because that's literally how it's use in the book.
> Why, in your view, would it be incorrect to apply the term to the actions of these private/publicly traded companies?
See point above.
From 1984:
“Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’ And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. ‘Reality control’, they called it: in Newspeak, ‘doublethink’.”
Everyone knows Twitter is a private company, that is besides the point.
Consider this: Whoever governs society is the government. Reality does not have clear lines like a textbook about economics and politics might have. When does a company begin to govern society? In my opinion, companies like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Amazon, etc. are large enough to govern society. And as such they can be considered in a different light than your average corner store down the street.
If you disagree still. Would you consider the historial East India Trading Company a private enterprise, or something inbetween a political organisation and a private enterprise?
Where does the "monopoly on the use of force" come in? Twitter doesn't govern me, because it cannot force me to do anything if I don't have some kind of relationship with it. Same with Amazon or any other corporation. I'm not knowledgable about the East India Trading Company, but without an army and the ability to legally use force/violence to tell people what to do absent a business arrangement with them, I doubt they could be considered government.
EDIT: According to Wikipedia[1], "The company eventually came to rule large areas of India, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions." This sounds like a government power to me, one that Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Amazon don't have. I don't see examples of companies today that have these powers over people in my country, but am willing to be proven wrong.
> Everyone knows Twitter is a private company, that is besides the point.
Except all of the people who think Twitter is violating first amendment rights?[0] The idea of private vs government is pretty core the first amendment debate.
'Company' and 'government' aren't radically different categories. They overlap.
Company = group of people working together;
Government = entity in charge of something
Twitter is a company that governs people's usage of Twitter's platform. If Orwell's concepts are useful for understanding how it operates, we'll use them, and for that Twitter doesn't need to be a state.
First, it's clearly an analogy. It doesn't have to be exactly the same as the book. Second, both involve some more powerful party trying to force-feed an interpretation using deliberately unclear language.
No I think that 'corporate-speak' is the term for that. And it clearly doesn't get the point across since there are any number of people posting that this in an incorrect use of the word.
I think what is happening is that some people want to imply malice by misusing a word.
Companies use twisted non-straightforward language because they have the power to not suffer significant repercussions from doing so, just like a bona fide government. Some customers may see through the bullshit and leave, but on the whole most won't. Impotent totalitarianism is still totalitarianism.
Furthermore, newspeak in 1984 wasn't simply the language the government used to make pronouncements, but rather the language that people were expected to use to communicate (moreso for politically connected people IIRC). I'd say corporate speech with its baked in responsibility-dodging passive-aggression definitively qualifies, as the people making these statements seemingly believe they're communicating in earnest. It's only when they're taken out of the corporate context that their vacuousness becomes apparent.
Near everything about marketing is artificially amplifying information. Most of the time we just call it "click bait" and "SEO". If what the user did was use fake accounts and bots, the reasoning should be "using fake accounts and bots".
My question with this kind of infraction is how do they connect the user to the fake accounts and bots? Can I take down accounts I don't like buy paying a few bucks to a blatant bot farm?
This used to be very common on twitch a few years back. People would viewbot people they didn't like and they'd get 24-72 hour temp bans while it was investigated.
I don't think you really understand what newspeak[0] is supposed to be.
From wikipedia (or a reading of the book)
"Newspeak is a controlled language of simplified grammar and restricted vocabulary designed to limit the individual's ability to think and articulate "subversive" concepts such as personal identity, self-expression and free will."
What you are reacting to is a technical term that Twitter uses to describe a type of activity that they have found on their network. Specifically, using bots and fake accounts to create the impression that a message is popular or being retweeted by actual people.
As noted elsewhere in this topic, Twitter has an actual definition[1] of what this means.
There isn't really any reason to be confused by the wording of the reaon for the account being deactivated.
Newspeak was not confusing either. To an outsider the term reads more as an attempt to obfuscate and misdirect away from what is actually happening, ostensibly precisely what newspeak is meant to do.
(diclaimer: i actually agree on your position but.)
Newspeak is about destroying words to reduce the thought quality. The theory being somthing like: less precise words mean less precise thoughts.
This is the opposite of newspeak, this is creating new words association for new concepts (artificially amplifying information here meaning buying bot comments, retweets and likes). You can agree or disagree, you can find that this formulation lead to misinterpretation (i do), but this is not newspeak.
It's like Jordan Petterson reading of 1984. This really, really angers me. Even with people i kind of agree with. Maybe people should buy a text explanation of Orwell, as this is far from the easiest anticipation book to understand (the US government pushing of this book proves that really well) or read his experiences and how they translate in his books. And maybe tehy should re-read the books too. Winston's job was to remove words from the dictionary, not add new one.
I'm sorry, this is not personnal, but this is the 4rth time THIS WEEK that i hear someone talk to me about newspeak and being dead wrong about it. One of them critizing adding (ADDING ffs!) a new word in a dictionary. This had to come out.
Agree with your sentiment I guess. Don't use the term newspeak though, this is imho disqualifying.
> This really, really angers me. Even with people i kind of agree with.
When lazy or dishonest or weak arguments are used, I get more upset if it’s in support of things I agree with than things I don’t.
It undermines the position and makes it that much harder to discuss it in the future because I now have to disentangle from that on top of actually making a proper argument in favor of the position.
That is newspeak pure and simple.