What happened here? Below is a reply which I posted taking issue with a detail in a tweet by the great Hart Group:
Leaving aside the substance of the tweet, what is significant here is that it was reposted by Thomas Binder, who was tagged in the original Hart tweet, but that his retweet, as can be seen below, did not generate a single additional retweet. The other retweets are either my own or by followers of mine.
But how is this possible given that Thomas Binder has over 80,000 followers? We all know from experience on Twitter 1.0 that a retweet from a high impact-factor account would have a multiplier effect, generating a series of secondary retweets which would generate further retweets in turn. This was a veritable law of nature on old Twitter. But in this case, the apple did not fall to the ground.
The same exact thing occurred with a tweet of my recent Christmas article on BioNTech’s “gift to God”. It was retweeted by Nick Hudson, whose account again has over 80,000 followers, but this did not have any multiplier effect or indeed any effect at all. There were no additional retweets. Nick was kind enough to call attention to the issue himself the next day: namely, in the quote tweet reproduced below.
This quote-tweet then generated a ‘normal’ level of engagement from Nick’s followers and presumably followers’ followers and so on, as would be expected. This would appear to teach us that quote-tweeting, as opposed to retweeting, is a way of getting around a visibility filter – at least until X decides that it is not and closes this loophole in its visibility-filtering algorithm.
I have in fact encountered this phenomenon of the apparently unretweetable retweet many times on X in recent months. (Here is another example.)
But why would either of the above tweets be subject to visibility filtering anyway? Why is any given tweet subject to visibility filtering for that matter? On X, we do not know.
We know that X engages in visibility filtering because it says so. See below, for instance, from the X Help Center:
And we know that the X visibility-filtering algorithm includes “safety labels” which are applied to accounts or posts, in order to suppress their reach. These are the labels to which X CEO Linda Yaccarino was alluding when she famously boasted that if users post “lawful but awful” content, they get “labelled and deamplified”.
A selection of ‘safety labels’ which are meant to suppress various forms of ‘misinformation’ can be seen below. They come from the published portion of the Twitter/X algorithm here.
But the difference between these labels and the ‘misleading’ labels which tweets would be hit with on the old Twitter and which could lead to account suspension is that the latter were publicly visible, whereas the new Twitter/X ‘safety labels’ are only visible in the back office. We do not know when X is applying them to our posts or accounts, and hence X has no need to justify their application.
We knew what old Twitter was censoring as ‘misinformation’, and hence we also knew that it was not misinformation or at least could decide for ourselves. We have no idea what is being treated as ‘civic’, ‘crisis’, ‘medical’ or ‘generic’ misinformation on X and hence we have no way of contesting this treatment.
This new system of covert censorship is obviously susceptible to far greater abuse and manipulation by the powers-that-be – for instance, the European Commission, whose censorship demands X is legally required to satisfy under the Digital Services Act – than the old system of (predominantly) open censorship.
Perhaps what is being “labelled and deamplified” are simply politically inconvenient facts.
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Hallelujah, there is a God up in heaven after all!
Yes there is a God.
His pappy – either Castro or Pierre – were both Communist tyrants (in different ways). Apples and trees.
Truck Fudeau. Totalitarian Rona fascist, a drama teacher, a guy who ran from the Freedom convoy pleading he was ill with the fake Rona, a corrupt grafter, open borders fanatic, queer tranny lover, anti-Catholic who presided over the destruction of 100 churches thanks to his fake news claims that ‘Residential schools’ murdered ‘Indians’.
In 8 years he deconstructed what was once a great nation.
You mean a corrupt grifter, obviously. There’s nothing graft about Trudeau.
National Holiday for Canada:
Trudeau Geau Day
One of the most vile neoliberal specimens. Worse than Macron, Milliband, Sarkozy. In the same rank as Blair and Ardern. Starmer is more of a mulfunctioning puppet. He stayed too late after the coach went home. I would imagine that in the future Trudeau will have more serious things to cry about. You can feel where things are going and so can he.
Surely MALfunctioning puppet, he is a walking disaster area?
Two dreadful Justin’s gone in one day yay
.
How 2TK must be quivering with fear over a revenge attack from the Donald ….. bring it on.
Justin time? Well done to Donald Trump for the steep sanctions threat against Justin’s Canada and for describing Justin as the ‘Governor’ of Canada – to be America’s 51st State. Hopefully Greenland will be 52nd.
I remember he ordered mounted policemen to ride over some disbaled woman. If you are capable of things like that then you have openly betrayed your own humanity. Like Jesus said, depart from me I never knew you.
Anyone who might do such a thing must be an awful and cowardly bully.
Isn’t that how Justin behaved during his 9 years in office?
Leave him alone in a bar with a few dozen of those Truck Drivers he tried to ruin…..no time limit and no repercussions.
Can we have a camera in there so we can watch?
Cue for the establishment to rally and bestow on him one of those ridiculous awards (a knighthood perhaps) for his service to world government during covid. Or perhaps he’ll be given a position in some globalist organisation. These scoundrels will do something to protect one of their own. Watch for it. It’s coming.
Nay, bloody hell Stewart, “scoundrel,” I think that’s a bit limp. Not the way I would refer to that genocidal maniac.
Tears of a clown.
Tears of a clown.
Whenever Canada is mentioned, I think of this man here: Polish Pastor Chases Cops Out of Church on Easter Weekend: ‘Get Out! You Nazis!’
If he runs to the WEF then I do so hope that the whole lot of them hang together.
Macron is the last of the lockdown fanatics still in power. I’m not sure if lockdown in France was more severe or longer than elsewhere but the restrictions on the unvaccinated were some of the harshest in the World as the things Macron said about the unvaccinated were among the worse things any leader said.
Good, but sadly 5 years too late for the Canadian people (the real ones, not the recent imports).
Still …. I expect Schwab will find a cosy “globalist” role for Mr Blackface.
The Government must call an election by October 2025. This fake resignation leaves Trudeau in power until the party chooses a new leader. He has also prorogued Parliament until the end of March thus preventing the house from voting on a non confidence vote he would lose triggering an election. So this fake resignation will leave Trudeau in power for many months during which he will feed his corrupt friends and globalist elite and fake charities billions more of Canada’s tax dollars. A word of advice NEVER elect a pathological NARCISSIST with a famous last name to power. The destruction he has caused in Canada is just unbelievable.
Strange, the approval rating looks like Starmer too!
Good riddance to Trudeau. As for Pierre Poilievre, I’ll reserve judgement on if he is a wunderkind depending on how much interest he takes in reversing the M.A.I.D. laws which are legally targeting the most vulnerable Canadians for state facilitated killing.
Astonishing. Justice at last for the courageous Canadian Freedom Convoy, which inspired so many others in the nations of the West.
But since he’s not actually clearing off until next autumn, there’s still plenty of time for him to wreak havoc.