>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.
Seems Brazil's court (the TSE) banned platforms from recommending (i.e. via 'feeds' and similar) ~700 accounts related to its election, to avoid 'amplification' (unless the user already follow 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.
> 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.
> 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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
Eh, I think it'd favour whoever has the bigger media apparatus running other accounts supporting them... which also seems like a weird decision.
Seems Brazil's court (the TSE) banned platforms from recommending (i.e. via 'feeds' and similar) ~700 accounts related to its election, to avoid 'amplification' (unless the user already follow 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.
> 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.
> 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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Bluesky creators: How are you feeling right now
Good.