>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
matheusmoreira 1 hours ago [-]
> 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.
jfoster 1 hours ago [-]
I don't know anything about this specific case, but in elections more generally, wouldn't filtering all candidates equally simply favor incumbents?
matheusmoreira 59 minutes ago [-]
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.
gpm 1 hours ago [-]
Eh, I think it'd favour whoever has the bigger media apparatus running other accounts supporting them... which also seems like a weird decision.
nomilk 1 hours ago [-]
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.
Fnoord 34 minutes ago [-]
> 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.
Shank 46 minutes ago [-]
> 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.
NooneAtAll3 32 minutes ago [-]
if anything, I would completely unsubscribe from US-controlled social platform before the election anywhere outside US
diego_moita 1 hours ago [-]
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.
pocksuppet 60 minutes ago [-]
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.
matheusmoreira 47 minutes ago [-]
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.
matheusmoreira 54 minutes ago [-]
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.
Xirdus 54 minutes ago [-]
There are various laws in many countries that ban traditional media from straight up recommending specific candidates.
well_ackshually 45 minutes ago [-]
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.
surgical_fire 60 minutes ago [-]
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.
pocksuppet 59 minutes ago [-]
That's how Elon always does censorship. "Freedom of speech, not freedom of reach." Restricting reach is still censorship.
matheusmoreira 50 minutes ago [-]
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.
surgical_fire 41 minutes ago [-]
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.
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
Sounds good to me. Filtering all recommendations is fair, and they are not censoring the profiles.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Censorship is deletion of the candidate's social media presence.
Normal countries also have media silence for the day or two before the votes.
Restricting the reach of politicians is an absolute good.
And those platforms are absolutely agents of American imperialism. Latin American countries in particular should be very wary of these.
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.
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.