Thank you Chairman Walden, Ranking Member Pallone, and the committee, for the opportunity to speak on behalf of Twitter to the American people. I look forward to our conversation about our commitment to impartiality, transparency, and accountability.
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In the spirit of accountability and transparency: recently we failed our intended impartiality. Our algorithms were unfairly filtering 600,000 accounts, including some members of Congress, from our search auto-complete and latest results. We fixed it. But how did it happen?
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Our technology was using a decision making criteria that considers the behavior of people following these accounts. We decided that wasn’t fair, and corrected. We‘ll always improve our technology and algorithms to drive healthier usage, and measure the impartiality of outcomes.
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Bias in algorithms is an important topic. Our responsibility is to understand, measure, and reduce accidental bias due to factors such as the quality of the data used to train our algorithms. This is an extremely complex challenge facing everyone applying artificial intelligence.
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For our part, machine learning teams at Twitter are experimenting with these techniques and developing roadmaps to ensure present and future machine learning models uphold a high standard when it comes to algorithmic fairness. It’s an important step towards ensuring impartiality.
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Looking at the data, we analyzed tweets sent by all members of the House and Senate, and found no statistically significant difference between the number of times a tweet by a Democrat is viewed versus a Republican, even after our ranking and filtering of tweets has been applied.
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Also, there’s a distinction we need to make clear. When people follow you, you’ve earned that audience. And we have a responsibility to make sure they can see your tweets. We do not have a responsibility, nor you a right, to amplify your tweets to audiences that don’t follow you.
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What our algorithms decide to show in shared spaces, like search results, is based on thousands of signals that constantly learn and evolve over time. Some of those signals are engagement, some are the number of abuse reports. We balance all of these to prevent gaming our system.
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We acknowledge the growing concern people have of the power held by companies like Twitter. We believe it’s dangerous to ask Twitter to regulate opinions or be the arbiter of truth. We’d rather be judged by the impartiality of outcomes, and criticized when we fail this principle.
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In closing, when I think of our work, I think of my mom and dad in St. Louis, a Democrat and a Republican. We had lots of frustrating and heated debates, but looking back, I appreciate I was able to hear and challenge different perspectives. And I appreciate I felt safe to do so.
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We believe Twitter helps people connect to something bigger than themselves, shows all the amazing things happening in the world, and all the things we need to acknowledge and address. We‘re constantly learning how to make it freer and healthier for all to participate. Thank you.
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That's a lie and you know it. Conservatives like today they're being cracked down on, but you have let abusive behavior by them go unchecked while people who stand up to their abuse get shut down. Your policies have screwed over marginalized voices and lifted up extremist views.
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You're bending over backwards to ingrate yourself to people who've used your platform to harass and bully people and spread hateful ideology. You can argue that this is a platform for discourse, but you fail to recognize how far lies get before truth even has its shoes on.
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And you don't even acknowledge that you've let your platform go unmoderated for so long that you've allowed an alternate reality to form for millions of users, and I personally find it hard to believe you don't see how that runs counter to the principles of public discourse
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What a load of bullsh1t
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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Having policies and rules on free speech IS the problem.
#HANDSOFFFREESPEECHThanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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The party your algorithms never impact want to tax you, fine you and will own you eventually if they have control. Socialism will hurt all businesses and that’s what your censorship helps.
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Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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Blah blah blah bla bla bla bla blah blah blah blah blah bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla Liar
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So follow your policy in the case of
@sarahjeong then. When her years of using your platform to express obscene racism was exposed you verified her account.Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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