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      in UK Politics

      Twitter finds its own algorithms amplify ‘political right’ but it doesn’t yet know why

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      Twitter’s algorithm amplifies right-wing news outlets more than others – but the social network is not exactly sure why – according to internal research posted on its website on Thursday.Since April, the company has examined if, and how, its algorithm that recommends content to users amplifies political content.In six out of seven countries – all but Germany – tweets posted by accounts from the political right receive more exposure by the algorithm than the political left when studied as a group.The first part of the study examined millions of tweets posted by elected officials, such as MPs, in seven countries – Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, the UK, and the US – between 1 April to 15 August 2020.The company used this data to test whether or not these tweets are amplified more on the algorithmically-ordered “timeline” of tweets than the reverse-chronological feed, and whether there was variety of results within a political party. Twitter also studied whether its recommendation algorithms amplify political content from news outlets. To do this, the company also analysed hundreds of millions of tweets containing links to news stories shared by people on Twitter between April and August last year.Right-leaning news outlets see greater algorithmic amplification on Twitter compared to left-leaning news outlets – the researchers found. The initial results only show bias in amplification, and not what causes it. Rumman Chowdhury, the head of Twitter’s machine learning, ethics, transparency and accountability team, called it “the what, not the why” in an interview with tech news website Protocol.Since 2016, people on Twitter have been able to choose between viewing algorithmically-ordered posts first in the Home timeline, or viewing the most recent tweets in reverse-chronological order.Twitter found that tweets about political content from elected officials, regardless of party or whether the party is in power, are algorithmically amplified on the Home timeline when compared to political content on the reverse-chronological timeline.The first setting displays a stream of tweets from accounts that the account holder has chosen to follow, as well as recommendations of other content that Twitter thinks the person might be interested in based on their existing list of people that they follow.Group effects did not translate to individual effects, Twitter said, since party affiliation or ideology has not been a factor that the network’s systems consider when recommending content to users.Therefore, “two individuals in the same political party would not necessarily see the same amplification” – Twitter said.Twitter wrote on its blog: “As a result, what an individual sees on their home timeline is a function of how they interact with the algorithmic system, as well as how the system is designed.”It added that it hopes its findings will “contribute to an evidence-based discussion of the role these algorithms play in shaping political content consumption on the internet.”Twitter argues that “algorithmic amplification is not problematic by default” as “all algorithms amplify”, but that it would be an issue if there is “preferential treatment as a function of how the algorithm is constructed versus the interactions people have with it.”The company said it is willing to share the aggregated datasets it used in the study to third-party researchers “upon request”. More

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      in World Politics

      US abortion law: A conservative-leaning supreme court doesn’t bode well for women

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      The US Supreme Court’s failure to block a new law from entering into force in Texas means that abortions after six weeks are effectively banned in that state, even in cases of rape or incest. In the Whole Woman’s Health v Austin Reeve Jackson case, a five-four majority of the court denied the application to block Senate Bill 8 (SB 8) in Texas.From 1 September, SB 8 “makes it unlawful for physicians to perform abortions if they detect cardiac activity on an embryo or fail to perform a test to detect such activity”. This is around six weeks after a woman’s last period, much sooner than many women find out that they are pregnant.Fierce debate has taken place over women’s sexual reproductive rights since the US Supreme Court’s 1973 landmark decision inRoe v Wade when the court ruled that a woman has a constitutional right to abortion due to her “right to privacy”, guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. This was hailed as a momentous step towards the protection of women’s rights.Yet anti-abortion campaigners have been fighting to restrict a woman’s right to choose, most notably through the case of Planned Parenthood v Casey in 1992. In this case, the Supreme Court upheld Roe, but allowed states to place restrictions on first-trimester abortions, such as government-mandated delays between consultation and abortion, so long as they do not impose an “undue burden” on the woman. Previously states had been banned from introducing restrictions on first-trimester abortions.Allowing the Texas abortion ban to take effect is an attack on women’s rights and will have a devastating impact on women in Texas. It will undoubtedly galvanise other states to further restrict abortions too, with the ultimate goal of these restrictions being a complete overruling of Roe v Wade. This would effectively ban abortions across the US. The likelihood of this happening has increased due to the current politics of the US Supreme Court.The politics of the US Supreme CourtA key role of the Supreme Court is to rule on points of constitutional and federal law. It hears around 100 cases per year on a range of constitutional issues from administrative law to criminal justice. Some decisions of the court, such as in Roe v Wade, can bind the entirety of the US. More

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      in UK Politics

      Letwin: 'NHS will not exist under Tories'

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      Oliver Letwin has reportedly told a private meeting that the “NHS will not exist” within five years of a Conservative election victory.Oliver Letwin has reportedly told a private meeting that the “NHS will not exist” within five years of a Conservative election victory.The Shadow Chancellor said that the health service would instead be a “funding stream handing out money to pay people where they want to go for their healthcare”, according to a member of the audience.The remarks, which have been furiously denied by Mr Letwin, were last night seized on by Labour as evidence of the Tories’ true intentions towards the NHS.It is not disputed that Mr Letwin met a gathering of construction industry representatives in his constituency of Dorset West on 14 May. During the meeting he urged the group of around six local businessmen to work together to win contracts for a new PFI hospital to be built in Dorchester.Mr Letwin then astonished his audience, however, by saying that within five years of a Conservative election victory “the NHS will not exist anymore”, according to one of those who were present.Although Mr Letwin’s aides later insisted that his remarks had been misinterpreted, it is the second time in recent weeks that his candour has landed him in trouble.INDY/LIFE NewsletterBe inspired with the latest lifestyle trends every weekINDY/LIFE NewsletterBe inspired with the latest lifestyle trends every weekAs reported in this newspaper, the Shadow Chancellor told a group of economists that it would be “irrational” to tell voters by how much he wanted to cut public spending. That prompted a gleeful Labour Party to claim that he had let slip a secret Tory plan to cut £135bn from the government budget.Paul Boateng, the Treasury Chief Secretary, lost no time in seizing on the latest apparent gaffe.”This proves what we have said all along,” he said. “Oliver Letwin and the Tories want to abolish the NHS as we know it. The Tory agenda is one of cuts, charges and privatisation.”However, a Conservative Party spokesman said: “Oliver Letwin categorically said nothing of the sort. What he told the meeting was that within five years a Conservative government would have broken down the monolithic bureaucracy of the health service, putting decision-making in the hands of the hospitals rather than the Whitehall pen-pushers. The result will be a far more efficient and effective NHS.He added: “As with a report two weeks ago that Mr Letwin had secret plans to make vast cuts in the public services, this report is complete fiction.” More

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      in World Politics

      Government revive push to make apps like WhatsApp and iMessage weaken protections so they can read messages

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      End-to-end encryption lets users use messaging services without the owners of those services being able to access the conversations.Government representatives, including Home Secretary Priti Patel, US Attorney General Bill Barr, and others, said they are concerned that “encryption is applied in a way that wholly precludes any legal access to content”.The governments say they “support strong encryption, which plays a crucial role in protecting personal data, privacy, intellectual property, trade secrets and cyber security.”However, with regards to certain crimes, such as child exploitation, the government should be allowed access to private channels.This access would:”Embed the safety of the public in system designs, thereby enabling companies to act against illegal content and activity effectively with no reduction to safety, and facilitating the investigation and prosecution of offences and safeguarding the vulnerable;”Enable law enforcement access to content in a readable and usable format where an authorisation is lawfully issued, is necessary and proportionate, and is subject to strong safeguards and oversight; and”Engage in consultation with governments and other stakeholders to facilitate legal access in a way that is substantive and genuinely influences design decisions.”WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal are all end-to-end encrypted, while other platforms like Facebook Messenger, Twitter, Instagram, and text messages are not.However if end-to-end encryption is ‘broken’, by allowing a backdoor for law enforcement agencies as these governments have suggested, it could allow malicious individuals the ability to access private conversations.Read moreMany large technology companies, advocacy groups, and the general public have criticised the use of backdoors.Earlier this year, when Zoom said that its free video calling service would not be end-to-end encrypted so it could work better with law enforcement, over 19,000 internet users signed a petition from Mozilla and the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) to Zoom in protest. Zoom eventually reversed the decision.“We reiterate that data protection, respect for privacy and the importance of encryption as technology changes and global Internet standards are developed remain at the forefront of each state’s legal framework”, the governments’ statement concludes.“However, we challenge the assertion that public safety cannot be protected without compromising privacy or cyber security”. More