X Randomly Banning Users for "Inauthentic Behavior"

ccrmrc114 about 5 hours ago 71 commentsRead Article on old.reddit.com

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Discussion (71 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

matsemann•about 4 hours ago

"X" is in a weird place now. The monetization of engagement absolutely wrecked the feeds from my cursory glance. Just ragebaiting, vague posting, abuse (for a while, every female posting would have someone in the replies doing "grok, put OP in a bikini" and it would post sexualized images of them). Someone vent viral by posting a picture of Steve Jobs' daughter (?), and people try to replicate that as that now generates money. Replies to posts are just bluechecks being insane, or farm accounts spamming unrelated stuff hoping to get impressions and generate some dollars.

I used to follow only cycling/urban related accounts for the town I live in. Most of them left, so maybe that's making it hard for the algorithm, but my feed is now just far right immigration propaganda by blue checks, or lots of US issues (I'm not in the US). Not a nice place to be, but I can see how it can be addicting / trigger something in the brain.

leosanchez•about 3 hours ago

> every female posting would have someone in the replies doing "grok, put OP in a bikini"

I get these tweets randomly in my Timeline as well. What I don't understand is why does Twitter think I should know about someone asking Grok to put xxx in Bikini

mcintyre1994•about 3 hours ago

My guess would be that they amplify tweets involving Grok as a form of advertising. I think they disabled tagging Grok for non paying users, so I guess they do it to advertise its capabilities. And because their user base is so toxic that mostly means amplifying things like that.

fabian2k•about 3 hours ago

This is a command to the Grok bot and used to generate an image based on the post and that specific prompt. After significant outrage they disabled it for non-paying users at least, not sure if they changed more about this later.

blitzar•about 3 hours ago

If the "algorithm" thinks that I want to see <command to the Grok bot> from random accounts so jams lots of them into my feed then it is a pretty dumb algorithm

QuantumNomad_•about 2 hours ago

> Most of them left, so maybe that's making it hard for the algorithm, but my feed is now just far right immigration propaganda by blue checks

Working as intended. It has been very clear for a very long time (in “Internet time”) that Mr “Free Speech Absolutist” Musk is only really interested in supporting far right propaganda.

> Not a nice place to be, but I can see how it can be addicting / trigger something in the brain.

Honest question, why would anyone willingly browse X? Why have an account there when it’s not even giving you anything nice? Delete the account. Stop visiting the site.

matsemann•12 minutes ago

> Honest question, why would anyone willingly browse X?

I don't know the psychology, but there absolutely is something akin to "outrage porn". Like, something in your brain wants you to go in and be outraged and annoyed about how stupid other's are, and how much better you are.

Tried to search around for why it happens, this has some thoughts, "The dangerous pleasures of outrage": https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/domestic-intelligenc...

> The pleasure of strong negative judgment becomes so enjoyable we seek opportunities to trigger it

2OEH8eoCRo0•8 minutes ago

My guess is that outrageous things were important to pay attention to when we were in tribes?

ksaj•about 3 hours ago

I stopped using all of that style of social media, mainly for this reason. First it was Facebook a couple decades ago. I figured I can deal with only hearing from my family once in a while, in real life and emails, and blissfully missing all those photos of the food they're about to eat.

Social media has just gotten worse and worse since Facebook, to the point I can't even bother with Mastodon anymore (and I don't. I gave that up a few months back).

The main thing I like here - I get the info I was hoping to see in the first place, but without all the baggage. Even when that baggage seeps in, it is (very) short term. The ycombinator news mods are exceptional.

This site isn't all that "Social" per se, but the threads generally stay on topic, and aren't constantly trying to sell you something nobody ever asked for.

AI is not the fakest thing in social media.

pjc50•about 3 hours ago

> my feed is now just far right immigration propaganda by blue checks, or lots of US issues (I'm not in the US)

> (for a while, every female posting would have someone in the replies doing "grok, put OP in a bikini")

This is now the purpose of the site: racism and sexism. There was once a time when it would have been the place to follow the Hungarian election, now I have to make to with a few people on bluesky.

user34283•about 2 hours ago

My 'For you' feed is almost exclusively Photography, science and tech news.

I believe it strongly depends on what you interact with.

At some point I also had a lot of US news in my feed, but once I stopped opening those posts and instead used the 'Not interested in this post' button or muted the author, they disappeared.

Probably following other accounts or liking photography posts also helped.

matsemann•about 2 hours ago

Meh, this borders on victim blaming. You can't deny they've done something to turn it the last few years. And there is no one of my interest left to follow, they've all jumped ship. I checked the "following" tab now, and there is nothing of interest there, they've all left.

Hamuko•about 2 hours ago

They're not on my For You feed, but anytime I watch a video on Twitter and it automatically jumps to a next video, it's always something that would never be on my feed. These days, it's usually bodycam footage from the United States (which I don't live in).

blitzar•about 3 hours ago

vague posting is the current meta

Mario9382•about 4 hours ago

I created an account in X yesterday because I'm trying to get more involved into building in public and the social aspect of development and I was shocked to see nowadays you can pay for X premium where the more you pay, the more interactions you get to your tweets.

At the end I just deleted it and created an account into Bluesky instead.

indy•about 3 hours ago

Out of the anger inducing frying pan and into the group-think fire.

ksaj•about 3 hours ago

How can you tell when they are two different hive minds, with temperament being the sole differentiator?

Hamuko•about 2 hours ago

We're against chronological timelines composed of people you follow for being "group think" now?

throwaway132448•about 3 hours ago

It’s funny how much people on X resent the freedom for alternatives to exist.

As always it’s because it’s never actually about free speech, just freedom of consequences from their own choices and behaviour.

charcircuit•about 3 hours ago

>X premium where the more you pay, the more interactions you get to your tweets.

You are confusing X ads for X premium or you are mistaken.

matsemann•about 3 hours ago

It's probably not "the more you pay the more interactions you get", but there definitely is "if you pay, you get more interactions". Blue checks are boosted in top of replies etc., and is ironically often the exact people you don't want to see.

dwedge•about 3 hours ago

When X premium came out they said if I paid my tweets would be boosted more. I didn't pay, and my account with a few hundred followers went from 100ish views per average tweet to 10.

If you think you don't need to pay for engagement on there I can only assume you're paying for it and unaware of the difference.

Mario9382•about 1 hour ago

if you go to the premium section and look at the benefits it literally says (from memory) if you pay 3.5€/month you get a small boost on interactions for your tweets. If you pay 5€/month you get a bigger boost on interactions if you pay (I don't remember how much it is) 22€/month ~ you get the biggest boost for your tweets.

That to me sounds like if you don't pay, you're going to be in the bottom of the feed for everyone else.

charcircuit•43 minutes ago

I just looked and it doesn't say that. It only says that you have a higher chance to show up in front of other users in the reply section. It does not say that Premium Plus gets more of a boost than Premium. It is not a perk of Basic.

croes•about 3 hours ago

Doesn’t matter what it is called. You can buy interactions, that’s like buying fake followers.

dwedge•about 3 hours ago

With a double edged sword - they also removed the organic engagement you previously would have gotten

lynx97•about 3 hours ago

> You can buy interactions

You're describing advertisment in general. Same with FB. If I throw enough money at a posting ad, I will gain interactions.

crmrc114•about 5 hours ago

Posting here since I am curious if any friends on HN have faced the same AI based banning. I have had a Twitter account since like 2008 and they just did this- like folks on reddit are reporting appeals just get robo-rejected. Is there any way to reach a human at X? I have some SWEs and SREs in my linkedin account as second and third person contacts but reaching out there just feels wrong. Putting AI in charge of Auto banning 10+ year old paying accounts is insane. There is another thread on this same issue here https://www.reddit.com/r/twitterhelp/comments/1sfn3l4/has_an...

dwedge•about 3 hours ago

Just to be clear, they are 10+ year old accounts, they haven't been paying for 10+ years, premium has only been available for maybe 3 years

kotaKat•about 1 hour ago

> Is there any way to reach a human at X?

Money. Lots of money. Pay the Advertising chuds. Back before reserved/paid usernames were even a thing I remember at least one recorded phone call kicking around one of my archives of a Twitter employee saying they'd release any handle I needed for a $10k ad commit over 3 months minimum pre-Musk.

mhitza•about 3 hours ago

Automated decision making processing, such as banning, must be avoided under the GDPR. Those facing this issue should throw a complaint at their DPA. I'm sure Musk would love another series of fines in the EU.

m00dy•about 3 hours ago

Nothing is wrong during AI revolution.

ggm•about 5 hours ago

Good time to heed the signal and leave. It's an anti-pattern for humanity.

crmrc114•about 4 hours ago

Yeah I know- I have accounts on bluesky and mastodon as well- but I try not to isolate myself to one network, there are plenty of non-usa accounts that were only on X who I followed for technology and art/photography stuff. shikata ga nai I guess.

heavensteeth•about 4 hours ago

Most social media has been has been utterly untenable forever, but Twitter and Discord are the most troublesome in my experience. It's so hard to create and use a new account on those sites without the rigmarole of captcha (due to suspicious activity) -> banned (due to suspicious activity) -> captcha (due to suspicious activity) -> verify email (due to suspicious activity) -> banned (due to suspicious activity) -> verify phone number (due to suspicious activity). Then, want to follow someone, or join a guild? Hmm.. your account reputation is too low. Try again in a week?

I don't know how people do it. I can only figure it's my fault for running Linux or Firefox or not Signing in with Google™, upsetting the data harvesting overlords.

throwawaymobule•about 4 hours ago

Back when they still had staffed support, and were called twitter, I'd have to spend a week or more back and forth with them when I inevitably hit the demand for a phone number. Most of the time the account got unlocked.

This was usually a few weeks/months after they were in the news for selling people's phone numbers.

dwedge•about 3 hours ago

Discord annoys me with this. I tried to ask a question about GrapheneOS on reddit and they auto deleted it and said we use discord now. I don't have discord so I signed up and can't post until I verify my email. So I verified a burner and don't have permission to post in that channel. A couple of days later I did, but the motivation had passed.

It's so strange to put your interactions behind a walled garden that demands verification, especially for something like GOS. But even then, making people wait a day or so without telling them is such an antipattern

dminik•about 3 hours ago

I needed to create a Facebook account to verify some Facebook posting functionality worked as we wanted it to. Ok, easy. Tried using my work email. No, not allowed. Hmm, try creating a new email. Nope. Tried to create an account on my personal device with a personal email. Nuh-uh.

I've never seen a service so opposed to me using it. There's no option for dev accounts either.

level09•about 2 hours ago

Same here. Premium account, years old, barely post, banned with no explanation.

What’s worse: no way to notify followers or export data after a ban.

Lesson here: Never outsource your identity or communication to a platform you don’t control, treat them as disposable channels, that might disappear any day.

mcv•about 2 hours ago

"Inauthentic behaviour"? Did Simone de Bouvoir take over X?

ponyous•about 3 hours ago

As far as I know reddit does the same thing. If you don’t follow normal human patterns you will quickly get banned. I read some guy’s report where he got banned 8 times detailing each behaviour and indeed it was nothing crazy.

mentalgear•about 3 hours ago

I'm not touching seedy X any more - if there's someone linking to it the 'toXcancel' extension shows me the content while shielding me from Musk's actual sht pit.

Myzel394•about 4 hours ago

I've also been suspended for breaking their terms and services, even though I haven't done anything wrong. It was probably my VPN. Luckily, my account got unsuspended, but I ain't using that platform anymore

blitzar•about 3 hours ago

Free speech absolutism ladies and gentlemen.

kkfx•about 1 hour ago

We simply need open, decentralized or distributed platforms. Nostr is not that excellent, but it works, and have a potential to became "unified personal web platform", take a look at it.

nar001•about 1 hour ago

Isn't that just Mastodon? Why would I use Nostr instead?

m00dy•about 3 hours ago

looks like the incident happened a month ago ?

jerrygoyal•about 3 hours ago

my business account got banned as well 7 days ago. I created an appeal but didn't receive any response. crickets.

xyzal•about 3 hours ago

I use my account only to mock @realDonaldTrump.

Real discussions with friends happen in group chats, without all the crap and noise.