zlacker

[return to "Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists"]
1. c54+C6[view] [source] 2022-12-16 02:17:36
>>prawn+(OP)
The wave of bans from the muskjet thing has been quite dramatic.

It'll be interesting to see if the people who've been lauding musk for his supposedly pro free speech attitudes will reckon with what's been happening in actuality, or if they'll just accept this as "freedom for me but not for thee".

◧◩
2. Ajedi3+Bd[view] [source] 2022-12-16 02:56:06
>>c54+C6
As one of those people: yeah, this is pretty terrible. I don't think being allowed to share the exact location of individual private jets is nearly as important for the public discourse as some of the other stories Twitter has censored in the past (pre-Elon), but this still represents a significant departure from what Musk was promising before the buyout (that basically anything legal to say would be allowed). I'd much rather he have erred on that side of things.

Hopefully this makes more people aware of just how much power social media companies have, and have always had, over the public discourse and that results in the institution of legal and/or technical measures that limit that power across the board. I'm not optimistic though, given how much of the public attention right now seems to be focused on admonishing Elon personally rather than on the overall system that makes this kind of censorship possible.

◧◩◪
3. absrd+dj[view] [source] 2022-12-16 03:24:16
>>Ajedi3+Bd
> rather than on the overall system that makes this kind of censorship possible

What do you think this system is?

◧◩◪◨
4. Ajedi3+tm[view] [source] 2022-12-16 03:42:44
>>absrd+dj
Basically:

1. A small number of large tech companies have collectively managed to gain a huge amount of control over what information millions of people are allowed to see.

2. There are nearly no legal restrictions on how they're allowed to exercise that control.

I'm not sure precisely what the solution to that should be, but the problem only exists as long as both 1 and 2 remain true, so you could theoretically approach the problem from either of those angles, or both.

◧◩◪◨⬒
5. vel0ci+eq[view] [source] 2022-12-16 04:05:56
>>Ajedi3+tm
> A small number of large tech companies have collectively managed to gain a huge amount of control over what information millions of people are allowed to see.

Hmm, yes, that's why nobody can go to InfoWars anymore, right? They're banned from Facebook and YouTube, so I guess it's impossible to hear anything they have to say.

What's this? infowars.com still loads? It has videos on it? Impossible, the leftist lizard demons banned it

Wake me up when port 443 requires written consent from Zucc to operate.

◧◩◪◨⬒⬓
6. mschus+l41[view] [source] 2022-12-16 09:15:09
>>vel0ci+eq
> Hmm, yes, that's why nobody can go to InfoWars anymore, right? They're banned from Facebook and YouTube, so I guess it's impossible to hear anything they have to say.

The thing is, deplatforming works. Banning far-right actors has drastically reduced the reach of their messages [1]. Personally, I see this as a Good Thing, simply because of the potential that spreading hate has to escalate to actual, real-world violence, from murders like in Charlottesville to an outright attempt at instigating a coup.

At every sudo prompt, we get the warning "With great power comes great responsibility" - for good reasons. It's the same with running a social network connecting literally billions of people... those operating them have great power by the sheer market size of their platforms, and a huge responsibility for just how much of the bad side of humanity can be empowered by them. Whatsapp, for example, was directly linked to dozens of murders and severe injuries after lies and propaganda led to lynch mobs [2][3][4].

[1] https://www.niemanlab.org/2021/06/deplatforming-works-this-n...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_WhatsApp_lynchings

[3] https://www.dailystar.co.uk/tech/news/chilling-whatsapp-chil...

[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-61794986

[go to top]