zlacker

>>crbela+(OP)
From the article: "Twitter, which was arguably the hub of wokeness, was bought by Elon Musk in order to neutralize it, and he seems to have succeeded — and not, incidentally, by censoring left-wing users the way Twitter used to censor right-wing ones, but without censoring either. [14]"

Then follow to the footnote: "[14] Elon did something else that tilted Twitter rightward though: he gave more visibility to paying users."

This is puzzling to me because: if you give more visibility to one group of people's speech, that means you are giving less visibility to another group of people's speech. Which is just another way of saying you are censoring their speech.

Again, the author asks: "...is there a way to prevent any similar outbreak of aggressively performative moralism in the future?" But preventing somebody from expressing their moral values again is censorship.

No matter what kind of media policies there are, the fact that there is limited bandwidth means that some views are going to be emphasized, and other views are going to be suppressed.

>>rhelz+A9
if you give more visibility to one group of people's speech, that means you are giving less visibility to another group of people's speech. Which is just another way of saying you are censoring their speech.

Not at all - the difference here is choice. You can choose to pay or not to pay. And if you don't pay you are still seen.

There was no choice wrt visibility under the old regime, WrongSpeak was censored - you couldn't pay to be heard.

Now that doesn't mean the current situation is optimal, but it at least allows for the possibility of diversity of opinion. Left and Right can both choose to pay.

>>mellos+5f1
> at least allows for the possibility of diversity of opinion. Left and Right can both choose to pay.

This has multiple issues.

The older set up was not there to promote visibility but to provide a layer of authentification, most blue ticks were brands and recognisable people. Now its mostly scams, allowing anyone, especially potentially malicious actors, to don the mask of credibility is not "allowing the possibility of diversity of opinion" is allowing the fox in the hen house.

Secondly, if you imagine the goals of right wing people to maintain current power structures, and the left to disrupt them, then the ability to pay is already corrupted due to the current power structure being supremely lobsided. Aka those with all the money are effectively the only ones who can pay. (In law this is called 'right without a remedy', its when you technically have a right on paper but could never actually exercise it)

This whole situation also enables a problem we already know exists which are state actors. Russia was part of a disinfo campaign through FB tools in 2016 through cambridge analytica, and used bots in twitter in 2016 and 2020 through multiple state sponsored bot farms. Allowing that kind of state warfare to be amplified by spending money is really really poor choice from a platform prespective. Without those tools, organic growth is harder to achieve and getting around bot detection tools means a part of the infra would be caught before it caused damage (even under those circumstances, there was plenty of damage done). Removing all guardrails is a frankly indefensible choice in terms of public safety