zlacker

Did you miss what happened with facebook in the wake of the 2016 election and brexit? They took the blame for all the misinformation that was flying around, being a vehicle for russian troll farms, etc. A lot of that was rightly so, imo, but even if you don’t think they did anything wrong the perception that they did something wrong hurt them financially. You may believe that a company like twitter or fb should act like a dumb pipe - but they’re operating in a capitalist system - they have a huge incentive to avoid things that will hurt them financially. You think they did it because they wanted to swing the election dem, but i don’t believe that for a second. I think they were motivated by wanted to not be seen as swinging the election at all. That means suppressing any sketchy stories.

Personal politics may have made them a little more skeptical of a story sourced from rudy guiliani than one from a sketchy source on the left - but honestly if you’re not deeply skeptical of stories sourced from rudy at this point, I’m sorry to say but you are biased away from truth.

If you want twitter / fb / etc to be dumb pipes you need them to operate outside of market forces. Either by being regulated by gov as a common carrier, privatized by someone with high minded ideals enough to resist banning anyone who criticizes him and doesn’t mind losing money on it, or by being run by some non-governmental foundation. Under capitalist motivations, you’re not going to get a dumb pipe.

So far none of those things are happening. Expect twitter to continue to be not a dumb pipe, not a zone of free speech, just biased in a different way under its new management - less about maximizing $$ and more about protecting its owners interests.