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A private company can do whatever they want on their platform. The problem I have is that they pretend that they are unbiased arbiters, when history suggests ot
by partiallypro 10y ago
A private company can do whatever they want on their platform. The problem I have is that they pretend that they are unbiased arbiters, when history suggests otherwise.
I also have a problem with this as Twitter investor (I'm a huge critic of Twitter, if you look at my history; and I'm specifically an investor hoping for someone to just buy the company and fire Jack and his team.) I don't know how to balance the harassment policies (which I think should be enforced in some cases) and free speech.
I think free speech is vital to the success of any social media platform. I also know the tendencies of internet trolls is that if you come at them, they often go much harder towards you. It would make more sense if you could auto-block mentions that contain keywords, almost like a spam filter. Basically filter bubbles or groups/channels, with the ability to see unfiltered mentions. I really do not think this solves the problem, as we saw with Reddit, 4Chan, 8Chan, (or basically any forum that has operated since the early 2000s) etc.
When Reddit started mass banning people and subreddits it saw a huge uptick of "shitposts," eventually a lot of those people formed "The_Donald" and now they basically control most of the front page, and have for months. Banning in many instances can give the banned users a much louder voice, especially if they have any sort of movement or following behind them. I think anyone with experience in online forums dating back to the early 2000s knows this to be true. Forum "fallouts" happen often, and usually occur after a significant ban or power grab...it often ends up killing the platform or community. I don't think social media platforms are any different.
I fear unless Jack and many others are removed from the company, it will become like a Yahoo, with core assets that are marked as virtually worthless and no one willing to buy and catch the falling knife.