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Okay, that's generally reasonable, but in the context of the current US political climate I think you're concerned about the wrong thing. While the national sit
by ezrast 8y ago
Okay, that's generally reasonable, but in the context of the current US political climate I think you're concerned about the wrong thing. While the national situation is frequently described as being rife with political intolerance, those attitudes belong mostly to the masses and to politicians. The megacorporations in question skew heavily techno-libertarian and display little propensity for censoring their platforms beyond removing illegal content and porn. In the case of social media in particular, it's the major platforms' lack of interest in curating political content that has allowed them and their "unbiased" algorithms to become the unwitting tools of those who would undermine our political institutions. If the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit would choose some principles to stand for rather than trying to be everything to everyone, they and we would be less susceptible to that sort of manipulation.
- philwelch 8y agoSocial media is a whole other can of worms. What do you consider “undermining our political institutions”? If that consists of spreading disinformation and propaganda, those have been part of politics for as long as there have been politics. If it’s because the propaganda is inserted by witting or unwitting agents of a hostile foreign power—well, that was the rationale for blacklisting suspected Communist screenwriters. This wasn’t the angle I was coming from, but it does circle back to that somehow.