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Facebook and Twitter are not communities in any meaningful sense, because they are global, and generally speaking meant for "anybody" to talk about "anything" (

by psyc 6y ago

Facebook and Twitter are not communities in any meaningful sense, because they are global, and generally speaking meant for "anybody" to talk about "anything" (of course the limits of this generality are exactly what's under discussion). More like a telephone. The proper analogy to HN's moderation would be the owner of a FB Group kicking someone, which I believe is fine and good. What Facebook and Twitter are doing, and especially as they move beyond the less-controversial "hate speech" to the more controversial "disinformation", is the whole global platform moderating everything, and is veering dangerously close to being... I'm struggling with the word, but something like partisan but less one-dimensional. It's not hard to see this path leading to these global platforms simply causing the speech that occurs on them to match the politics of the people in charge at Facebook and Twitter. And nobody needs to hear for the billionth time about the rights of private companies and the law - we know, so save your keystrokes, please.

seanwilson 6y ago
> Facebook and Twitter are not communities in any meaningful sense, because they are global, and generally speaking meant for "anybody" to talk about "anything" Why do Facebook and Twitter not have an "I hate this" reaction (I'm aware Facebook added "angry" but this was fairly recent)? Or a way to mark people as enemies as well as friends? Why do they prevent you posting certain kinds of graphic videos or images? Why don't Twitter let you post messages of any length? These are all limits to your freedom to express yourself. They let you create your own groups/communities, but Twitter and Facebook clearly have their own idea of what they believe to be healthy discourse and what kind of interactions they want to nurture, and they encourage that through their UI features and moderation. Same with HN with upvotes/downvotes, who gets to vote and dedicated site moderators. > is the whole global platform moderating everything, It's not as simple as you're making out. I'd be against my ISP moderating what I post online, but there's more to the internet than just Facebook and Twitter. They might be popular but they don't have absolute control and aren't a prerequisite to other forms of communication or self-organisation (unlike your ISP or mobile provider).

by psyc 6y ago

seanwilson 6y ago

> Facebook and Twitter are not communities in any meaningful sense, because they are global, and generally speaking meant for "anybody" to talk about "anything" Why do Facebook and Twitter not have an "I hate this" reaction (I'm aware Facebook added "angry" but this was fairly recent)? Or a way to mark people as enemies as well as friends? Why do they prevent you posting certain kinds of graphic videos or images? Why don't Twitter let you post messages of any length? These are all limits to your freedom to express yourself. They let you create your own groups/communities, but Twitter and Facebook clearly have their own idea of what they believe to be healthy discourse and what kind of interactions they want to nurture, and they encourage that through their UI features and moderation. Same with HN with upvotes/downvotes, who gets to vote and dedicated site moderators. > is the whole global platform moderating everything, It's not as simple as you're making out. I'd be against my ISP moderating what I post online, but there's more to the internet than just Facebook and Twitter. They might be popular but they don't have absolute control and aren't a prerequisite to other forms of communication or self-organisation (unlike your ISP or mobile provider).