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Facebook and Twitter might do well to just ban politics entirely at this point. It costs them a lot to touch it.
by MattGaiser 6y ago
Facebook and Twitter might do well to just ban politics entirely at this point. It costs them a lot to touch it.
- wffurr 6y agoGood luck defining what counts as “political” speech.
- bordercases 6y agoIf they use any definition at all, that's what matters. We've crossed that rubicon long ago. Platform centralization + corporate privilege gives no lever to challenge definitions at the enforcement level.
- permo-w 6y agoHacker News definitely should
- rvz 6y ago> Facebook and Twitter might do well to just ban politics entirely at this point. So your point is to have Facebook and Twitter policing and monitoring everyone's posts for discussions on general politics. Good luck with that. You better have a definition and where to draw the line on which posts, images, text and speech that fit your definition of 'politics'.
- bordercases 6y agoWhat do bans of radical political groups amount to?
- bserge 6y agoPolitics is not the problem. People discussing it are literally participating in democracy. The problem is that these discussions go nowhere. Everyone may come to an agreement, and yet no one will do anything about it. Politicians themselves don't participate, which is sort of ironic. Plus, these discussions often devolve into shit slinging over some general issues like racism, minority rights, wealth, power. It only takes a few people to start it, and often, all the rational people just leave at that point. All of this blocking will just limit everyone's freedom and access to information. The core issue, education, is what needs to be solved.
- imtringued 6y agoIt's always two things. 1. You need to make officials accountable. 2. You have to make everyone in the country understand what's good for them and give them the ability to make informed votes. Uganda is suffering from 1. The US and Europe is suffering more from 2. (extremism in any direction). They are completely different problems. Censorship goes against 1. Fake news goes against 2.
- bserge 6y agoEh, I'm not seeing much of 1 in the western world, either. The political class is nigh untouchable. And when was the last time anyone explained in detail why they think a certain law would benefit people? Wouldn't be that hard to do. But I'm guessing it could reveal the real reasons behind many laws.