4 ms·

I am so tired of the public square analogy. You don’t need Twitter. You don’t need Facebook. You don’t need Reddit. And what’s more, you can still read them if

I am so tired of the public square analogy. You don’t need Twitter. You don’t need Facebook. You don’t need Reddit. And what’s more, you can still read them if you’re banned. If you think it’s ok for a restaurant to turn you away because of a dress code, then this is a non-issue. The are several major platforms you can use as a megaphone, just like you have plenty of restaurants to choose from for your meal. If you are systematically getting banned from each social media platform and being “cut off from the public square,” that says more about you than it does the current state of speech.

jacquesm 4y ago
> And what’s more, you can still read them if you’re banned. That is changing and in many places already no longer true.
- Forgeties79 4y ago
  Such as?
  - sneak 4y ago
    Instagram.
    - Forgeties79 4y ago
      IG has always hobbled the browser version and always restricted access without an account. It’s also pretty easy to just set up a new account on a different machine.
  - paganel 4y ago
    Also FB private groups that may be of interest to the user. For example many football club-related groups are private for obvious reasons, and, as such, getting kicked out of FB also means getting kicked out of your local supporters' forum where the online discussions happen. Yes, people from that group also meet irl, but not all of them attend those meetings and those meetings happen, at most, once every week (after the football season starts). For example we're out-season now but this is also the time of some of the most heated and interesting discussions, because right now we're in the middle of the transfer season.
  - satyrnein 4y ago
    Twitter throws up a jarring sign-in wall if you scroll down more than a few tweets now.
ricardobeat 4y ago
That’s a very naive argument. If your friends and family are on Facebook, your work contacts across the country are on Twitter, the only forums left alive on the web are on Reddit, how can you not need them? These things have replaced existing connections you used to have via other channels. You can not step away without severing them now, it is no longer a matter of personal choice.
- Forgeties79 4y ago
  In what world are people only able to communicate with their family and friends on Facebook? Who only communicates with colleagues over Twitter?
  - avereveard 4y ago
    Unless your family counts two you cannot possibly compare the time facetiming each one of them vs just scrolling an aggregated news feed
    - Forgeties79 4y ago
      Phone call, email, text message, Viber, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Telegram, actually interacting in person. Half my family isn’t even on Facebook and virtually none of us even use it anymore. If that’s the only way to keep up with family then don’t act like a complete jerk online, or you know don’t harass people, and you’ll be fine. Same as regular society. Contrary to popular belief, it actually takes a lot to simply get banned. Yeah there are cases like the post above, but the reason it is even here is because it is noteworthy.
      - OrangeMonkey 4y ago
        It does not take a lot to get banned - you just have to have a stated opinion that does not correlate with a large portion of the user base. If the civil rights movement was being organized on facebook today with the culture and beliefs of the 1950's as our users, I am very confident MLK would have been banned from every service. ... and someone, somewhere, would say 'don't act like a complete jerk online, or you know don't harass people, and you'll be fine'. I don't mean this pointed at you, I completely get the feeling, but I think ignoring history and the current in/out groups is likely to lead to conclusions that are not realistic.
bigDinosaur 4y ago
They're used to organise the social graph, so the analogy is off but not actually wrong in spirit. Yes, you can gather without them, but organising without them is what's difficult because again, they now nearly monopolise the social graph of acquaintances in terms of organisation (e.g. Facebook groups for a hobby, political protests where most people don't know each other IRL). This wasn't inevitable, but the analogy to me seems to be like saying: you don't need to drive when the country decided to only build roads. As for your last sentence, well, not necessarily. I just don't see how that logically follows. Bans tell you that you're violating a rule, but those rules can be terrible. That's true of anything ever, I don't see how you can state that it's always the fault of the person being cut off. That's like saying all social ostracisation is really the fault of the person being ostracised. The person who is unpopular might be a terrible person, or they might be right but with uncomfortable facts or opinions.
ls15 4y ago
> You don’t need Facebook. There are countries that use Facebook for everything, including business and official announcements. If you are not on Facebook then you are left behind. Mostly just because it is available and "free", I think. People should not use these platforms as their "public square", because their "public square" then becomes hostile territory, but people don't listen to us and indeed use these services as "public squares". I think that the only way to reverse this trend is regulation that will most likely come when societies finally start to realize the damage that has been caused by moving their communication to computers that are owned by a couple of Californian companies.

jacquesm 4y ago

> And what’s more, you can still read them if you’re banned. That is changing and in many places already no longer true.

Forgeties79 4y ago
Such as?
- sneak 4y ago
  Instagram.
  - Forgeties79 4y ago
    IG has always hobbled the browser version and always restricted access without an account. It’s also pretty easy to just set up a new account on a different machine.
- paganel 4y ago
  Also FB private groups that may be of interest to the user. For example many football club-related groups are private for obvious reasons, and, as such, getting kicked out of FB also means getting kicked out of your local supporters' forum where the online discussions happen. Yes, people from that group also meet irl, but not all of them attend those meetings and those meetings happen, at most, once every week (after the football season starts). For example we're out-season now but this is also the time of some of the most heated and interesting discussions, because right now we're in the middle of the transfer season.
- satyrnein 4y ago
  Twitter throws up a jarring sign-in wall if you scroll down more than a few tweets now.

ricardobeat 4y ago

That’s a very naive argument. If your friends and family are on Facebook, your work contacts across the country are on Twitter, the only forums left alive on the web are on Reddit, how can you not need them? These things have replaced existing connections you used to have via other channels. You can not step away without severing them now, it is no longer a matter of personal choice.

Forgeties79 4y ago
In what world are people only able to communicate with their family and friends on Facebook? Who only communicates with colleagues over Twitter?
- avereveard 4y ago
  Unless your family counts two you cannot possibly compare the time facetiming each one of them vs just scrolling an aggregated news feed
  - Forgeties79 4y ago
    Phone call, email, text message, Viber, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Telegram, actually interacting in person. Half my family isn’t even on Facebook and virtually none of us even use it anymore. If that’s the only way to keep up with family then don’t act like a complete jerk online, or you know don’t harass people, and you’ll be fine. Same as regular society. Contrary to popular belief, it actually takes a lot to simply get banned. Yeah there are cases like the post above, but the reason it is even here is because it is noteworthy.
    - OrangeMonkey 4y ago
      It does not take a lot to get banned - you just have to have a stated opinion that does not correlate with a large portion of the user base. If the civil rights movement was being organized on facebook today with the culture and beliefs of the 1950's as our users, I am very confident MLK would have been banned from every service. ... and someone, somewhere, would say 'don't act like a complete jerk online, or you know don't harass people, and you'll be fine'. I don't mean this pointed at you, I completely get the feeling, but I think ignoring history and the current in/out groups is likely to lead to conclusions that are not realistic.

bigDinosaur 4y ago

They're used to organise the social graph, so the analogy is off but not actually wrong in spirit. Yes, you can gather without them, but organising without them is what's difficult because again, they now nearly monopolise the social graph of acquaintances in terms of organisation (e.g. Facebook groups for a hobby, political protests where most people don't know each other IRL). This wasn't inevitable, but the analogy to me seems to be like saying: you don't need to drive when the country decided to only build roads. As for your last sentence, well, not necessarily. I just don't see how that logically follows. Bans tell you that you're violating a rule, but those rules can be terrible. That's true of anything ever, I don't see how you can state that it's always the fault of the person being cut off. That's like saying all social ostracisation is really the fault of the person being ostracised. The person who is unpopular might be a terrible person, or they might be right but with uncomfortable facts or opinions.

ls15 4y ago

> You don’t need Facebook. There are countries that use Facebook for everything, including business and official announcements. If you are not on Facebook then you are left behind. Mostly just because it is available and "free", I think. People should not use these platforms as their "public square", because their "public square" then becomes hostile territory, but people don't listen to us and indeed use these services as "public squares". I think that the only way to reverse this trend is regulation that will most likely come when societies finally start to realize the damage that has been caused by moving their communication to computers that are owned by a couple of Californian companies.