4 ms·

You’re getting hung up on the analogy. Whatever things like Twitter and Facebook are, they seem to be distinctly new phenomena that have a critical role to play

by gfodor 4y ago

You’re getting hung up on the analogy. Whatever things like Twitter and Facebook are, they seem to be distinctly new phenomena that have a critical role to play in upholding the principles of freedom of speech that underpins things like liberal democracy, given their scale and the network effects of that scale. It’s important to recognize this for what it is and incorporate it into society intentionally to maximize the net benefits to humanity. The current approach where the marketplace of ideas seems to be tightening given the emergent behavior of these companies (and the public pressure to do so) implies to me we need a better regulatory regime or technology stack if we want to ensure liberalism continues to prosper.

denton-scratch 4y ago
Gosh, you have squeezed in so much stuff which I disagree with, I can't answer that properly. Suffice to say that this glorious new world mediated by the benign TwitFace excludes some people from the town square, without banning them. For example, I am excluded, because I choose not to use them, because I don't trust them. I never have, and I've never had an account with either. They're also exclusive, because they depend on "the user" having access to a network and a device, and the ability to use the device, and express themselves. [Edit] Oh, and of course there's the ToS. There's an awful lot of privilege in there.
- gfodor 4y ago
  It doesn’t matter who doesn’t have access or who chooses not to join. The entire point is they now affect you (and everyone alive, now or in the future) regardless - because of their scale and network.
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    I'm reminded of MySpace.
    - gfodor 4y ago
      Well, you have a bad mental model then. It explains your position but you should try to update it.
      - denton-scratch 4y ago
        So you disagree with me; you urge me to acquire a new opinion; but you give no reasons. MySpace died, and I anticipate that TwitFace will die, for the same reasons; it will fall out of fashion. Perhaps you were born in the TwitFace era; perhaps you've never known a world without TwitFace. FWIW, I update my views in the face of new evidence; the evidence that I see is that both Twaddle and Faceache are in several kinds of trouble at the moment. I suppose I envisage a kind of "social media" with these properties: - It's distributed and federated, with no central control - You get to control what content you see (kill lists?) - You get to post what you want That's something that could be used as a town square. A private space, with it's own rules and its own policing, isn't anything public, and isn't any kind of town square.
        gfodor 4y ago
        People are using the term “public town square” consequentially not based on if the forum is publicly owned. It is an analogy, that you still seem committed to interpreting it in a way it is not useful, even after I explained why it is used and tried to remove the analogy as the crux of the argument. The degree of control a site like Twitter has over public discourse is unprecedented. You may not use it, but almost all of the people in the world who influence world events do, and are influenced by the decisions the employees at Twitter make in how they regulate the flow of speech through their platform. Your comparison to MySpace is a clearly deficient mental model - MySpace did not have the capacity to cut off a massive distribution channel to the president of the United States nor did they have the capacity to suppress stories in the media to a degree where they could influence elections. There is an endless array of arguments I could make to destroy the premise that something like MySpace was in the same universe of influence over events as something like Twitter. Scale matters, and the nature of how the platform is used matters. If I write a tweet and it goes viral, it can reach tens of millions of people, many of whom hold immense amounts of power and influence. This is a materially huge shift in the nature of public discourse. Liberalism takes as one of its core assumptions that society progresses through the free and fair exchange of ideas, allowing people to debate and change their minds. This organ of progress, public discourse, has evolved to now fundamentally include a small number of social media platforms that most people use to discuss current affairs among themselves and the powerful. That they may die one day is irrelevant: the power their employees wield presently over the shape of discourse and who can participate and how is far beyond what people should consider acceptable. Hopefully this helps, but you seem committed to a very shallow comprehension of the events going on around you and their importance to free society. Also, fwiw, I ran a BBS in the 90s and have run several online forums over the years.

by gfodor 4y ago

denton-scratch 4y ago

Gosh, you have squeezed in so much stuff which I disagree with, I can't answer that properly. Suffice to say that this glorious new world mediated by the benign TwitFace excludes some people from the town square, without banning them. For example, I am excluded, because I choose not to use them, because I don't trust them. I never have, and I've never had an account with either. They're also exclusive, because they depend on "the user" having access to a network and a device, and the ability to use the device, and express themselves. [Edit] Oh, and of course there's the ToS. There's an awful lot of privilege in there.

gfodor 4y ago
It doesn’t matter who doesn’t have access or who chooses not to join. The entire point is they now affect you (and everyone alive, now or in the future) regardless - because of their scale and network.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  I'm reminded of MySpace.
  - gfodor 4y ago
    Well, you have a bad mental model then. It explains your position but you should try to update it.
    - denton-scratch 4y ago
      So you disagree with me; you urge me to acquire a new opinion; but you give no reasons. MySpace died, and I anticipate that TwitFace will die, for the same reasons; it will fall out of fashion. Perhaps you were born in the TwitFace era; perhaps you've never known a world without TwitFace. FWIW, I update my views in the face of new evidence; the evidence that I see is that both Twaddle and Faceache are in several kinds of trouble at the moment. I suppose I envisage a kind of "social media" with these properties: - It's distributed and federated, with no central control - You get to control what content you see (kill lists?) - You get to post what you want That's something that could be used as a town square. A private space, with it's own rules and its own policing, isn't anything public, and isn't any kind of town square.
      - gfodor 4y ago
        People are using the term “public town square” consequentially not based on if the forum is publicly owned. It is an analogy, that you still seem committed to interpreting it in a way it is not useful, even after I explained why it is used and tried to remove the analogy as the crux of the argument. The degree of control a site like Twitter has over public discourse is unprecedented. You may not use it, but almost all of the people in the world who influence world events do, and are influenced by the decisions the employees at Twitter make in how they regulate the flow of speech through their platform. Your comparison to MySpace is a clearly deficient mental model - MySpace did not have the capacity to cut off a massive distribution channel to the president of the United States nor did they have the capacity to suppress stories in the media to a degree where they could influence elections. There is an endless array of arguments I could make to destroy the premise that something like MySpace was in the same universe of influence over events as something like Twitter. Scale matters, and the nature of how the platform is used matters. If I write a tweet and it goes viral, it can reach tens of millions of people, many of whom hold immense amounts of power and influence. This is a materially huge shift in the nature of public discourse. Liberalism takes as one of its core assumptions that society progresses through the free and fair exchange of ideas, allowing people to debate and change their minds. This organ of progress, public discourse, has evolved to now fundamentally include a small number of social media platforms that most people use to discuss current affairs among themselves and the powerful. That they may die one day is irrelevant: the power their employees wield presently over the shape of discourse and who can participate and how is far beyond what people should consider acceptable. Hopefully this helps, but you seem committed to a very shallow comprehension of the events going on around you and their importance to free society. Also, fwiw, I ran a BBS in the 90s and have run several online forums over the years.