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How on earth can you think this is less democratic? It is by far more democratic. Twitter under previous leadership was on a banning, censoring, rampage against

How on earth can you think this is less democratic? It is by far more democratic. Twitter under previous leadership was on a banning, censoring, rampage against anything that didn’t agree with their own narrative.

DarknessFalls 4y ago
It's not a "narrative", it's called the Terms of Service, which specifically forbid inciting violence and hate speech. Trump, Kanye West, and other nut cakes broke those rules and that's why they got banned, after repeated warnings.
- thesis 4y ago
  https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/22815824658 https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/22815824658
  - wellthatsawrap1 4y ago
  - DarknessFalls 4y ago
    The rules should be applied wherever they are broken, but that doesn't mean we should hold Trump or Marjorie Green or Kanye West unaccountable. They have rightfully earned their bans.
jerojero 4y ago
Because less people are now in control of the decisions. In theory, a public company is controlled by its shareholders who are the ones that choose the board. Now the company is privately owned, meaning there are less owners than before. Less democracy means less people are in control of the decisions, that is precisely what has happened.
- onethought 4y ago
  But that's not really true - few shareholders or shareholder groups had enough % to choose the board.
  - jerojero 4y ago
    Yes. But now it's one man, no? I don't think the situation before was in any way ideal; I simply think it is worse now.
    - onethought 4y ago
      Before these 3 elites could choose, now this 1 elite can choose... I'm not sure it's worse, it's definitely not improved, but we are still letting a class of elites have control over our political discourse. If Elon sticks to the ideals he has espoused and open sourced more of the algorithms and policies of Twitter, that is possibly an improvement.
- runarberg 4y ago
  I think this is attributing democracy to capitalism which isn’t warranted. At best the structure moves from aristocracy to a dictatorship, neither of which are democratic. As an example from governments: The Chinese legislator is ruled by the communist party. The National People’s Congress has almost 3000 representatives. Even though there are almost 10x more representatives then in the USA legislator (which is still more then double per capita), this doesn’t mean the China’s legislator is more democratic then the USA’s legislator. Far from it. Now if Xi Jinping would dismantle the Congress and assume dictatorial powers (like Caesar crossing the Rubicon) this would just move China from being a totalitarian republic to a dictatorship (again like Ancient Rome after the civil wars), at no point in this affair does the common population in China have any say in the laws that govern them (not even by proxy, as is the case in the USA; but by proxy of a proxy of a proxy etc. effectively thinning out any democratic say to nothing).
Veen 4y ago
Ochlocracy isn’t democracy.
harimau777 4y ago
It seems to me that democracy relies on there being a degree of respect/safety for diverging viewpoints. Therefore, for democracy to work there has to be some restriction on behavior that doesn't follow those norms. That could be in the form of educational enculturation into those norms, social consequences for breaking them, or censorship.
- OrangeMonkey 4y ago
  I'm sorry but did you just say that democracy only works if we have censorship?
  - harimau777 4y ago
    No, I said that democracy only works if there is some way of enforcing that the participants actually follow democratic norms; i.e. respecting diverging viewpoints. One mechanism of accomplishing that would be to restrict people who are using communication platforms to violate democratic norms. I'm not advocating that is the best way to accomplish protecting democracy. I'm just pointing out that "free speech maximalism" doesn't address the need to protect democracy.
    - OrangeMonkey 4y ago
      I think we can agree to disagree. People can respect you as a person, but no I don't think people have to respect different viewpoints. I can respect that you have a lived experience that differs from mine and that your viewpoint is X, but I do balance that against my own views and speak my own truth as well. If you think that you have to respect every viewpoint that differs, think of the viewpoints of the party you dislike. Think of any of their views. Do you respect their _view_ or do you respect the person and want to allow their speech while disagreeing with it? Me? I think the best way to deal with speech I don't like is not filtering or censorship its more speech. Anytime I see an implication that someones view needs to be filtered I think "You first."

DarknessFalls 4y ago

It's not a "narrative", it's called the Terms of Service, which specifically forbid inciting violence and hate speech. Trump, Kanye West, and other nut cakes broke those rules and that's why they got banned, after repeated warnings.

thesis 4y ago
https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/22815824658 https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/22815824658
- wellthatsawrap1 4y ago
- DarknessFalls 4y ago
  The rules should be applied wherever they are broken, but that doesn't mean we should hold Trump or Marjorie Green or Kanye West unaccountable. They have rightfully earned their bans.

jerojero 4y ago

Because less people are now in control of the decisions. In theory, a public company is controlled by its shareholders who are the ones that choose the board. Now the company is privately owned, meaning there are less owners than before. Less democracy means less people are in control of the decisions, that is precisely what has happened.

onethought 4y ago
But that's not really true - few shareholders or shareholder groups had enough % to choose the board.
- jerojero 4y ago
  Yes. But now it's one man, no? I don't think the situation before was in any way ideal; I simply think it is worse now.
  - onethought 4y ago
    Before these 3 elites could choose, now this 1 elite can choose... I'm not sure it's worse, it's definitely not improved, but we are still letting a class of elites have control over our political discourse. If Elon sticks to the ideals he has espoused and open sourced more of the algorithms and policies of Twitter, that is possibly an improvement.
runarberg 4y ago
I think this is attributing democracy to capitalism which isn’t warranted. At best the structure moves from aristocracy to a dictatorship, neither of which are democratic. As an example from governments: The Chinese legislator is ruled by the communist party. The National People’s Congress has almost 3000 representatives. Even though there are almost 10x more representatives then in the USA legislator (which is still more then double per capita), this doesn’t mean the China’s legislator is more democratic then the USA’s legislator. Far from it. Now if Xi Jinping would dismantle the Congress and assume dictatorial powers (like Caesar crossing the Rubicon) this would just move China from being a totalitarian republic to a dictatorship (again like Ancient Rome after the civil wars), at no point in this affair does the common population in China have any say in the laws that govern them (not even by proxy, as is the case in the USA; but by proxy of a proxy of a proxy etc. effectively thinning out any democratic say to nothing).

Veen 4y ago

Ochlocracy isn’t democracy.

harimau777 4y ago

It seems to me that democracy relies on there being a degree of respect/safety for diverging viewpoints. Therefore, for democracy to work there has to be some restriction on behavior that doesn't follow those norms. That could be in the form of educational enculturation into those norms, social consequences for breaking them, or censorship.

OrangeMonkey 4y ago
I'm sorry but did you just say that democracy only works if we have censorship?
- harimau777 4y ago
  No, I said that democracy only works if there is some way of enforcing that the participants actually follow democratic norms; i.e. respecting diverging viewpoints. One mechanism of accomplishing that would be to restrict people who are using communication platforms to violate democratic norms. I'm not advocating that is the best way to accomplish protecting democracy. I'm just pointing out that "free speech maximalism" doesn't address the need to protect democracy.
  - OrangeMonkey 4y ago
    I think we can agree to disagree. People can respect you as a person, but no I don't think people have to respect different viewpoints. I can respect that you have a lived experience that differs from mine and that your viewpoint is X, but I do balance that against my own views and speak my own truth as well. If you think that you have to respect every viewpoint that differs, think of the viewpoints of the party you dislike. Think of any of their views. Do you respect their _view_ or do you respect the person and want to allow their speech while disagreeing with it? Me? I think the best way to deal with speech I don't like is not filtering or censorship its more speech. Anytime I see an implication that someones view needs to be filtered I think "You first."