3 ms·

There are a few companies that control 99% of the access to information on the internet. We've been shown recently that both the government and pharmaceutical

There are a few companies that control 99% of the access to information on the internet. We've been shown recently that both the government and pharmaceutical companies have used these gatekeepers to stifle speech. I disagreed with it in the 80's when it was the right-wing acting as the morality police for TV and radio, and I disagree with it now that it's the left wing (weirdly?) acting to stifle speech and wholeheartedly embracing cancel culture. If the active suppression of speech of qualified health care professionals by pharmaceutical companies in partnership with a few tech companies and the government doesn't give you pause, I'm not sure what will. Maybe when they suppress something you believe in?

rektide 4y ago
To me, the "Twitter Files" releases have been nothing-burgers in extreme. Nothing remotely begins to give me the feeling that the government ordered these companies around. These platforms have been working for themselves to figure out what to do, what speech is too toxic to associate with. Examples like Bob Iger walking away from a potential Twitter acquisition because so much unhinged activity happened there is a pretty unsurprising example of how fraught these things are. That they have some communications with people who have a political background is not, contrary to what the Musk-Stream Media would say, at all scary or intimidating or bad. It's still seemed to be totally Twitters ball on what to allow. Society as a whole was resistant to many noise messages. It's hard to have tolerance for those with reasonable complaints, when so many of loudest & most vocal anti-mainstream voices seem like trolls & monsters & crazies. Trying to navigate what anti-vaccine stuff to allow or not is a hard job I don't envy. And I think a huge part of the public finds many controversial things to be ridiculously unappealing & doesn't want to deal with it at all, and it helps the networks & conforms to desires & expectations, makes us feel like we don't necessarily have to wade through shit, every time we log-on.

rektide 4y ago

To me, the "Twitter Files" releases have been nothing-burgers in extreme. Nothing remotely begins to give me the feeling that the government ordered these companies around. These platforms have been working for themselves to figure out what to do, what speech is too toxic to associate with. Examples like Bob Iger walking away from a potential Twitter acquisition because so much unhinged activity happened there is a pretty unsurprising example of how fraught these things are. That they have some communications with people who have a political background is not, contrary to what the Musk-Stream Media would say, at all scary or intimidating or bad. It's still seemed to be totally Twitters ball on what to allow. Society as a whole was resistant to many noise messages. It's hard to have tolerance for those with reasonable complaints, when so many of loudest & most vocal anti-mainstream voices seem like trolls & monsters & crazies. Trying to navigate what anti-vaccine stuff to allow or not is a hard job I don't envy. And I think a huge part of the public finds many controversial things to be ridiculously unappealing & doesn't want to deal with it at all, and it helps the networks & conforms to desires & expectations, makes us feel like we don't necessarily have to wade through shit, every time we log-on.