Twitter has never been nor propertied itself to be a bastion of free speech, so I always find this pearl-clutching at "meddling in X" funny. It's a private company, it can do as it please.
"We are the free speech wing of the free speech party"[1]
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/mar/22/twitter-tony-w...
>With a strong vision for platform entitlement and actual value enforcement, it would attract the right people. We can argue the recent dilution of Twitter's values to meddle with U.S. politics was the actual brain drain.
After all, the ideological concept of "free speech" as is commonly used in the United States and regarding political freedom is the freedom from government persecution to say whatever you want. It is being transformed by propagandists and those who would see our democracy crumble to mean "being allowed to freeload off of dominant viral message boards to spread whatever misinformation is deemed beneficial to my worldview".
I respect the idea that the Internet is a prerequisite to effective political speech in the Western world for audiences larger than a small town. I believe that certain layers of the World Wide Web, namely DNS/TLS/Network/Hosting do have a "common carrier" obligation to some extent which should possibly be codified.
I do, however, take issue with the idea that individual websites currently have any obligation to be "neutral", though I do believe in being transparent in any potential bias. I also believe it's misleading to call taking down trolls and bad faith bots as "biased".
To be straight to the point, I honestly doubt the motive of anyone who actively criticizes about free speech issues on twitter, given the kinds of democracy-destroying people who have been largely affected by their moderation policies.
I don’t know how people who describe themselves as free speech absolutists and claim no one will be censored are even given the time of day when they simultaneously discuss enforcement policies.
We already have and had multiple sites for absolute free speech short of actual government intervention on the internet. They are either small(the various chans) or go out of business(voat and the like) because no advertiser wants to associate with the content that is created, and free speech absolutists only appear to value free speech as long as someone else is covering the costs for propagating said speech.
Are there actually people like that? Whenever I see this phrase it's used to vaguely describe some group that's obviously in the wrong.
At the end of the day you gotta do what media entrepreneurs have always done: shove stuff down people's throats in exchange for money. That's it. There is nothing tough, poetic or ideological about it.
Twitter has been trying to monetize its users but they had scarce success. That was without an ideologue at the helm. Or an ideologue-lite when Dorsey was in charge.
With an ideologue at the helm the bird will fly right into the ground. Twitter needed somebody who knows how attract the crowd which buys stuff online. Paradoxically Bezos was the right fit for the bird app.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/22/twitter-a...
They can't be biased towards stuff they ban. They are biased towards controlled opposition, which makes people feel warm and fuzzy. Big difference.
All the right-wing sources I followed on twitter were banned. Therefore I didn't get ANY content sent to me.
How is that a bias FOR right-wing sources?
> According to a 27-page research document, Twitter found a “statistically significant difference favouring the political right wing” in all the countries except Germany. Under the research, a value of 0% meant tweets reached the same number of users on the algorithm-tailored timeline as on its chronological counterpart, whereas a value of 100% meant tweets achieved double the reach.
There are crazy left-wing sources that are also banned, are you going to use that as "proof" that Twitter is biased against the left? You're cherrypicking.
What do you consider an "actual right-wing source" if not Fox News?
Fox News is for your 65+ year old uncle. It's harmless, controlled opposition. Look at the Jan 6th coverage. It exists for the left to point at and say, "see, there it is! Right wing bias!" - for one example.
It'll be interesting to see if Twitter gives them a megaphone too.
If their "reporting" was so egregious that they got banned, I'd question how accurate their "news" was.
Maybe you're just wrong?
The social media company called Gab is the antithesis to that statement:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/03/rookie-coding-mistak...
1. Interesting challenges
2. Exchange labor for money
3. Good working environment
4. As a nice to bullet point on their resume
It would be a very naive thing to work for a for profit company owned by a billionaire to think that you have any other “mission” than to line the pockets of a reluctant owner.
5. For the greater good
Whether you think the 'reluctant billionaire owner' is in it for the greater good as well is not relevant.
Now, with regard to Twitter, I have little notion of what 'for the greater good' means. But I'm sure some people do.
Even if the founder sincerely believes that, once he takes VC money it doesn’t matter what he believes.