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Comment by daghamm | Hacker News Reader

Yes, but hopefully it is more free speech than om twitter where Elon wants to decide what you can and can't see.

It is well known that he is obsessed that things that align with his own views get more visibility while things he doesn't like is suppressed

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/02/report-musk-had-...

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Before the other side took hold of a major platform and started doing it to their ends, "freedom of speech is not freedom of reach", "you don't have the right to a megaphone" etc. were maxims that were regularly fielded by pundits in defense of shadowbanning and any thumbprints being discovered on the algorithmic scale (though they were never so confident in it as to make the manipulation explicit upfront before it was revealed).

The "my free speech is being taken away; they are just being moderated for the common good" conjugation is something that is in fact shared between both camps. The only stable solution going forward may in fact be the pillarisation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillarisation) that we are already seeing emerge, which will leave both sides in a state of perpetual discontent about having no means to force their message upon unwilling recipients on the other but at least let the like-minded interact with each other consensually.

Great wiki link thanks for sharing.

Also commenting to reiterate that if one spends just a little time (with an open mind) in any of the camps (X/Mastodon/Bluesky, whatever) its just so obvious that while the messages differ, the behaviors are exactly the same.

In most contexts we prefer consensus - its just more energy efficient! Your brain is going to expend more energy critically listening and rewiring thoughts when new evidence is presented. Its hard even for the best of us.

Pillarisation from a modeling perspective is interesting. I wonder if that could be codified at a legal level, and then anyone running for public positions of power would be required to have their own media algorithms curated by the public.

it wont work well bc ppl need enemies to fight for engagement. without that ppl just get bored

And that doesn't apply to the powers that be at other social networks (or management at Twitter pre-Elon)?

I'm not on Twitter. And the jury is still out on BlueSky.

I'm happy to abandon BlueSky though as soon as it is revealed to be a shitsocket.

Pre-Elon moderation was (somewhat) sensible. Every online space needs a janitorial crew to keep it from turning into a wasteland (look at 4chan /b/, and even b isn't completely unmoderated). But it didn't take actions at the emotional whims of a megalomaniac ruler.

It took actions based on the emotional / political whims of various random people though, right? Maybe not from a single megalomaniacal ruler, but that seems like a distinction without a difference.

The funny thing is that if you filter by the most active posters, I believe Twitter now very possibly (I'd even say likely) has a higher ratio of far-right posters than 4chan /b/ currently does.

Being far-right is not what made /b/ a wasteland, so that doesn't surprise me at all.

It certainly doesn't seem to so far.

“These sites are all as bad as each other” remains a very workable hypothesis.

Also a very lazy approach.

It's interesting how this conversation about free speech on twitter really only came up after Elon Musk took over, even though it was terrible before Musk. If you had opinions on certain spicy topics that went against the American Democrat left you would be suspended until you removed the post or banned. There was even the "Twitter Files" which documented some of this.

It actually seems more open to me now, only that people who got used to being able to ban people they didn't like so they left. Yes, Musk does things are suspicious, but overall I've found the experience better, as someone who holds moderate views.

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