Quincy Abeyie wrote:
RC8 wrote:
I am disgusted by so many "liberals" and "left-wingers" rising to defend privatised censorship.
Trump is despicable, but this is a good reason to hold him legally accountable, not for tech millionaires to enact completely arbitrary forms of censorship (if it weren't so absurdly arbitrary it wouldn't be as scary).
If their algorithms weren't so heavily designed to encourage the spread of disinformation and polarisation then there'd be no need for censorship in the first place.
Not sure what you're saying, should social media have no rules? No content censored no matter how sick, illegal etc? Trump has consistently breached Twitter's rules, but has been protected by the president being a newsworthy person. Now that he's not, Twitter can't bend their rules for him anymore. He's banned just like a random person when they break the rules. Instagram bans accounts posting nudity for example, why on earth should they not ban accounts that encourage violence?
I am fundamentally against private social media monopolies, and I think twitter's algorithms are so toxic that nations may in fact be better off opting out of the service altogether, but if we must have them, I think they should more or less be free of moderation except for the most explicit and unambiguous violence. Just like other private monopolies, it seems misguided that they should deny service except for very extreme circumstances. I believe instagram and facebook should not ban accounts posting nudity.
At any rate, in the short term it would be best if social media only have clear unambiguous rules that they will enforce consistently.
Twitter rewarded Leopoldo Lopez for leading an extremely violent insurrection in Venezuela with a checkmark.
Later, although Nicolás Maduro used twitter to cover up massive electoral fraud in constitutional assembly, presidential, and legislative elections, he faced no consequences whatsoever and was allowed to keep his own checkmark and all (to this day).
Last year when Juan Guaidó led a second violent insurrection against Venezuelan institutions and became self-proclaimed interim president indefinitely (a figure that is nowhere to be found in the Venezuelan constitution) Twitter reacted again by giving him a checkmark.
Personally I think it's questionable that Twitter rewards these people with checkmarks, but I would be far more horrified if Twitter decided to ban any of them from the platform.
Now... Unlike López, Maduro, and Guaidó (all of whom I think should be allowed to retain their accounts), Trump did not explicitly call for his supporters to riot or launch a coup.
To the extent a coup-attempt took place on the capitol it happened if Trump actually held back the National Guard or capitol security. If he did this he should be in jail, not banned from Twitter.
