I think that approach overemphasises and embeds the power of these platforms.
Twitter (let’s face it we’re talking about Twitter) is not the world. It’s certainly a popular place for people to yell at each other and increase the general level of aggravation in the world. But it isn’t the world. If someone is moderated off twitter, their ability to speak is impacted, but only to one audience and in one way. Their ability to speak to me is unaffected entirely because I think Twitter is a giant waste of everyone’s time and energy. They can speak elsewhere, other platforms can serve their needs, and if they are popular enough then they’ll take the users and the attention from Twitter. Regulation here would only entrench the platform.
Twitter it not the public square, it’s some private company’s arguing arena.
>> Twitter (let’s face it we’re talking about Twitter) is not the world
Twitter is popular with journalists, politicians and such. Hence all the attention. For most people, facebook and youtube are the important part.
IMO, youtube is the most important medium today. It's effectively the free-to-air TV of the internet. It has a terrible, clunky, disrespectful and illiberal approach to content moderation. In fact, it's pretty similar to state censorship methods... ambiguous rules, selective enforcement, whipping boys. Makes Twitter look good.
>It's not a public commons if it's owned by a private individual or company...
>Yes it's popular and yes there's a lot of people on it and using it, but that doesn't make it a public commons, its ownership does.
Exactly. Folks who complain about the (lack of) moderation on some corporation's platform are, for the most part, certainly welcome to do so.
However, those corporate platforms (unlike public platforms) have no responsibility to host anything they don't want to host.
They are not your government. They are not your friends. They are not a public square. They are businesses whose goal is profit. And that goal isn't necessarily a bad goal either.
However, the business models of those corporate platforms are dependent on showing ads to those who use those platforms. That creates a variety of perverse incentives, including (but not limited to) boosting engagement by pushing outrage and fear buttons to keep folks on the platform, watching the ads.
And so I ask, does the above sound like a public square? It certainly doesn't to me. Rather, it sounds like a bunch of corporate actors taking whatever steps (regardless of impact on discourse) to maximize profit.
Again, that's not inherently a bad thing. But it doesn't (and never will) fit the bill for a "public square."
I genuinely don't think it is. At the risk of paraphrasing one of the replies below, and probably to repeat myself - it's more of an arena showing ads, in which the contestants are encouraged by onlookers and the organiser to argue and aggravate, to express thoughts in such short-form that nuance and understanding are lost, to create spectacle. For profit.
Regardless of moderation or censorship, a public square would/should operate quite differently.
Twitter (let’s face it we’re talking about Twitter) is not the world. It’s certainly a popular place for people to yell at each other and increase the general level of aggravation in the world. But it isn’t the world. If someone is moderated off twitter, their ability to speak is impacted, but only to one audience and in one way. Their ability to speak to me is unaffected entirely because I think Twitter is a giant waste of everyone’s time and energy. They can speak elsewhere, other platforms can serve their needs, and if they are popular enough then they’ll take the users and the attention from Twitter. Regulation here would only entrench the platform.
Twitter it not the public square, it’s some private company’s arguing arena.