[metafunctor]

Neutral might not exist.

> It seems to me that Facebook and Twitter are trying to have it both ways.

Of course Facebook and Twitter are trying to have it both ways, and, indeed, all ways — there are many more ways for people to communicate, or stances to take, than “both”.

Platforms like FB and Twitter hope to be the communications backbone of the world. The problem is, the world has opinions on what kinds of communications are acceptable. These platforms try to stay neutral, but the people are not.

Neutral does not exist. It's all relative.

In a polarized world, a neutral platform will die because either side won't like it. In a more interesting world, it might still die because people don't like people who don't think like them.

[prewett]

I like your idea that "neutral might not exist." FB is going about this in the obvious control-oriented strategy: we have a problem, ok, we'll make a rule against it. This doesn't work, and can only lead FB to having lots of rules and everyone unhappy with them.

The problem with FB is that they have built a system that rewards polarizing opinions. Edward Deming said that your system is perfectly set up to give you the results you are getting, so if you want different ones, you need to change your system. Incentivize quality, disincentivize "viral-ness". Maybe limit viral-ness. Optimize for something besides addictiveness^Wengagement. Admit that people think, say, and do harmful things and build a system that is robust to it. Add some kind of negative feedback for posts.

[JamesLeonis]

Here's another "way" that's ignored: Nearly all services give users little to no control over the content they see. They can't self-moderate or filter the content coming their way. Instead, users have to "Appeal To Authority" (whether Facebook or the Feds) in order to make changes. It's incredibly disempowering in both cases, and doesn't need to be this way. "Mods" on Reddit help. Page Owners on FB pages help. However these are still "Authorities" that must be appealed to. Even resorting to contacting advertisers to pressure them to not sponsor "bad" content is still an Appeal To Authority.

Essentially, you have no control so the only solution is to not participate or appeal to a higher authority. Both are terrible.

In a weird tangental side-thought: The Internet is to Western Capitalism what Glasnost/Perestroika was to the Soviet Union. The opening of information, while allowing many great things through, also removed the filters that kept harmful content on the margins. In the Soviet state, it was the authority of the State that dictated content. In the Western world, it's mostly those who own/control large media platforms. Since liberalization, each situation found The Authority under acerbic attack from these new wellsprings of content, both legitimate and illegitimate.