[nemothekid]

The problem that Facebook and Twitter have to deal with now and the one you are claiming is overblown is misinformation. If the misinformation problem causes very adverse effects there are of course people who will come to see your platform as a bad thing and will either pressure or legislate you to change.

My previous example about the republican ballot shredding was one where a kid thought we would post a tweet that he was shredding ballots because he thought it would be funny. This not only caused an entire news cycle about how republicans that the entire process was unfair, but seriously called into the question the staff and security of those working on the elections. Many of them faced threats for an issue they didn’t know existed because of this tweet. Similarly if you have people showing up to pizza shops inciting violence because they believed Hillary Clinton was hiding children in the basement your platform will ultimately be seen as a conduit for this type behavior. It’s no different from yelling fire in a movie theater.

It doesn’t matter if you individually carefully select and get who you follow, you have to ensure everyone else acts accordingly - and as we can see they won’t.

You have to ask yourself if your platform was large enough to have these issues in the real world what would you do to minimize it - because if you don’t Congress will and the hammer of the state is very blunt.

[berryworm]

I disagree completely. And as I said, I wouldn't be interested in solving that problem. That governments are interested in censoring publishing platforms is an independent problem in itself.

[nemothekid]

What do you disagree with. My point is any platform, once large enough will have to deal with it. You can't just ignore the consequences that come from ignoring it. I don't think it's an independent problem in itself - the examples I gave you are direct problems that institutions face as a result of large scale misinformation.

Just saying "I wouldn't solve that problem" doesn't contribute in understanding how one can build more open platforms in the future.

[berryworm]

Why would a platform have to deal with it? The only issue is escaping government regulation (censorship). And that is a different problem. I'd rather fight for freedom of speech than trying to censor my users.

Also there would be no reason to switch away from Twitter if you want to censor users anyway.

And I disagree that the spread of misinformation is such a huge issue as you make it out to be. Misinformation existed before the internet, it isn't caused by it. The internet makes it easier to double check information.

If watching a boy burn ballots makes people burn ballots, I don't think Twitter is the problem here. I think those people have some other deep seated problems. I'm sure I wouldn't burn ballots if I saw that video (I haven't).