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by ethbr0 2046 days ago
The more I think about this, the more I find myself coming around to a hybrid of your idea (strict neutrality) and Zuckerberg's original position (moderation of free speech is not their job).

Facebook et al.'s fundamental sin was optimizing the sorting and broadcasting algorithms.

I get it drove growth and made them the giant companies they are today. But it's not really a core competency, and now it's more trouble than it's worth. In fact, it's metastasized into an existential threat to them.

They should announce they're going back to naive ranking and sharing, and that they expect all external moderation requests to come through legal channels. (And then spend their billions digging the widest moat of integrated services and infrastructure they can)

1 comments

They should announce they're going back to naive ranking and sharing, and that they expect all external moderation requests to come through legal channels. (And then spend their billions digging the widest moat of integrated services and infrastructure they can)

The trouble is that algorithmic feeds work really well. If they remove algorithmic feeds in an environment where competitors are still able to have such feeds, then they will be outcompeted in the long run.

This is one area where legislation and strict enforcement barring algorithmic feeds would work, though execution would be difficult.