[solidasparagus]

Please. Uganda ran newspapers out of the country, they routinely arrest opposing politicians, and they remove anything that might get in the way of the dictator staying in power. Museveni shuts down opposition - it has nothing to do with Twitter other than the fact that Twitter is a popular form of communication.

[dcolkitt]

That may well be. The problem is that Twitter has lost their credibility on the issue. If you make a habit of rolling around in the mud, then don't be surprised if people assume you stink.

This is the rejoinder to those who defended them by saying "they're a private platform, they can do whatever they want". And I actually agree with that. But in spheres of life without explicit legal protections, people will come to rely on informal reputation and cultural norms.

Twitter is learning the hard way about why companies jealously guard their reputation for fairness and neutrality. Taking a public and divisive stand on the culture war issue du jour is rarely smart business. Like many tech darling Icaruses, Jack Dorsey probably thought the time-tested rules of business didn't apply. Watching 10% of his company's value vaporize in a few days was a hard way to learn that's not true. Hopefully $5 billion was worth it to keep attending Bay Area cocktail parties.

At the end of the day Twitter has wrecked its reputation as a fair and neutral platform. It will take at least a generation to repair. A consequence of this will be that in situations like Uganda, nobody will afford it the benefit of the doubt any more.

[vkou]

Having a reputation for being a neutral haven for electoral fraud and calls to violence isn't exactly a great thing to aspire to. (Falsely claiming an election is illegitimate, refusing to recognize its results, threatening election officials into awarding you a victory, and stopping its certification is, in fact, a form of electoral fraud.)

It's unfortunate that a major political movement in the US has aligned itself in support of those two things, but having done so, it forced Twitter's hand.

[meekmockmook]

Well, yeah, it's a dictatorship run by warlords.

It turns out that once you shut down the leader of the world's largest empire, every tinpot thug who fears losing their ability to control their citizens will shut down access to your platform. Whoda thunk? It has nothing to do with right and wrong and everything to do with realpolitik.

[solidasparagus]

It has nothing to do with Trump at all. They shut all these sites down in 2016 too - https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/463407/

[reb]

"It has nothing to do with Trump at all" might be a strong assertion, but this history is absolutely relevant. Thanks for sharing.

[solidasparagus]

I don't think it's a particularly strong assertion. Museveni's pattern around elections and dissent has been EXTREMELY consistent since I first started living there 20 years ago.

[Apocryphon]

You're actually in Uganda?

[reb]

Point taken!