[bell-cot]

Morally? Yes, a very reasonable request.

OTOH - is there any large real-world corporation which has ever gotten itself into a sustained info-war conflict with a well-armed and angry nation state, for the purpose of protecting one "ordinary" person from that nation state? I'm guessing "no".

[DoreenMichele]

He says he's a journalist. That used to mean something.

So it's rather dismissive and disrespectful to characterize him as an ordinary person with scare quotes no less.

If these platforms feel unable to moderate fairly due to fear of foreign governments, perhaps they should tuck tail and keep their pussy selves out of the conflict entirely.

I'm not impressed with an argument of "We want the money involved but we can't make any meaningful effort to actually enforce the rules we claim we have. Your country is too tough for my sissy self to man up in. I still want the money though."

[bell-cot]

Okay - replace '"ordinary" person' with some polite phrase of your choice, which still makes it clear that the victim is not a head of state, ambassador, top military officer, Speaker of the House, Fortune 50 CEO, etc., etc.

No, I am not arguing that your idealism is morally wrong. I am arguing that the real world very often functions in ways which bear little resemblance to your ideals. No amount of idealism about "the gutter should have been stronger, and the ladder more stable, and..." will change the fact that my brother fell off a roof when young. Nor erase the injuries which he sustained. When I or people I care about are interacting with gutters and ladders, I stay very alert, and strive for "zero idealistic thoughts".

And - this sad state of affairs is nothing new. Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, The Brass Check, and other works (about the deep and systematic moral failings of corporations, journalists, etc.) over a century ago.

[DoreenMichele]

Idealism?

I'm not an idealist. I'm a pragmatist.

But the internet allows businesses to operate virtually in de facto war zones. This is getting people killed when the business tries to act like they don't need to account for that fact.

If they physically went into a war zone to sell products and it was getting people killed, would that merit a "Too bad, so sad. Gotta make money, doncha know. Can't be worried about niggling details like not getting our customers cavalierly killed."

[fluoridation]

How could a business possibly account for that in a way that doesn't make doing business over the Internet logistically impossible?

[DoreenMichele]

The arguments I'm seeing here boil down to "It's okay to go in with your tank full of tchochky souvenirs and run over a few powerless locals to protect yourself so you can make a few bucks."

The general trend is that, when in doubt, Twitter should cover its own ass. I would like to see a standard of "When in doubt, don't run over pedestrians with your tank."

Surely a company can come up with some best practices that err in the right direction here. Or maybe that's expecting too much of the best of the best of the best, sir!

[fluoridation]

Sorry, but I'm not seeing an answer to my question.

[PoignardAzur]

> He says he's a journalist. That used to mean something.

That's a broad and unsupported claim. I'm not aware of any evidence being a journalist previously gave you some sort of immunity / corporate protection against totalitarian states that has now gone away.

[kbelder]

Nor should it.