[wwweston]

If that's it's business model then sure, that's how it works.

A "de facto public square" would be public in conception, construction, and support from the start, which is one of the ways we know that Twitter is no such thing. Though it would likely also have some rules for how speech is/isn't conducted.

And all things considered, advertiser-friendliness is a sort of low-resolution but approximate passable democratic mechanism for marking boundaries of civilized discourse.

[taolegal]

> advertiser-friendliness is a sort of low-resolution but approximate passable democratic mechanism for marking boundaries of civilized discourse

This reminds me that progressives have historically always supported corporations as complex hierarchies, scientific enterprises, run (ideally) by “experts.”

[wwweston]

Nowhere was a claim forwarded it was progressive or ideal. The claim is more or less that advertisers have some of the same concerns that elected representatives do because consumers have something like a vote.

But then again, if you're scare-quoting expertise, maybe that's not the conversation you're here to have.

[taolegal]

I'm scare-quoting expertise because it seems like you think there's an expert way to run a corporation.

And that's a very progressive sensibility towards corporations, and precisely why they actually like them (what's more appealing to a progressive other than a huge centrally-planned organization run by credentialed experts) despite claiming otherwise.

[wwweston]

LOL. If you think that progressives are generally friendly towards corporations then you've never actually talked with a progressive, have you?

And corporations are not generally progressive in outlook either, there are too many values higher up on ladder of concerns.

Advertisers are one subset that bring a rough approximation of democratic to their decisions, knowing that each person in the market they hope to reach will be deploying something like a vote with their dollars. As with any democratic approximation, it's only progressive to the extent that population is, though it's poor compared to other democratic mechanisms.

You can take issue with whether democratic decisions are good decisions, of course, but that's likely to be an unpopular opinion for obvious reasons. And hey, I hear the person currently running twitter recently went so far as to say vox populi vox dei. Was his expertise in running corporations part of what you meant to scare quote, or is your challenge to expertise, shall we say, selective?

[taolegal]

Read up on Progressive history and, yes, it's very clear that the early 20th century Progressive movement loved the concept of a corporation.

While most aren't self-conscious enough to realize it now, they still love corporations as evidenced by how they zealously defend them when they serve progressive ambitions and power.

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691169590/il...