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Twitter is not a town square though, at all, not even one with drug dealers in it and here is why. The cost of being a political activist in the real town square is high, if you're being an extreme right wing Nazi, someone might come and challenge you, therefore people who really and truly believe in something worthwhile will go there, in person, against all odds and protest or raise their voices. On Twitter, the cost to you personally for being a useful idiot is low, but the impact can still be rather high if you spread hateful bullshit and here in lies the problem, the cost of people acting in bad faith, and bad actors spreading shit on Twitter is next to zero, yet the harm is still high. This is why it's not a town square, or a vehicle for free speech, but it's a very good mass manipulation platform. If you want free speech, just go make a website, write up whatever you want on there and if you have anything interesting to say, people will read it. Take someone like Sam Harris, people pay for his content, he isn't even on Twitter, yet people find what he has to stay worth paying for. People like Sam Harris or Jocko Willink have actually made their own spaces so they can say what they like without the fear of censorship, this is a better option in my opinion, the cost to them personally is still high, and therefore they stand by what they say because their actions are attached to their reputation. Twitter isn't about free speech, or good ideas, it's about network effects, algorithms and influence. It's mostly a shit thing. I have to go back to my original point, I can fully understand why this is a difficult situation for society and governments to deal with. If we let authoritarians influence our populace into a state of disrepair and ruin (which is what they want) then we'll all turn around and blame the government for failing to act, won't we? Personally, I can imagine a time when social media platforms are outlawed. From the negative impacts on children, to marauding herds of racist fueled violence and election influence it's not hard to see that time coming, and if it comes, we will still have free speech, just not toxic platforms. |