[postexitus]

All material facts are correct - but let's also remember that the world in 2013 doesn't exist anymore. In 2013, the authoritarianism was not on the rise. Arab Spring gave people hope. Gezi people were not only protesting, but also enjoying their uprising, singing, dreaming. Today - all of that is gone. Most western democracies succumbed to levels of authoritarianism. Let alone the number of active wars and conflicts developed countries are perpetrators...

[marcosdumay]

> but let's also remember that the world in 2013 doesn't exist anymore

Yep. In 2013 the social networks all found out that they can sell censorship to governments all over the world and their users wouldn't even notice it.

[eptcyka]

What is your argument exactly? The world is worse so we should be OK with that?

[marcosdumay]

Exactly that thing Twitter is doing now was one of the main contributors to the world getting worse. That they and all their other competitors have been doing since then.

Free-speech Twitter was either an accident or had a very quick change of mind. And either way, expecting centralized platforms to be of any use here is deeply misguided.

[matthewdgreen]

Free speech Twitter was the result of a company that had a single business: moving Tweets to people. Musk and Zuckerberg have many interests globally, and picking fights with governments doesn’t serve those interests. Don’t cheer when a billionaire with global business interests buys a (relatively) independent media property and claims he’s bringing “free speech” because (even if he wasn’t defining the term in a distorted way to benefit his interests) he literally could not do that in a meaningful way, he’s too entangled elsewhere.

[postexitus]

Counter argument is free-speech twitter created the world of today with unchecked distribution of conspiracy theories, hate speech and fear of other. I am not arguing for censorship, but it is factually wrong that it is censorship that brought us here. The world change before Twitter.

[marcosdumay]

> unchecked distribution of conspiracy theories, hate speech and fear of other

No distribution going on the mainstream social networks today is unchecked.

(Except for Watsup, Signal, and the ones like them.)

[postexitus]

That is not what happened. The world has changed for the worse and the social networks are the products of their time.

[BlueTemplar]

Egg and chicken ?

Anyway, that doesn't matter, what matters is that the people that are still using platforms are effectively collaborating with totalitarian extremists and should be shunned.

[FirmwareBurner]

> the world in 2013 doesn't exist anymore

True. For better, but mostly for worse.

>In 2013, the authoritarianism was not on the rise

Just because you didn't see it, doesn't mean authoritarian wasn't on the rise. By the time you see it it's already too late.

>Most western democracies succumbed to levels of authoritarianism.

Because they discovered how powerful and important social media is, so they're seeking to control it more than they did in 2013 because leaders in 2013 didn't fully understand the internet.

And because most western democracies aren't true democracies where people have a voice in all matters that affect them, but function on the basis of controlled opposition, where there's two maximum three major parties pretending to oppose each other but all of which are coopted by the big-money establishment, making your vote irrelevant as no matter who you vote for, housing will still keep being more expensive, etc. even though you voted for the opposite thing to happen.

And if you vote for a fringe party or candidate that's not part of the establishment, and that candidate ends up getting enough traction to alter the elections, then that candidate will be eliminated from elections using selective enforcement of the law: see France, Romania, Germany, etc. Democrats tried to to the same to Trump to get him out of the 2024 presidential race with his mugshot everywhere, but failed. Not that Trump is not part of the establishment though.