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Twitter co-founder: I’m sorry if we made Trump’s presidency possible
41–50 of 108 posts
Re: Twitter co-founder: I’m sorry if we made Trump’s presidency possible
#42>“I thought once everybody could speak freely and exchange information and ideas, the world is automatically going to be a better place,” Williams told the Times. “I was wrong about that.” I despise this quote so much, and I'm far from a Trump supporter. If you need to censor speech in order for your side to win, maybe you have bigger issues than Trump's twitter account.
Agreed. Let's outlaw pen and paper and condemn Gutenberg while we're at it for giving Hitler a platform to write Mein Kampf.
Please, let's leave Hitler out of the discussion.
Re: Twitter co-founder: I’m sorry if we made Trump’s presidency possible
#43>“I thought once everybody could speak freely and exchange information and ideas, the world is automatically going to be a better place,” Williams told the Times. “I was wrong about that.” I despise this quote so much, and I'm far from a Trump supporter. If you need to censor speech in order for your side to win, maybe you have bigger issues than Trump's twitter account.
This idea of unfettered free speech is going to kick the bucket, and very very soon - I am sorry to say.
Be well warned - the stuff happening on reddit, the tools being developed by moderators are the epitome of the road to hell being paved with good intentions.
The old generalized ideological position of Free Speech is no longer tenable, whether we like it or not.
I'm a proponent of Free Speech, and I've spent the time to understand why its important, and why Humanity has valued it and argued for it.
The ideas behind it are sound.
It falls flat when having to deal with the modern internet.
In the simplest explanation - Free Speech was NEVER designed to deal with things like channel saturation and specialized targeting of the human hind brain which happens today.
The Free speech model is the bazaar of ideas model. Everyone can see all ideas, and decide for themselves what is best. Heinous ideas are important because at the very least - people can define themselves against it.
Modern impediments to free speech arise because small groups of humans have new abilities to disrupt the bazaar.
They can spam a single message, they can overwhelm normal discourse, and we have learnt that emotion over comes reason regularly. That's how the brain is designed.
In the same way environmental rules are made to prevent abuse of the commons, or pollution of common land, rules will be made to "protect" free speech.
How those conflicting ideas will be meshed, is beyond me.
Without such rules, motivated people can and will abuse/spam the shit out of a communication channel in order to take control of it.
fundamentally - the human brain itself is un-prepared for this environment.
Therefore, rules will be made to ensure that the human brain is not completely harmed by it.
Re: Twitter co-founder: I’m sorry if we made Trump’s presidency possible
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not what the quote is saying. First of all, the architecture of a service has important influence on the kind of speech that it will foster: for example, the 140 character limit insures that it's almost impossible to get a nuanced argument across. Second, the broadcasting model of twitter often leads to horrible dogpiles. I am a huge free speech advocate, and I don't like censorship but several key decisions a…
Evan's quote wasn't about Twitter's architecture though, it was about "speaking freely and exchanging information and ideas," which is the thing he's sorry about facilitating, because it lead to Trump. The parent post seems spot on, to me.
He says he's sorry about thinking that free speech automatically makes the world a better place. He aknowleges a personal mistake about the human nature. Good for him, this moments are rare. But perhaps we should do more reading of thinkers that have figured this out a long time ago instead of living in the "we have the internets, we're not in the Middle Ages" bubble.
Re: Twitter co-founder: I’m sorry if we made Trump’s presidency possible
#45>“I thought once everybody could speak freely and exchange information and ideas, the world is automatically going to be a better place,” Williams told the Times. “I was wrong about that.” I despise this quote so much, and I'm far from a Trump supporter. If you need to censor speech in order for your side to win, maybe you have bigger issues than Trump's twitter account.
Ofcourse there are bigger issues.
Clowns are being propped up in every sphere of life in every country not based on their skill but on their skill at getting youtube/twitter/facebook followers.
It's happening so fast there are no control rods. If MTV and Hollywood gave us celeb culture. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have taken mindless celeb worship to another level.
Obama is good example of the feel good pointlessness that social media can prop up.
Re: Twitter co-founder: I’m sorry if we made Trump’s presidency possible
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Totally agree with you. Twitter should be publishing whatever the user wants to convey (unless its violating any local laws). They shouldnt be deciding whats right or wrong based on their personal opinion.
> Twitter should be publishing whatever the user wants to convey (unless its violating any local laws). That's what they do. > They shouldnt be deciding whats right or wrong based on their personal opinion. Well, they could, but they don't and as such they are bigger free speech advocates than you are because you want to restrict what they can do on their website, which is a privately run entity and as such not subje…
Oh this again.
Free speech is an idea, not an amendment.
If you censor opposing political views, you are antithetical to the concept and idea of free speech and you should be condemned.
Re: Twitter co-founder: I’m sorry if we made Trump’s presidency possible
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
That Twitter, as it's currently designed, is an excellent platform for sharing cool links (science/ML twitter is fantastic), but it is downright deleterious for any subject where nuance is called for. I think Twitter had a net negative effect on political discussion not because of free speech, but because it rewards bombastic language, point scoring, cheerleading and makes substantial arguments impossible.
Twitter is definitely terrible for discussion not just because of the character limit but also because of the echo chambers it creates. I follow a lot of people on both "sides" and they love to make fun of the other through the most low hanging fruit possible. Both sides attack people for liking (or not being totally opposed to) some ideas of the other side. I don't think there's many popular forms of social media th…
> Both sides attack people for liking (or not being totally opposed to) some ideas of the other side.
More often than not the argument basically boils on to this [0], and even when it's not, the tweetstorm necessary for a constructive answer gets lost in a sea of raging tweets.
Re: Twitter co-founder: I’m sorry if we made Trump’s presidency possible
#48Somewhat concerning statements on their own. > “I thought once everybody could speak freely and exchange information and ideas, the world is automatically going to be a better place,” Williams told the Times. “I was wrong about that.” I'd like to see a more detailed look at why Twitter might not have been a good idea. I don't think that free, easy communication is a bad thing and I think it's powered an enormous chan…
Honestly, I am more worried about the fact HN seems oblivious to the fact Twitter was being used as a targeted propaganda system by a foreign government than I am of censorship in the US.
A foreign government? Many governments place targeted propaganda on all sorts of platforms, the US primary among them. Both US political parties were no doubt doing astroturfing of their own this last election. And among US politicians, having corrupt foreign ties is hardly unique to Trump. Trump probably has some relationship with the Russian government, but IMO it is hardly significant in comparison to the full scope of corrupt, bad behavior exhibited by the US government.
Re: Twitter co-founder: I’m sorry if we made Trump’s presidency possible
#49>“I thought once everybody could speak freely and exchange information and ideas, the world is automatically going to be a better place,” Williams told the Times. “I was wrong about that.” I despise this quote so much, and I'm far from a Trump supporter. If you need to censor speech in order for your side to win, maybe you have bigger issues than Trump's twitter account.
I'd love to know why you believe that private entities can't/shouldn't censor speech on their platforms, and what philosophical underpinnings this has (not being snarky, I'm keen to know how you came to have this belief).
Re: Twitter co-founder: I’m sorry if we made Trump’s presidency possible
#50Twitter is a simple technology that connects people, and the current presidency is IMO not their fault.
Twitter just brought up to the surface what was already there but hidden. I am sorry that everyone now has to go through a lot of pain with the current presidency. But I think getting there is the only effective way for society to realize that your (US) political, social and educational system (just to name a few) are completely broken. And you have got to fix it. Most people didn't know how bad it is fucked up, now it becomes obvious. You got the president you earned.
Twitter so just made it possible, that you are able to face your true challenges.
Don't blame the messenger...