Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

You say, in the midst of a discussion amongst an international userbase on the political ramifications of a policy decision.

Let's be real about this. Social media, when you really look at it, propagates signal that makes remote events local in terms of sphere of influence. Any content can touch anyone, the globe over assuming an internet connection.

Frankly, and I apologize if this is out of turn, but I think you underestimate the power behind choosing what conversations won't take place.

Just look at the big difference that a U.S. Senate Majority leader can have in terms of the realistic chance of something being discussed.

Never, ever, underestimate the power of negation or deprioritization. In fact, it's a little funny, because being in the position to make those decisions at all is really the common definition of power/authority.

However we are fooling ourselves because these companies very much are bending to political pressure and acting on the behalf of that. You can pretty much try to throw up all the exceptions to that claim you want but in the end you a few issues which show it, first being they don't want to invite further regulatory control over their industry, second they don't want legal liability for actions of those who use their platforms, third they respond to the whims of their management and to a certain point their employees on who they let use their systems.

People must recognize that politicians exert undo influence over all businesses simply because they can change the law and regulatory structure they operate under. It easily explains why so many politicians move into cushy business jobs in not slot their friends and family into the same. Its the cost of doing business. Established political players simply have too much power.

but neither are good news for free speech. I'm glad twitter purges alt-right and Q accounts but then why use it as an opportunity to also silence a platform that is the biggest hit since the first time a human rights lawyer uttered "Open Access".

pretty glad I left twitter in 2017. I still read twitter via other people's list (those I used to follow) and via searches on nitter. If you know a great list you still have doom scrolling. But the good thing: when I get too angry (or even too much in agreement with the OP), there is no way to share it with the world. This is both frustrating (in the moment), but literally has no downsides. It has never been once that I woke up the next morning regretting I hadn't already shared whatever my opinion was on literally any subject earlier.

The same platform shapes news today. Literally any subject there are weekly instances where a journo got their story through some "influencer or thought leader". Elon Musk tweeted about Signal and the number of downloads increase within 1 day five-fold. Story is in the NYT and international news. Twitter is a surreal place that shapes way too much the news-cycle in partisan ways. Everyone complains about news being divisive but forgetting where the division comes from - there is simply no way a leftist journalist will have many followers from the right and vice versa. It's been like this forever but twitter (and all of social media) amplified this a million fold. Blame journalism for sure but in the same sentence also damn these individuals requesting features that "drive engagement". How the actual F should an algorithm drive engagement when there is no way of really telling what that engagement will cause. Twitter judged from history has never done the right thing when it could have been up to them. They always waited until enough damage had been done to justify what should be "ongoing housekeeping".

[1] https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1349577579091566592