The Slow Goodbye to Twitter

This continues to expose the holes in an ideology that purports to be for A and it is nearly always for B in almost everything they say. Pick any area A, listen to what they claim and then watch B is what they actually do.

In this case, it is about such topics as open-mindedness, inclusion, tolerance, acceptance, objectivity, seeking truth, balance, unity, representing everyone, etc. What they actually do is almost always the opposite to these and other concepts.

If Twitter/Musk came out on Monday, proclaimed to revese course and go all-in on one sided moderation in favor of that ideology, the company and Musk would be hailed as heroes by every single person, politician and entity currently at war with them.

That, right there, should make everyone take pause and think.

Why?

All you have to do is imagine a world where the opposite ideology controls all media and thought drivers.

That would be just as much of a nightmare as what we have managed to walk into today.

We do not want either ideology to hold a monopoly of control over what messages are allowed and who can speak. That is precisely what happens in nations we all agree are, at a minimum, oppressive and abusive to their population. Sadly, we have veered more and more in that direction over the last couple of decades. There are people out there who's entire careers have been destroyed just for having opposing thoughts. That isn't supposed to happen in the western world. That is not supposed to happen in the US. Yet, it has. And we have to fix it.

Equilibrium in social and traditional media exists when both ideological camps have about the same number of things to not be happy about. It also happens when no particular "tribe" can exercise overwhelming control over thought, media and messaging. Good, bad or ugly, that is the best formula for progress. Stomping and cancelling opposing viewpoints has never delivered positive results in the long term.

Here on HN, downvoting and flagging are sometimes used this way. It is my opinion these tools have to go away or have to have a very serious algorithmic change in order to prevent their use as means to silence that with which one disagrees. Yes, this is a difficult issue online forums have had to contend with since the days of USENET. Not easy at all.

A long time ago one of my mentors explained he liked the idea of "If you can't say anything good about someone, don't speak". While not a hard-set rule, the way I personally try to use that concept on HN is that I never downvote or flag any post. In the years I have been here I may have done so a handful of times. I always welcome intelligent opposition to anything I say. That's how we learn. I never downvote. If a conversation gets derailed, I might try to get it back on track a few times. If I fail, I just leave. I see downvoting as a cheap-shot attempt to silence that with which you disagree, rather than a control for quality. Same with flagging.