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Calling for public input on our approach to world leaders

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Re: Calling for public input on our approach to world leaders

#241
post #61

Marketing tip: Always ask the public for input and consult with "experts" before doing what you intended to all along.

Also, if you phrase the question “should everyone follow the same rules?” in the right way, everyone is going to say “of course!”

That's where it gets interesting, though. Assuming you have a democratically elected official with progressive views in any direction, and they're telling people to act for their self-interest, but the current zeitgeist overall is the given idea is immoral or otherwise objectionable, then what process do you use to make the judgement other than an arbitrary one that supplants the "rule of law"?

Consider if Biden dropped a tweet saying "don't observe DST."

That could be dangerous, right? You've got two distinct groups of people that for some reason or another fail to coalesce, all "hell" breaks loose because some people are showing up to work at different times, logistical break down... Do you squelch him? And how does that compare to a non-violent break-in at the capitol to show congress that their representation of the general public is failing a given demographic?

Personally I think that the channel should be wide open to anything but the most unbearable aspects of communication, like child exploitation. You've got no chance of convincing a white supremacist that his worldview is askew without engaging in a conversation and logically defeating his assertions, not to mention the fact that publicly shaming the ideology (while jointly defeating it) in a widely available forum is certainly the best prophylactic. Instead the "acceptable" rhetoric is one-sided which alienates anybody that has the audacity to even ask the questions proposed, while destroying their ability to come about a rational conclusion through empirical observation. That channel should be equivalently wide for politicians which the people have elected to represent them up to the extent of tangible action to break the law up to the barrier of reason, e.g. meaningfully inciting violent actions against individuals or groups.

And this is all precipitated by the fact that Twitter and the like are commodifying speech, which is a genuine hazard as it creates a serious hurdle at the intersection of liberty and commercial interest. Commercial interests want inoffensive discussion which appeals to the widest possible band of individuals, meaning that the content and discussions are only allowed to span a narrow width, generally. It is not in any meaningful way acting in the public interest at that point, and only seeks to, through largely automatic processes, extend and crystallize the status quo which is genuinely harmful as we're doing little more than discussing how to spin in place at that point. This is driven even further through deplatforming (active or passive) extremist viewpoints, and exposing them disproportionately with algorithmic processes.

Re: Calling for public input on our approach to world leaders

#242

I think twitter should give foreign leaders pretty wide latitude to tweet, as long as they do not call for violence, use their tweets to command foreign agents, etc. Of course twitter can put notices on their tweets that these are foreign leaders that may not have the best interests of Americans at heart. It is rather pathetic that the citizens of the US, which is supposed to be a democracy run by its citizens are to…

Your error is in assuming the public has any meaningful say in government outcomes.

Re: Calling for public input on our approach to world leaders

#243
post #168
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you also oppose the US President holding press conferences for privately owned broadcast TV channels?

I'm not. There's a natural scarcity of space for physical cameras and reporters. As far as I understand, the press themselves are largely responsible for figuring out these logistics via the WHCA. (Someone please correct me if I'm mistaken.) There isn't any practical scarcity for text streams coming from the White House though, so I can't think of a reason why consuming them should be tied to a closed platform like T…

Your point is good but I think the reality is just really mundane: the government could put out its own text streams and multi-publish them to different platforms, but it’s just not there yet. There’s no fire under anyone’s ass to get it done, if it’s even occurred to anyone in a position to do something about it in the past uh... 14 years?

However I would be fully on board with Twitter banning world leaders and IP blocking their capitals including the entire city of Washington. They won’t, that’s a value destroying proposition, but a man can dream.

Re: Calling for public input on our approach to world leaders

#244
post #156

I don't really have much of an opinion on how twitter should approach world leaders. I'm more interested in the approach of world leaders to twitter. As far as I'm concerned, people receiving salaries from the taxpayer shouldn't be spending their time writing free copy for twitter. They should be communicating with the public via government operated websites, or press conferences covered by multiple media organizatio…

Do you also oppose the US President holding press conferences for privately owned broadcast TV channels?

Yes. But I'd go further. All holders of US political office at all levels should be unable to restrict any conference or interview in which they take part to any single interviewer or news agency, so they cannot control who asks the questions or who airs the event.

For several decades, US Presidents have been able to avoid hard questions by cherry picking interviewers or networks in order to "massage their message". That isn't news and it shirks their responsibility to answer hard questions. Tweets are just the next step in the evolution of accountability avoidance.

We did away with royal proclamations long ago for damned good reason: you must answer to the people.

Re: Calling for public input on our approach to world leaders

#245
post #110
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Seriously because the aliens are already here and I have proof!" -- Joking aside sometimes pushing a truth whether it's true or not has an impact on inflaming conspiracy theories... Youtube's covid, election banners for example IMO did more to incite deep state conspiracy then to reduce it... "One often meets their fate on the path they take to avoid it..." - Kung Fu panda

YouTube's blanket ban was a problem absolutely - it was lazy and as hands-off as possible missing all nuance.

Classic Google, when nuance and reason are required they instead program a dumb bot to handle it.

Re: Calling for public input on our approach to world leaders

#246
post #211

I don't really have much of an opinion on how twitter should approach world leaders. I'm more interested in the approach of world leaders to twitter. As far as I'm concerned, people receiving salaries from the taxpayer shouldn't be spending their time writing free copy for twitter. They should be communicating with the public via government operated websites, or press conferences covered by multiple media organizatio…

The problem is that all leaders have an inherent conflict of interest between the following two goals: 1. Doing the job 2. Maintaining power The problem is, again, two-fold: 1. The things you need to do to serve the first goal are often different from the things you need to do to serve the second, and 2. You must achieve the second goal in order to even attempt to achieve the first. That's the fundamental problem. It…

A demonhunt ?

'Just answer me, nor glamorized regent, whose freedom we the folk, are going to fight for?'

'For the freedom of foreigners? ...is this going to be a castrated migrationthespian?'

'Cos meet the Jones isn't radical enough anymore?'

(-;

Re: Calling for public input on our approach to world leaders

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was relatively minor, but it was a lot more relevant to Twitter because it happened in the country where most of their employees and servers are located. What they realized, I think, is that their prior stance of "we'll never ban a world leader" was naive; they hadn't fully thought through the potential negative effects, because the full spectrum of consequences that a government leader's speech can have was outsi…

No. What's naive is to think that the United States President being banned wasn't political. This is an admission of that and an attempt to save face.

Who thinks it's not political? That's why they had a hands-off policy for so long - they knew that any real sanction of a world leader is inherently political, no matter how good your reasons are.

Re: Calling for public input on our approach to world leaders

#248
post #67

Marketing tip: Always ask the public for input and consult with "experts" before doing what you intended to all along.

That's a point of view, and a pretty cynical one. I would like to point out that regarding moderation, tech companies have been asking for guidelines and new laws for a decade now. Ageing lawmakers have been unable to provide them and we start to see shy initiatives from the EU regarding privacy laws but roughly most of the water in which tech companies operate are still no mans lands. All that make me think that eve…

Aren't these glamorous tech companies supposed to be employing from the pool of the highest echelons of intellectualism? How is it that they have such exceedingly large valuations but they can't manage to deploy a rationale by which to manage their user-based content?

Re: Calling for public input on our approach to world leaders

#249
World leaders should not be afforded any form of preferential treatment. Everyone is equal under the law; all users equal under a platform. That's it. The moment you treat a subset of the population differently from another (such as giving them a blue checkmark), you begin to break from this ideal. Of course, any platform is free to do as they please. But congrats, in doing so, you have devolved into a world of kings and queens.

Re: Calling for public input on our approach to world leaders

#250
post #211

I don't really have much of an opinion on how twitter should approach world leaders. I'm more interested in the approach of world leaders to twitter. As far as I'm concerned, people receiving salaries from the taxpayer shouldn't be spending their time writing free copy for twitter. They should be communicating with the public via government operated websites, or press conferences covered by multiple media organizatio…

The problem is that all leaders have an inherent conflict of interest between the following two goals: 1. Doing the job 2. Maintaining power The problem is, again, two-fold: 1. The things you need to do to serve the first goal are often different from the things you need to do to serve the second, and 2. You must achieve the second goal in order to even attempt to achieve the first. That's the fundamental problem. It…

The stated conflict of interest is only really an issue in democracies, or other forms of representative governments. Otherwise, spot-on.
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