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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

#31

Post by debacle »

blowski wrote: post #10

The BBC, with its explicit "public interest" mandate, funded by public money, is constantly criticised for being simultaneously too deferential, opinionated, conservative, and liberal - and that's only in the UK. How on earth is Twitter going to make a policy that pleases worldwide shareholders, governments (and their oppositions), and the general public? Maybe I lack imagination, but it feels like Twitter is constan…

Twitter's problem is engagement. Facebook is a doomscroller's paradise. How can Twitter replicate that?

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

#32

Post by sandworm101 »

blowski wrote: post #10

The BBC, with its explicit "public interest" mandate, funded by public money, is constantly criticised for being simultaneously too deferential, opinionated, conservative, and liberal - and that's only in the UK. How on earth is Twitter going to make a policy that pleases worldwide shareholders, governments (and their oppositions), and the general public? Maybe I lack imagination, but it feels like Twitter is constan…

>> a policy that pleases worldwide shareholders, governments (and their oppositions), and the general public?

They won't. The final policy will please twitter shareholders. That means they will not do anything that might give rise to a competitor service. They aren't going to kick out the alt-right. They aren't going to kick out Trump 2.0. If Putin wants a Twitter account he is going to get it. If Trump wins office again he too will get one too. Twitter is not in the business of angering people in power, people who could put barriers between twitter and profits.

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

#33

Post by sitkack »

bellyfullofbac wrote: post #16
mcculley wrote: post #7

World leaders in developed countries should not be depending on Twitter or private media companies at all. There is no good reason why the President of the United States cannot publish his (in the case of Trump, ill-formed) thoughts directly to whitehouse.gov. We should demand and expect that governments publish directly to the web in an immutable way that is archived to satisfy our duty to history. Twitter made thin…

Twitter really was horrible, it enabled Trump's keyboard warrior persona. He was too chickenshit (or lazy) to actually say things with a camera and press in front of him, but with Twitter he can just shit post with no consequence.

Maybe the first thing twitter should do is follow its own rules and apply them everywhere. Trump should have been banned years ago.

Twitter and Trump danced this together and now Twitter wants to be the good guy?

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

#34

Post by kitd »

This came up when Trump was threatening social media with restraints. I wrote this at the time and haven't changed my view:

For me, free speech is fundamentally about trying to rectify the injustice of an imbalance of power between those in authority and the ordinary citizen. During the Enlightenment, the authorities were monarchs, but even before that, the origins of free speech can be seen in the Reformation, the authorities being the established Church and the battles being eg the right to a Bible in your own language or the right to worship without priests.

In modern times, authorities can be just straightforward, well, authoritarian. Global leaders & business people who tweet or post on FB carry an authority ex officio that make their proclamations much more acceptable to the neutral reader. That in itself is a dangerous situation and Twitter or FB absolutely need to take control. If these companies want us to take them seriously as champions of free speech, they have to play their role to help restore that balance of power, by being far more stringent about fact-checking the tweets of those global leaders than they would be for ordinary posters.

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

#35

Post by Traster »

This is pretty extraordinary. Close to 6 years of Donald Trump brazenly breaking twitter rules as candidate and president. Repeated violations, culminating in a riot at the capitol. March of 2021 and Jack Dorsey rocks up "Hey guys, I think we should think about our policies with regard to politicians".

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

#37

Post by meragrin_ »

kitd wrote: post #34

This came up when Trump was threatening social media with restraints. I wrote this at the time and haven't changed my view: For me, free speech is fundamentally about trying to rectify the injustice of an imbalance of power between those in authority and the ordinary citizen. During the Enlightenment, the authorities were monarchs, but even before that, the origins of free speech can be seen in the Reformation, the a…

> by being far more stringent about fact-checking the tweets of those global leaders than they would be for ordinary posters.

That would be nice, but all they'll do is push their own agenda. They've already proven that.

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

#38

Post by baryphonic »

Suppose you run a message broadcasting service hosting three hypothetical world leaders. One posts propaganda about an ongoing genocide in his country, namely that the genocide is highly beneficial to those being genocided. The second posts racist messages threatening another country with annihilation. The third posts that his recent election loss was "stolen," and subsequent to these posts a few of his supporters stage a riot in the capital (without coordination from the leader).

Which messages do you allow? Which do you censor? And which world leaders do you ban?

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

#39

Post by GiorgioG »

Politicians like everyone else are entitled to their own opinions, but they aren't entitled to their own facts. We should hold all of our politicians accountable to provide factual information.

It's one thing to say "I believe the election was rigged based on facts X,Y,Z" and quite another thing to say (real tweet): " “I concede NOTHING! We have a long way to go. This was a RIGGED ELECTION!”

Maybe world leaders need two accounts/streams, one for 'official' government business and one for political rhetoric which has some sort of limitations (can't be RT'd, etc.)

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

#40

Post by KoftaBob »

christiansakai wrote: post #5

Remove the ability to have followers from world leaders, remove the ability to be liked from world leaders' tweets. Keep the ability to retweet world leaders' tweets, but prevent retweets to be added more from the retweeters.

If anything, for any politicians Twitter account, it should hide follower count, and for all their tweets, it shouldn’t allow likes/retweets/replies.

Essentially their accounts should serve strictly as a broadcast of info, and nothing more.

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