Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's one of those things where in theory and in the rule of law the CEO can do so. It does make me feel uncomfortable, though. As time goes on I am less and less supportive of the notion that private companies can do as they please on the basis that they are private companies. I don't know what 'the solution' is, but I do sense a precedent being established that I am weary of. Twitter is simultaneously a public spher…
> Twitter is [...] a public sphere where politicians are prohibited from blocking users No, it's not. When a public official uses their Twitter account as an official channel, that account becomes a limited public forum from which users cannot be blocked for reasons that they could not be excluded from official government fora more generally (e.g., viewpoint discrimination is not permitted.) This is not a restriction…
Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates
321–330 of 444 posts
Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates
#322Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
>As time goes on I am less and less supportive of the notion that private companies can do as they please on the basis that they are private companies. There is no such notion - private companies have to obey the laws of the land like anyone else. Platforms like Twitter have the right to ban politicians on the basis of the rights of private property and freedom of speech and association. The same rights that allow re…
>"The inverse of this would be to give carte-blanche ownership and rights over all property to politicians" Why would the alternative be carte-blanche over all forms of property? The government already forces telephone companies not to discriminate based on speech. Broadcasters must follow restrictions and allow government messages to be played under certain circumstances. The Net Neutrality folks are fighting so tha…
Because the rights of property, free speech and association that apply to social media platforms apply everywhere, so altering those rights for social media platforms also alters them everywhere.
>The government already forces telephone companies not to discriminate based on speech. Broadcasters must follow restrictions and allow government messages to be played under certain circumstances.
Social media platforms are not common carriers. They don't have monopoly over free speech or the dissemination of information, nor has any platform ever claimed to act neutrally. The entire business model of social media is curation and algorithmic recommendation of content - the exact opposite of what a common carrier does.
Also, broadcasters are regulated because broadcast spectrum space is a limited resource. Cable broadcasters, for instance, aren't subject to the same regulations.
>What would the harm be in making a law along the lines of "A digital service used primarily for communication with over twenty million members must allow sitting members of congress, the supreme court, the president, and members of the cabinet to disseminate any communication they so desire during their tenure."
The harm is that the First Amendment prevents the government from abridging the people's freedom of speech, and a fundamental part of freedom of speech is freedom from compelled speech. Forcing all social media platforms which meet some arbitrary (and arbitrarily changeable) limit on membership to carry speech by the government is compelled speech, and an abridgement on freedom of speech, and thus voids, or at least weakens, the First Amendment. Which is a bad thing.
Governments already have their own media infrastructure. Members of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the President of the US have Twitter accounts (remember, what was banned was Trump's personal account, @POTUS is still perfectly fine.) The solution here is for the government to either comply with the rules set by social media platforms like everyone else, or else create their own platform.
Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates
#324As a person who never understood why twitter existed, let alone what purpose it might serve this information validates my feelings.
It exists so you can know what everyone is talking about 5 weeks before they do. Follow the right people and it will change your life.
Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates
#325So I never created a Twitter account. Over the years, there are a few people that I liked to read their thoughts on Twitter, so I'd manually go to their wall and read occasionally. They're all verified. Over time, it became cumbersome to continue doing this and I thought I'd give in and create an account (on the website) so that these people were all easy to access from a single point. So I did, and went and immediat…
> Twitter started putting up an overlay up prompting you to log in or create an account to continue after viewing x tweets. Annoying, but not a huge issue as you could just dismiss the modal and continue. you can no longer dismiss the modal, or in any other way bypass this as of a few days ago. (at least on mobile)
Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wouldn’t TikToks rise be in opposition to that idea?
It’s not the end of social media, just nearing the end of its first gods.
Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates
#327After all of these decades ... After talk/ytalk, .plan files, sysop chat, fidonet, usenet, livejournal/myspace/facebook ... I can't believe that the mass-adoption of threaded, text discussions looks like this ! What must non-technical, end user, always-online-generation think of this ? It's confusing, barely-usable garbage.
Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
What killed me it was Twitter killing developers apis: no more interesting apps than theirs. It sucks big time. They're also screwing the chronology, sometimes you get the latest tweets (most interesting) and sometimes they switch you to Recommended, which, normally, it sucks. Let me browse chronologically as it was in the old days.
I recently wondered about this, from another angle. In a way it was "weird" that they had an API, given our times. I.e., it was different: imagine if FB/Instagram/WhatsApp had an API. (I think it would be awesome, but it puts into perspective that it was weird that they had one imo)
Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates
#329As a heavy twitter user who mostly enjoys it (I'm very particular of who I follow), I just don't understand what they've been doing all this time. Their product has been incredibly stagnant for years save for the occasional feature here and there and some styling. They've screwed over devs trying to build on their APIs and eroded all trust along the way. New features have been rolled out haphazardly, and they totally…
Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Twitter is [...] a public sphere where politicians are prohibited from blocking users No, it's not. When a public official uses their Twitter account as an official channel, that account becomes a limited public forum from which users cannot be blocked for reasons that they could not be excluded from official government fora more generally (e.g., viewpoint discrimination is not permitted.) This is not a restriction…
I'm saying it's a de-facto public sphere rather than de-jure one.
“a public sphere where politicians are prohibited from blocking users” is a de jure not de facto distinction, unless you are using hyperbolic language for a practical difficulty rather than an actual prohibition.