Twitter is now X

[EnricoPallazzo]

Shadow1980 said:

EnricoPallazzo said:

He understands of course twitter is a private company, but he thinks (my opinion) that twitter reached a status where it is more than a company, it became de facto the public square for people public discourse. I would include other places alongside such as reddit and facebook, reddit is the worst. In being a "public square" it has the responsibility to allow free speech, to allow ideas to be discussed and let public decide which ones are good or not, and not a board of people deciding "this can be published, this cannot". 

There are multiple problems with that line of reasoning.

First off, why should a discussion board or website lose their right to free association simply because they got popular enough? The state would be the only entity capable of enforcing that, and why should the state have that power? I totally get giving the state the power to prohibit businesses from pumping toxic waste in the ocean or engaging in wage theft, but telling a website that it can't kick someone off of their property for using racial slurs or spreading dangerous conspiracies is not something I think the state should be doing. While private property rights are not absolute, restrictions on their use should be narrowly-defined and have a very, very good reason for existing (e.g., preventing direct harm to others).

Second, the law by necessity frequently deals in arbitrary limits, and using popularity to determine a line above which a website is stripped of their right free association would be one of those arbitrary things. How will popularity be measured? Total active users? Average daily post counts? Once we've determined what we'll be using as our criteria, what's the threshold? 100,000? A million? Ten million? Why that threshold and not some other threshold? What if it eventually gets lowered to "one" and therefore no website can have a code of conduct governing user behavior?

If a site or board cannot have a code of conduct in their TOS, that would effectively force every board to allow just about anything that wasn't illegal, their moderators largely toothless. Every one of them could have the potential to become like 4-Chan's /pol/ board. Website owners need the ability to have rules dictating what constitutes unacceptable behavior on their site in order to foster a reasonably healthy and productive community, rather than one that's just some anything-goes cesspit that drives away all but the worst sorts of people.

Giving governments the power to limit freedom of association like how some are proposing opens up a huge can of worms and could potentially set a dangerous precedent.

I think part of the problem in this discussion, as it is usual, is liberals not understanding what conservatives want, and conservatives not understanding what liberals want.

Agree 100% a solution based on a proper law will open a can of worms/pandora box and it is the worst solution ever.

I am pretty sure Musk and most of the people that would like to have free speech on twitter and reddit are not against having community rules. People dont want it to become 4chan (although I see some value in 4chan) where people call each other (insert here word that cannot be spoken today) or talk about murdering people to install a comunist state, rage ethnical cleansing to have a white state only, etc. And to have fairness of treatment and not double standards from "fact checkers" or closing of community/members matters.

Anyway, I dont think the government should jump in to regulate it, in general it only causes more trouble than solutions. The solution is much simpler than that, is people that do not agree with the platform to just stop using it and look for solutions elsewhere, is possible. If all famous people that complain about twitter (including Musk) closed their account and opened a new one in another platform it would bring millions of people to other places.

Of course.. if those other options are allowed to exist. Unfortunately, and this is a very direct criticism of the radical left actions, some try to shut down those options. 

"You dont like it here, build your own platform"

"Hey this platform you created do not follow what I believe, shut it down"

"You did not shut it down? Lets presure government and banks to not allow it to exist, lets cut your financials ties so we strangle you financially"

To be honest I think this all sucks because it only creates more division and I would prefer everyone to be able to expose it's ideas everywhere with no fear of retaliation or cancelling. But a divided world is a reality and I think there is no coming back unfortunately.