Twitter is not a utility. We really need to stop treating techbro services like utilities. If we feel they actually are utilities, the government can step in and make that claim and the appropriate changes.
You would be shocked to know how many people use TikTok as a search engine
I’m not on tiktok, but I’ll admit to using YouTube as a search engine a lot. Also googling something and immediately hitting the video tab before reading any of the results.
I liken using groogle for finding factual information to using the yellowpages for doing the same. YT isn’t much better but it suffers many of the conflicts of interest traditional media outlets also had, depending on the corporation. In this case the almighty algorithm is the conflict of interest, though there are clever content creators out there making some good stuff, they’ll always be beholden to the owners of the platform and the true customers - the advertisers. As an advertising platform which can direct punters to actual long form content directly supported by watchers via patreon or similar, I understand why it is used : the sheer numbers using it.
If it’s a private company that con do what it wants, like blocking political opponents, it should not be under safe harbor protections.
That’s the point in yelling about this. If Elon wants a private forum for him and his mates, he should also be fully responsible when his mates posts child porn on his servers.
Section 230 of the CDA
Imagine trying winning chess when the board itself plays against you. Twitter/X must be dropped immediately, it’s a censorship-propaganda machine which is now only works for those who control it.
Wasn’t that the case when progressives controlled it? Either way, fk X and all other social media services.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey: I ‘fully admit’ our bias is ‘more left-leaning’
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said on Saturday that he “fully admit[s]” Twitter employees share a largely left-leaning bias after facing accusations that conservatives are discriminated against on the social media platform.
In an interview that aired Saturday on CNN, Dorsey said his company has a responsibility to be open about its political viewpoints, but to operate without bias when applying content policies to users.
”We need to constantly show that we are not adding our own bias, which I fully admit is … is more left-leaning,” Dorsey says.
If only the federal government could implement some sort of server that would allow them to self-host social media for officials and prominent candidates. I wish there were some well-known and tested service that other governments were using and they could just implement in the USA.
If only there was some Soviet Union with their own mastodon
If they build it, will anyone come? Or does private social media only work because the user base is already scrolling endlessly there?
if they build it, the press will go there and report on what’s posted there
I don’t think legally the Federal Government is allowed to do that. Maybe if the service is available to everyone. Now that option would be pretty cool. I’m fine with nationalized federated social media hosts.
That sounds pretty shakey. Federal employees have their own email addresses, but you can’t just go ask for a .gov email address, you have to get a job with the government for one. The federal government has plenty of places that only some are allowed to post to. Now, if they were to say, only allow certain people to have accounts with no apperent rhyme or reason that would be grounds for a discrimination lawsuit, but they could simply say “any verified current or former federal elected official, federal department head, or state governor is allowed an account” and expand or shrink the scope as needed. The fediverse honestly makes that so much cleaner than something they host themselves with all of the nuances of what is and isn’t federated, the government could simply configure the federation to meet their legal and liability needs while users can stream in from any fediverse instance
Free speech and so on.
Sigh. Not surprised… given that Musk is a hypocrite on free speech completely. It’s getting wild. I use this place now because after years of no issues… suddenly I’m shadow banned on Reddit. Instead of getting mad I just left. Screw those who would stifle others but pretend to believe the opposite.
