> I don't understand why people think that Twitter, a private company, should be more like the town square than Disneyland.
In a way I agree with you. Twitter is a private company, and it does not necessarily have legal or moral obligation to be neutral or be a town square. Its staff should be perfectly safe to be biased towards left or right, or moderate content with or without facts or consistency.
I also agree with you that Twitter's staff needed to consider brand safety and how to retain advertisers. That's also the theory of Stratechery and why Ben Thompson thought that Elon needed to find revenue stream other than ads to really push his ideal of free speech on social media.
On the other hand, I do wish that Twitter a town square and they do have neutral or at least consistent moderation policies for practical reasons: millions of people do get news or information from Twitter on a daily basis. Millions of people do engage in discussion on Twitter on a daily basis. As a result, Twitter does become essential for facilitating and spreading information. In that regard, moderating debates, especially the controversial ones, can be harmful to the public. Imagine what it would be like if you were Botzmann yet you couldn't discuss your theory, or you were John Snow yet you were silenced for thinking cholera was not spread by miasma. Miasma was the mainstream theory in the late 1890s, no? In the eyes of the people in 1895, Snow was spreading "misinformation" that "could danger people's lives", no? We could safely bet that if there were Twitter at that time, the staff would be sided with the miasma theory, no? Another reason is in the spirit of "veil of ignorance". Society changes. People change. We're progressive today, but we can be conservative tomorrow. We can be left-leaning today and love projecting and attacking people's motives, but we can be right-leaning tomorrow and declare heresy this and evil that. I bet Robespierre believed that no one he guillotined was innocent and he could stay in power for long enough. I bet many people believed that the protestants in St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre deserved the death. I bet the elementary school students in China believed that they were righteous when they beat their teachers and school principals to death with knuckled belts. Without us believing that we can expressive our opinions in public safely, there will be guarantee that truth could come out quickly, and there will no guarantee that your group of people will be safe, no matter how dominant you are for now.
In a way I agree with you. Twitter is a private company, and it does not necessarily have legal or moral obligation to be neutral or be a town square. Its staff should be perfectly safe to be biased towards left or right, or moderate content with or without facts or consistency.
I also agree with you that Twitter's staff needed to consider brand safety and how to retain advertisers. That's also the theory of Stratechery and why Ben Thompson thought that Elon needed to find revenue stream other than ads to really push his ideal of free speech on social media.
On the other hand, I do wish that Twitter a town square and they do have neutral or at least consistent moderation policies for practical reasons: millions of people do get news or information from Twitter on a daily basis. Millions of people do engage in discussion on Twitter on a daily basis. As a result, Twitter does become essential for facilitating and spreading information. In that regard, moderating debates, especially the controversial ones, can be harmful to the public. Imagine what it would be like if you were Botzmann yet you couldn't discuss your theory, or you were John Snow yet you were silenced for thinking cholera was not spread by miasma. Miasma was the mainstream theory in the late 1890s, no? In the eyes of the people in 1895, Snow was spreading "misinformation" that "could danger people's lives", no? We could safely bet that if there were Twitter at that time, the staff would be sided with the miasma theory, no? Another reason is in the spirit of "veil of ignorance". Society changes. People change. We're progressive today, but we can be conservative tomorrow. We can be left-leaning today and love projecting and attacking people's motives, but we can be right-leaning tomorrow and declare heresy this and evil that. I bet Robespierre believed that no one he guillotined was innocent and he could stay in power for long enough. I bet many people believed that the protestants in St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre deserved the death. I bet the elementary school students in China believed that they were righteous when they beat their teachers and school principals to death with knuckled belts. Without us believing that we can expressive our opinions in public safely, there will be guarantee that truth could come out quickly, and there will no guarantee that your group of people will be safe, no matter how dominant you are for now.