it can simultaneously be true that Alex Jones deserves what he got but it is deeply problematic that Facebook / Google / Apple / Twitter can give it. let’s not suddenly go all glibertarian about what private businesses with immense power can do.
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Replying to @interfluidity
pretty sure its not censorship if private companies do it, and therefore anything goes
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Replying to @_Vimothy_ @interfluidity
but what if they're doing it not because persuaded it's a good idea by discussion/markets... but because the govt is warming up various kinds of retaliations if they don't? that's what some recent FB/Google/Apple activity looks like to me: state censorship, laundered
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Replying to @gojomo @_Vimothy_
(i think your point is broadly true, that social media platforms are running scared from traditional Silicon Valley laissez-faire bromides in order to get ahead of the threat of regulation. but i don’t think this administration would have insisted on Alex Jones. they’ve arguably
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increased the threat that this US administration will meddle with them for being “biased against conservative viewpoints”.)
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Replying to @interfluidity @_Vimothy_
sure, but separate from "this administration", there's a "permanent establishment", with high overlap with "the state". it's often at war with any particular "administration" – & it's that establishment's threat of state actions that's driving a bunch of this 'private' censorship
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Replying to @gojomo @interfluidity
in addition to pressure from above, there's also pressure from below, as 'right-thinking' users of social media platforms have become horrified at the influence wielded by 'wrong-thinking' users and increasingly call for their defenestration...
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Replying to @_Vimothy_ @interfluidity
definitely, but user-vs-user & mkt pressures worry me less – they hit marginal/skin-in-the-game limits, & thus satiety/equilibrium, faster. state power (or threats thereof) brings permanence/harshness, & makes badthought 'illegal' rather than just 'fringe'
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Replying to @gojomo @interfluidity
I think the dynamic is a bit more pernicious, personally. government legitimises itself by appealing to some sort of philosophical or ethical framework and users can appeal to the same set of reference points in order to encourage social media platforms to blacklist you, ...
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your employer to fire you, and so on. that leverage is why you're more likely to lose your job because you've annoyed the Twitter mob than the government.
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