The key insight in this piece, I think, is that the moderation (manual, algorithmic, or otherwise) is the fundamental mechanism that shapes a platform. Reddit rewards upvotes but punishes "controversiality." Hn rewards upvotes. Twitter, Facebook are mostly secretive, and definitely account for advertisement dollars in their selection.
If we accept this piece's premise, that moderation can negate wide swaths of free speech (by deleting it, or even simply hiding it) I think the question becomes "Why am I putting my ideas into communities that have the final say, with no transparency, over who if anyone, sees what I say?"
Imagine how different twitter would be if you could see tweets not based on how big a tweetstorm they caused in the last 24 hours, but rather you could make a dashboard based on your custom criteria (e.g. net positive sentiment, non-political, in my city, accounts that are non-bots)
I don't mean this as a proposal for twitter specifically, but rather a proposal we start asking whether a platform should have exactly 1, private, attention-distribution mechanism or whether the two should become disconnected.
2 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 12.3 ms ] threadIf we accept this piece's premise, that moderation can negate wide swaths of free speech (by deleting it, or even simply hiding it) I think the question becomes "Why am I putting my ideas into communities that have the final say, with no transparency, over who if anyone, sees what I say?"
Imagine how different twitter would be if you could see tweets not based on how big a tweetstorm they caused in the last 24 hours, but rather you could make a dashboard based on your custom criteria (e.g. net positive sentiment, non-political, in my city, accounts that are non-bots)
I don't mean this as a proposal for twitter specifically, but rather a proposal we start asking whether a platform should have exactly 1, private, attention-distribution mechanism or whether the two should become disconnected.