Caitlin Johnstone on "the way government agencies have been inserting themselves into Silicon Valley's processes of regulating online speech."
@rchusid Thanks. This is the first reasonable assessment I've seen of this issue. We do need to reframe this issue as one of whether the state should be involved here, but it also feels pretty futile. Politicians have always pressured publishers to be 'responsible' if not outright 'friendly'. We've faced a constant barrage of attacks on freedom of speech by the government for decades, and even much bigger infractions triggered hardly any reforms. It's good to point out that even big, wealthy platforms like Twitter can be co-opted by the state, and in fact we should expect them to be fully allied with whomever holds power. So we're back where we started -- we need to create publishing institutions that are resistant to censorship, along with direct resistance to any direct imposition of censorship (which the WH/FBI-Twitter connection is not)
@DecaturNature The scary thing is that, as I believe Caitlin pointed out, Twitter was less likely than other Big Tech companies to go along with something like this. (I just posted links to three articles on the subject so I might be wrong as to which article stated this).
@rchusid That is a good point, and consistent with what I've heard elsewhere. One thing that struck me about the Twitter Files is how the Twitter team was constantly looking for diplomatic ways to say "no" to the Feds. I'm frankly impressed with Yoel Roth's behavior, regardless of Musk's efforts to demonize him.
@DecaturNature Some people try to rephrase this in absolutes--x person or Twitter is all good or all evil. Then they dismiss this when obviously that is not how it comes out. It is possible to both find some good in how Twitter responded while being concerned about government involvement, and possible to see problems in the moderation system.