
Censorship by Weaponizing Free Speech: Rethinking the Marketplace of Ideas - avivo
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180124/11124039076/censorship-weaponizing-free-speech-rethinking-how-marketplace-ideas-works.shtml
======
alexandercrohde
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.

~~~
rapnie
bang on! fully agree..

