The audience is the monopoly. The entire media and political class are addicted to Twitter, and they haven't even heard of Mastodon or ActivityPub or whatever.
Sounds like twitter is doing a good job of keeping it's user base happy :) and I would argue that not spreading disinformation is part of keeping them happy.
Other companies/platforms are free to advertise or offer services to entice users to switch. As conservatives like to remind us money is speech. You are not entitled to someone else's attention but you can try to buy it.
Maybe there's a higher principle here than partisan warfare?
If they were banning Russiagate conspiracies, while letting conservative stuff run rampant, would you be giving me the pitch about how private property is more important than free expression?
Maybe there's a higher principle here than partisan warfare?
You're going to call me a neoliberal shill ;) but I'd say my higher principle is the market. There is a reason why Nestle, Version, and Disney spend loads of money on twitter and not on gab. Nestle doesn't want chocolate chip ads next to holocaust denial. So yes if twitter decided that pissing off their liberal users grossed more revenue I'm fine with it.
Don't impute principles to the market. Those companies wouldn't touch gay rights with a 10 foot pole until one day all of a sudden they're beating their way to the front of the line at the pride parade. They'll follow what's popular, and if that's liquidating jews, they'll do it (some of them did!).
In this particular case, where there's a common carrier for information, we figured out the market failures and how to handle them long ago, the answer is neutrality to the message. There are some people in the thread making the case that it's different now, and maybe it is, maybe we need a different approach, but "just trust the market" is the dumbest idea ever.
The market is paper-clip-optimizing gray goo. Harness it, but don't anthropomorphize it and certainly don't "trust" it.
As far as comment wars go this a been very civil. Thanks! :) This will be my last reply in this thread but I wanted to try to make the case against conservative populism one more time.
Don't impute principles to the market.
I'm not saying the market has principles. People can be moral or immoral. As you have noted, the market is amoral. I was saying that the debate over who can say what and where they can say it can be solved by the market. Twitter owns their severs and can decide what they want to do with them. You don't have the right to compel them to allow you to use their severs. You are free to build (or rent) your own servers and scream into the void. No one is obligate to listen to you but you are free to provide them something of value in return for their attention.
Those companies wouldn't touch gay rights with a 10 foot pole until one day all of a sudden they're beating their way to the front of the line at the pride parade.
This is very true and it should be of great concern to conservatives. In the previous generations, conservatives had a lock on the culture war but since the 90s they have completely ceded the field to progressives and liberals.
Republicans have only won the popular vote for president once since 1990. Trump isn't even attempting to win the popular vote this year. The median income in 2018 was 10k higher in blue states than red states. And you wonder why advertisers (and thus twitter) value blue tribe users more?
Conservatives can't gerrymander the market. They are going to need to find a way to compete for relevance with the majority of the public not just their base.
They'll follow what's popular, and if that's liquidating jews, they'll do it (some of them did!).
This is a straw-man. No one is in favor of letting billionaires commit extrajudicial killings. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is higher in my principle stack than the rights of market forces.
In conclusion, I will say there is a way out of this morass for conservatives. They have to kick the neo-nazis, the proud boys, and qanon out of the party. They have to accept science and that the scientific method is the best way to determine objective reality. If they continue to call anything that falls outside of their accepted narratives "fake news", they will continue to lose the culture war. And thus, be more and more sidelined from the national discourse. Due the undemocratic elements of our constitution they conservatives may retain political power, but in the end, the consent of the governed is more important.
Ah, I had it right the first time, you're stuck in partisan war rather than a property rights absolutist.
Don't trade principles for that, it's not worth it, the news cycle will be different tomorrow anyways. Certainly don't trust the corporations over individuals or the press for a one news-cycle 'win'. What kind of liberal values are those? "George W Bush liberals"?
