It has been interesting over the last couple days where the "revelation" of what we have all known all along has come to light, that Twitter has indeed been shadow-banning accounts that they decided were not appropriate - which was predominantly the "conservative" voices out there. For years they denied this was happening, but since Musk has taken over, there has been a cleaning of house and in so doing, a lot of dirt is being uncovered.
Seems being "woke" doesn't mean having to be truthful.
Where's that high horse?
But, what can really be expected in this day and age? Also, they can make whatever decisions they want as despite what people seem to believe, Twitter was never a public space, and doesn't have to give anyone a voice if it chooses. No one owns their account there, no one has any rights whatsoever - everyone is at the mercy of the platform.
Mercy.
Not exactly what social platforms are known for.
It seems that despite spending tens of billions on Twitter, Musk still doesn't mind broadcasting the failings of what is now his company, even if it comes at a cost, and transparency in this day and age is costly. However, in a world where (especially digitally) the truth will eventually come out, perhaps this approach will be better in the longrun, rather than trying to cover it up and sweep it under the rug. This way, down the track he won't have to deal with the inevitable leaks where he knew about this, but didn't publicize it.
Cleaning the house isn't fun.
But it is better than living in a sty.
And it is better than having that fear of discovery down the track. Yet, many people don't seem to have that "down the track" thinking anymore, so they do what satisfies them in the moment, as if the future is not going to be affected by it.
We don’t shadow ban, and we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints
Jack Dorsey
Do you think Jack knew he was not telling the truth when he said this in 2018? I suspect he knew. But even if he didn't explicitly know, do you think he was unaware this entire time since? Highly unlikely - which means that even if he didn't know at the time, he then failed to do anything about it once he found out.
Trust.
Companies can't be trusted.
I am not sure when people are going to learn this, but no matter what the premise of the company might be, or what their slogan says, companies are companies - they are in it for profits and they are beholden to shareholders, not users. It doesn't matter if it is Twitter, Nike or Mitsubishi - first and foremost, their goal is to grow and protect shareholder wealth, and it doesn't matter much what they have to do in order to do just that. In the case of Twitter, as far as censoring accounts go, they haven't broken any laws, they have just broken the illusion that they are politically impartial - which is no surprise to anyone.
But, the "woke" will not care, because just like the companies they support, they work in their own self-interest too, protecting their opinions. They don't see anything wrong with censoring political voices, as long as it isn't "their political voice", as long as it is the voice of the enemy.
We are living in a world where information has value because it is only available to some people. In a world of informational transparency, the value of data is massively reduced, because there is little competitive advantage in it. Our privacy might be one reason we want to keep data hidden, but our privacy is only at the surface layer - below, everything we do is being collected, compiled and used against us. We just don't know how, most of the time.
The real concern here isn't what Twitter has been doing, but society in general where we are happy to suppress people who disagree with us, or make us feel uncomfortable, and we are happy to see them cancelled because of it. There is very little compassion in the world today and there is a distinct lack of mercy, especially in those who spend a lot of time on social platforms to get their dose of meaning in their life.
So woke - so very asleep.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
