Over the last few years, I’ve endeavored to be more politically active. My primary platform is Twitter, since it was Trump’s own platform. I’m able to directly respond to his messages, and directly interact with his supporters.
Over time, I’ve built a fair sized following, which is useful for starting discussions on a topic. I’m able to share my concerns about the issues of the day.
“1D3_16312” by Indiana Stan is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
Today I spent the day listening to Sondland testify. There were a number of revelations, and I would like to be discussing them. Unfortunately, I made a stupid comment that violated Twitter’s policy, and I’m blocked for 7 days.
Yes, I broke their policy. Yes, I believe they have the legal right to enforce that policy.
Separately, with more and more political discourse being done online, what is the larger impact to our Democracy if we allow private platforms with private rules to become our primary locations for national discourse?
Corporate policies are unilaterally defined by companies, with minimal say from the users of the platform.
I participate in a private platform because that’s where the people are. There are decentralized platforms like Mastodon, but it would require that We The People chose to move there.
With decentralized solutions like Mastodon, you can either run your own instance (Pod), or you can join one run by others. Pods connect together in a way that allows them to operate as a single platform.
It should be possible to implement content filtering at the pod level if desired, but Mastodon users always have the option of changing pods or even running their own.
There is no need for a company like Twitter to be in a position to filter or block political speech anymore. All we need to do is more.
