Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig...
by AnimalMuppet on Thursday October 15, 2020 @02:23PM
(#24791925)
An "October surprise". A time-honored tradition in US presidential elections. Done by both sides. In the past, covered by all major news outlets.
Now if Twitter wants to not allow tweeting of October surprises, I suppose that's their business. But if so, block it for both sides.
I also think it's totally counterproductive for them to (try to) do so. Block links to the NY Post article? Great, but then what? Block links to the BBC article? To the HN discussion? To every random blogger who writes up a post about it, with links to the BBC article, the NY Post article, and the HN discussion? Twitter might be able to stay on top of that, but it's going to be hard, it's going to leak, and it's going to look really bad. It's going to give the story far more legs than it otherwise would have had (Streisand effect). It's going to spawn a whole bunch of new conspiracy theories, with Twitter as part of the bad guys. The net effect of all this is not going to be what Twitter wants...
Now if Twitter wants to not allow tweeting of October surprises, I suppose that's their business. But if so, block it for both sides.
I also think it's totally counterproductive for them to (try to) do so. Block links to the NY Post article? Great, but then what? Block links to the BBC article? To the HN discussion? To every random blogger who writes up a post about it, with links to the BBC article, the NY Post article, and the HN discussion? Twitter might be able to stay on top of that, but it's going to be hard, it's going to leak, and it's going to look really bad. It's going to give the story far more legs than it otherwise would have had (Streisand effect). It's going to spawn a whole bunch of new conspiracy theories, with Twitter as part of the bad guys. The net effect of all this is not going to be what Twitter wants...