Illegal material aside, if someone posts something on Twitter that really disturbs me, I can block them. Twitter could create custom filters and let people opt in to them, too. But I want my technology to empower me, not infantalize me with paternalistic "protections."
I'm all for moderated communities. It's important for people to be able to create and define communities with their own rules and norms. But Twitter should be the value-neutral technology on which those communities are built. Empower us to create the world we want, don't force your vision on us.
Unfortunately, I think they feel responsible for the content now that they are actively picking what we see in our algorithmic feeds. The algorithmic feed was the first step in disempowering their users, and it logically leads to increasing censorship.
>I cannot imagine a platform like Twitter being useful without some kind of curation. I realize that blocking the NYPost is an opinionated move in some ways.
Blocking NYPost is not curating the extreme content you state. Your argument is an attempt to imply that wanting the NYPost is akin to wanting the other.
You should trust other people to have the same ability as yourself to evaluate information.
Wouldn´t it be better to have two options when
you log in to Twitter? Safe space Twitter and
wild west Twitter.
Then all sensitive people can log into a pink
bubble and the rest of us can enjoy uncensored
reality. Most people should realize that very
few would choose the pink bubble.
I do want Twitter to curate things, by filtering out news from biased sources with questionable alliances and borderline journalistic practices. I want them to be transparent about it, and if I don't like the way they do it I'll go elsewhere. To me, that is the free market -- not forcing Twitter to amplify all voices indiscriminately. If Twitter was the only game in town I'd feel differently, but that is far from the case.
I think most really do want some level of curation. Do you want child porn on your feed? Endless ads for fake Viagra? Animal abuse?
I cannot imagine a platform like Twitter being useful without some kind of curation. I realize that blocking the NYPost is an opinionated move in some ways.
They were transparent about the reason, and I agreed with their move. That's all I ask. There are plenty of other places with more relaxed standards, and they're still available to me when I really want to drink from the firehose.
Should HN stop being "silly" and moderating submissions?