Money and power has found a way to hack the first amendment. Algorithms are amplifying the most inflammatory messages on both sides to increase engagement.

Is this the endgame of the attention economy? If I show you a picture of a cat and evidence of an existential threat, which are you most likely to pay real attention to?

The black box is always going to optimize for the worst aspects of humanity. The best aspects simply aren’t worth enough money.

Money and power has always hacked the first amendment. Before the internet, a few corporations controlled all media a person would be exposed to.

The Electoral College and First-Past-The-Post distort the voters' interest in favour of a two-party system that encourages dogmatic thinking;

US voters want to express themselves but they lack information and critical thinking;

Not all information is good; Journalism is dying and the advertising business distorts people's perceptions for profit;

Taxes are needed but the lucid, rational discourse needed to make good public policy is absent;

It is hard to cultivate the citizenry in the above conditions; the political system is starved of courageous and intelligent politicians; panderers have a significant demographic to exploit.

tldr: US public discourse has attained a toxic equilibrium. But it is profitable for some.

I have absolutely no idea why this is downvoted. My sympathies.

As a Jewish person I’d say that none of this political polarization is beneficial for us. It’s not that one side has intrinsically safer qualities for Jews.

With the work of ADL and many prominent Jewish figures in the past century, anti-semitism had kind of a special status where it’s taboo even when it’s very nuanced, on both the left and right sides of the aisle.

It’s drowning in the cultural discourse now. When 70 million voters are labeled “racist” - or at least supporting “racist policies” - the word loses its deterrence altogether.

the aclu was pretty much built out of support from the jewish community and jewish lawyers who understood that free expression is the strongest protection any minority has against the state and will of the of the majority. the rights i enjoy today exist in a large part because of their tireless work and they have my eternal gratitude. bad ideas never go away, though the words and the arguments for them may change. we cannot censor away the problem, the only defense is a vigorous and open forum of debate where everything can be challenged.

America used to be an explicitly racist county where the majority of voters supported bans on interracial marriage and segregation in schools as recently as the 1960s. There's nothing absurd or unlikely about racist voters being a large fraction of the country.

How about doing a thought experiment for a minute?

Trump told what are generally considered incorrect opinions on corona virus prevention. Eg: Hydroxy Chloroquine works, masks don't and so on...

His followers then parroted and posted these comments on social media and were promptly defunded, suspended and even banned for breaking Eula terms. Because Covid is serious and far too important to risk endangering others lives with misinformation like that...fair enough.

The campaign rolls on only now a significant portion of Trump's most vocal supporters are no longer able to voice their support and encourage people to vote for him due to being punished for spreading false info that Trump told them regarding Covid, or is that the real reason? Maybe the plan was to silence the right's voice all along but Covid presented itself at an oppertune time, the left leaning social media companies took full advantage and Trump and his followers walked right into the trap!

Could that be why right wing supporters might want to find a new forum to express themselves? Somewhere that they wont have their voices taken away right before an election that they feel passionate about?

Just a different thought from an outside observer with no skin in the game.

Look for actual polls, the belief that HCQ works and masks don't are in minority among Republicans, same with most of them having never heard of Qanon, the proud Boys or the boogaloo (which is more a meme than what was depicted in msm) These positions are inflated by the MSM to make right wingers look like crazy lunatics.

Look at the polls huh? You must think I'm dumber than a sac of hammers if You think I'm gona believe another one of them.(tounge in cheek)

Most of the vocal support for political candidates comes from the minority of voters, on both sides. That doesn't change the situation.

The point is wether real or not there is a perception that powers that control social media are activist, woke or whatever other lable You want to give them.

These are private companies, right wing supporters do not believe in heavy handed government, so what else are they to do but find new venues to expresd their views? Do You realky expect them to just shut up and take it? That will never happen.

Social media is neither Left nor Right leaning, nor are the rules. But if the people enforcing said rules have bias, then problems arise, isn't that the point BLM was making about the Police?

Why would FB and Twitter be plotting to "silence the right's voice?"

There's plenty of opinion out there that the leadership of these companies themselves are right leaning, even if the average silicon valley employee isn't. I don't know.

But maybe they are also just hoping to be neutral. Maybe it's good business to not alienate half of your marketplace. Maybe there's some aspect of genuine principle there. If you believe that can't exist, how is it possible that right leaning state governments ever can verify the election in favor of a left leaning candidate? I'm naive in so many ways, but I need some hope to stay alive.

Except for Peter Thiel and possibly Musk, what silicon valley big-shot is not (very) explicitly left-wing?

That very much depends on the issue in question. Most of them are pro-gay rights, for example, because that is either a win or neutral for people they care about but if you’re talking about issues which have a direct financial impact (tax rates, corporate liability, privacy or workers rights, etc.) you’ll unsurprisingly find big differences. When you look at the money that the big tech company PACs spend it tends to skew towards whoever is in power or promises the least regulation, like most other industries.

Not really, just a thought experiment.

Truth is I can still see both sides of the political argument, possibly even more so the libratarian point of view, which is a fairly safe place to be ATM.

I believe for bad or worse though that many people have gotten caught up in the frenzy a bit too much during this election cycle and have made morality comprimising decisions on both sides. Maybe it's the Rona driving it, after all so many people have died from it, and the US went to war over 911. Rona is literally exponentially worse as far as the death toll goes, so IDK what is to come but emotions are raw for sure.

I have tried to stay out of the discussions, (taken Dang's advice and waited for things to cool down) then a hit job story about another platform comes out like this one and tries to politicize Parler. So unfortunately I got sucked into the politics too and foolishly weighed in.

Twitter spent a long time trying not to take action against posters, for all kinds of abuse and libel. What happened is that finally the endless lying hit a subject which personally mattered to those running the companies.

I'm sure they do want a forum to express their views and claim they're silenced. But they need to stop and think about why everyone else has deemed them so toxic.

Oh but wait!! I was wrong it wasn't the HCL and masks after all.

You're right about hitting a subject they cared about..that's right now I remember it was HB's laptop story that brought about the bannings.

Check and Mate I guess. Good luck sorting that mess out, hopefully You get a few weeks rest after the Georgia runnoffs before the campaigns start up again but I fear the media has found a cash cow in political outrage and will be milking it for every drop from now until the endof time(or twitter).