Makes sense given the current financials. The way you make money in social media is to get people pissed off and arguing with each other. Preventing someone from seeing things that make them mad is just leaving money on the table that they can't afford anymore.
Going to have to agree with this. A semi-related anecdote- I spend an embarrassing amount of time on a music message board with a probably ~97% American user base. It's dedicated to a specific American band but is bizarrely active considering there has not been a UI update of note for maybe 20 years. Parts of the UI have always been frustrating but the culture within the community was palpable and a lot of people grew daily posting habits.
With the 2016 election came a ton of division. Trolls were allowed to run wild. This never really ended. Through the pandemic, insurrection and everything that's followed it's been utter and absolute chaos. Trolls with multiple handles everywhere trying to flood this clearly left-leaning board with far right ideals or purely create chaos.
The owner wasn't hearing the frustration expressed by users though, just the increased ad revenue from engagement largely driven by emotion and anger. Thus why he has let it fester. Twitter seems an extreme variation of this to me, and I foolishly thought Twitter with Elon would do something better with moderation initially
My stance on moderation is that if it is not illegal the user should block accounts posting things they don't want to see. The algorithm is designed to create an echo chamber for you and will eventually do so given the right signals.
Referring to my anecdote- how is that navigated when you have you have 100+ troll accounts with dozens handles though? User is left spending a significant portion of their time blocking accounts. On the board I mentioned there is the added issue of still being able to see blocked users get quoted by those who you don't block.
Also I understand Musk's position in spirit but, IME it isn't a sustainable or beneficial approach for society
Moderation is a double edged sword, I get Musk stance, he is just pro freedom.
Of course bots and state's funded campaigns on internet are to be hunted because they prevent everyone's freedom but beside that people should be free to say the dumbest possible things. Whatever it hurts someone else, that's the only way to make people change their mind.
I want you to read your post again, but keep in mind that the American population tends to vote around 50-50 Democrat-Republican in each election. Instead of simply assuming that you're reading posts from the other 50% who also want to have a voice, you're jumping into weird conspiracy theories.
Choose to believe what you'd like. Economist isn't reporting on this it's a silly little message board.
100% everyone should have a voice. That said, harassment and abuse shouldn't be tolerated on the internet if we don't tolerate it easily out in the real world. I don't use the word troll lightly, people were getting stalked and doxxed.
I left facebook because it became a cesspool of memes and toxic political opinions about 8 years ago, and so did everyone I know. I never used twitter but I can certainly attest that you will bleed users if you push that, and probably users with higher earning powers (more valuable to advertisers).
