Posted on 11/05/2019 8:42:07 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey recently announced that the social media platform will no longer run political advertisements of any kind.
Twitter is a private company and is free to adopt whatever policies it wants, but this decision is not the win for civil discourse and our “democratic infrastructure” that Dorsey claims it is.
Defending his decision, Dorsey drew a Manichean dichotomy between meritoriously “earned” media and misleading paid content.
That dichotomy is shallow and misleading.
While he is right that, absent paid political advertising, “a political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet,” Dorsey does not ask the obvious next question: How do people go about “earning” Twitter followers?
The politicians who tend to dominate Twitter come in two varieties: long-established officeholders in positions of leadership like Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who has 3.3 million followers, and firebrands with a feel for the zeitgeist like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who has 5.7 million followers.
The reality is that without the ability to pay for advertisements, new voices will have a hard time breaking in unless they are willing to engage in the flame wars and mudslinging that attract followers on Twitter.
If you are a relatively moderate congressman or senator without a major leadership role, the Twitter-verse is unlikely to embrace you with open arms.
Jason Timm, a linguist at University of New Mexico, recently analyzed the Twitter following and voting records of every senator in the 115th Congress. He found that the closer a candidate is to the political center, the fewer Twitter followers they are likely to have.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailysignal.com ...
PING!
I suspect that Twitter will decide that tweets by Trump and members of his administration are actually political ads and will be banned. I’m just sayin’
“Jason Timm, a linguist at University of New Mexico, recently analyzed the Twitter following and voting records of every senator in the 115th Congress. He found that the closer a candidate is to the political center, the fewer Twitter followers they are likely to have...”
Is there a downside here?
He had me at “Manichean dichotomy”
I believe what you are just sayin, is 💯% correct.
“Twitter is a private company and is free to adopt whatever policies it wants, “
Twitter has previously claimed to be a platform.
Here they are claiming to be a producer/publisher.
Twitter smells like a public utility from here....censoring speech in the public square....never ends well...
Exactly
Once the November 2020 election is wrapped up...one of the top ten things (with the GOP back in charge of the House) that I suspect will occur...hearings to transform Twitter into a Utility (under government control). If you thought they were screwed up now....it’ll be ten times worse as a utility operation.
I hate the idea of these tech giants becoming public utilities—but big private companies who have de facto control of the public square while censoring speech is totally unacceptable—and they must be punished for it.
There is no good solution imho.
This actually favors Democrats. Far more liberal “charities” are registered with the IRS than conservative ones, thanks to the Obama White House denying them nonprofit status.
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