72% of Americans say social media companies have too much political influence
Twitter set out to be the public square, <i>the</i> place where matters of importance are discussed by the people. I think JD was serious about that, still is.<p>The problem is that Twitter is a <i>private</i> public square. That contradiction is not something JD can accept, because &quot;<i>his salary depends on his not understanding it</i>.” It isn&#x27;t reconcilable.<p>We don&#x27;t have many examples, in modern times, of of non-companies filling roles like Twitter of FB fill. But, that doesn&#x27;t mean they can&#x27;t exist.<p>The WWW itself is a platform for speech and is a &quot;public square.&quot; Wikipedia is another example. A really good example, if you think about it. If wikipedia <i>was</i> a commercial company, imagine the issues they&#x27;d be facing... all that authority as an information source.<p>Meanwhile, we really need to consider the economics of companies like twitter &amp; facebook. Does FB really need 50k employees and a $70bn budget to provide the world with facebook? This isn&#x27;t a question you could ask about Toyota.<p>If Facebook fell off the edge of the disc, we would very quickly have a replacement. People wouldn&#x27;t lack for social media. If Toyota fell off the disc, we would have fewer cars. Rebuilding that capacity would require real resources.. Until then, we&#x27;d lack for cars.<p>This last part is key. Commercial viability is nearly a non-issue. Social media can be viable on a tiny fraction of its current revenue. This explodes the number of possible actions.<p>I really hope we&#x27;re not heading for a regulatory shitshow... I hope, but I can&#x27;t say I&#x27;m optimistic.