Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation
Re: &quot;Hereʻs the answer everyone knows: there IS no principled reason for banning spam.&quot;<p>The author is making the mistake that &quot;free speech&quot; has been about saying whatever you want and whenever you want. This was never the case, including at the time of the <i>founding</i> of the U.S. constitution. There has always been a tolerance window which defines what you can say and what you can&#x27;t say without repercussions, often and usually enforced by society and societal norms.<p>The 1st amendment was always about limiting what the government can do to curtail speech, but, as we know, there are plenty of other actors in the system that have and continue to moderate communications. The problem with society today is that those in power have gotten really bad at defining a reasonable tolerance window, and in fact, political actors have worked hard to <i>shift</i> the tolerance window to benefit them and harm their opponents.<p>So, he makes this mistake and then builds on it by claiming that censoring spam violates free speech principles, but that&#x27;s not really true. And then he tries to equate controversy with spam, saying it&#x27;s not so much about the content itself but how it affects users. And that, I think leads into another major problem in society.<p>There has always been a tension between someone getting reasonably versus unreasonably offended by something. However, in today&#x27;s society, thanks in part to certain identitarian ideologies, along with a culture shift towards the worship or idolization of victimhood, we&#x27;ve given <i>tremendous</i> power to a few people to shut down speech by being offended, and vastly broadened what we consider reasonable offense versus unreasonable offense.<p>Both of these issues are ultimately cultural, but, at the same time, social media platforms have enough power to influence culture. If the new Twitter can define a less insane tolerance window and give more leeway for people to speak even if a small but loud or politically motivated minority of people get offended, then they will have succeeded in improving the culture and in improving content moderation.<p>And, of course, there is a third, and major elephant in the room. The government has been caught collaborating with tech companies to censor speech indirectly. This is a concrete violation of the first amendment, and, assuming Republicans gain power this election cycle, I hope we see government officials prosecuted in court over it.