I understand why people are pleased with Trump's ban given the clear danger his tweeting posed. But we should be careful about cheerleading the unprecedented political power of unaccountable tech companies who hold a near monopoly on the distribution of information.
Both Twitter and Facebook knew which way the wind was blowing and they acted out of self-interest, as they always do. It's not about accuracy of information. Facebook, in monopolizing distribution and then strangling news orgs with its algorithms, has already proven that.
None of these platforms care about journalism or its norms, standards and values. They care only about money and power. They are unregulated, unlike the media (which is - to a greater or lesser degree depending on the country), and can do as they please.
They have created platforms that they don't seem to have the ability, or the will, to adequately police or moderate.
To accept that unelected, billionaire tech overlords should have the power to decide who does and who doesn't have access to the most powerful information platforms in human history is dangerous.
They are shrewd political actors also and there is a revolving door between politics and Silicon Valley - the potential for conflicts of interest is clear. They are US firms with huge international influence and they are beholden to US govt pressure.
Just one example: Facebook has a record of shutting down Palestinian accounts. static.theintercept.com/amp/facebook-s…
Twitter, too. middleeasteye.net/news/leading-p…
So all very well when they deplatform someone you disagree with - or act after the dangerous tweets of Donald Trump. But what about when they come for the people who you support?
Clamoring for them to do what we want with regard to particular individuals or groups - tweeting at @jack - does not solve the wider issues. Allowing them to make these decisions is not a longterm fix. It's the platforms themselves and how they are run: that's the problem.
Zuckerburg made a website to vote on whether college students were hot or not. Dorsey thought he'd invented a way for groups of friends to let each other know what they were up to via SMS.
And now we expect them to police the flow of global information? To sit in judgment about who gets heard and who doesn't? To rein in the huge destructive potential of their platforms? It's absurd.
So bye bye, Donald. A massive mole whacked. Now what about the mole holes?
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