🧵 The Facebook Oversight Board will announce its decision on whether to uphold the platform’s post-January 6 ban on President Trump tomorrow.
It will have momentous consequences for political speech around the world. But for countering disinfo, it’s somewhat of a distraction.
It will have momentous consequences for political speech around the world. But for countering disinfo, it’s somewhat of a distraction.
A few years ago the main thoroughfare near my neighborhood got realigned, and the county put in some nice landscaping, which quickly got neglected and overgrown with weeds.
A little sapling started growing and by the fall, had grown into quite a plucky, woody weed tree, thriving amidst a bed of poison ivy that Jake, to my dismay, relishes walking through on our morning strolls.
(This story has a point, I promise.)
(This story has a point, I promise.)
Being the good citizen that I am, I reported the unsightly weeds to the county. They dispatched an industrial lawn mowing crew that buzzed over the whole area, leaving a stump where our weedy sapling once stood and chopping up the poison ivy.
Needless to say, the next spring, the weed tree came back with a vengeance. The poison ivy got more ropey. And adding insult to injury, the sad little evergreen shrubs they put in got a bag worm infestation. (Do yourself a favor and don’t look up what bag worms are before bed 🤢)
I continue to report the overgrowth, now spilling onto the sidewalk. The sapling is now about 8 feet tall. The work it will take to get the area cleaned up is now significantly greater than previous years: the tree will have to be dug up, the weeds ripped out, new landscaping...
....planted and maintained. Gardens don’t just grow; they require upkeep. The same is true of a social network.
In this scenario, Trump is the weed tree that is lobbed off on the surface but has a network of roots underground that will keep him (and his rhetoric) coming back.
In this scenario, Trump is the weed tree that is lobbed off on the surface but has a network of roots underground that will keep him (and his rhetoric) coming back.
We’re going to be paying a lot of attention to what the Oversight Board decides tomorrow, and autocrats around the world will be especially interested.
But we should be clear that the networks that gave rise to Trump & allowed January 6 to happen are much broader than one man.
But we should be clear that the networks that gave rise to Trump & allowed January 6 to happen are much broader than one man.
The systemic issues that got us to this point—such as the monetization of attention and emotion and the use of psychographic targeting in political ads—aren’t going to evaporate because the 45th president can no longer post on Facebook.
Disinfo may not get as easy a lift from him, but will still exist. We need more systemic fixes to the problems we’re facing, otherwise we’re going to keep playing whack-a-troll with every major informational crisis we encounter. It’s not sustainable or scalable. It’s dangerous.
Those are my bedtime thoughts. See you at 9am! Jankowicz out. ✌🏻
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
