Twitter is Trust as a Service (TaaS). Twitter is trying to sell its audience on the idea we can entrust it to host important conversations and, to an extent, acts as a "trust broker" in the sense that conversations happening on Twitter can make or break trust in institutions.
Historically, we had what is now a 'Legacy Media' that brokered trust by telling us who we could and could not trust. Now Legacy Media has destroyed its own reputation by failing to adapt to the increasing levels of transparency that came with the Internet.
Manufacturing Consent and its Propaganda Model were predicated on the premise that a centrally controlled media landscape determined the flow of discourse.
That is not to imply the Propaganda Model is defunct, but there is a new paradigm emerging.
When audiences are presented with a free platform that lets regular people directly interact with information and prominent figures, how can a decrepit media hope to compete?
Legacy Media simply can't keep up with the social media landscape and with each passing year, such outlets act more as overfunded Twitter curation tools than actual disseminators of news and information. Not to mention the lag.
Twitter is itself working to increase the level of trust users have in it through releasing the #TwitterFiles which has shed light on transgressions that occurred under previous ownership and simultaneously signaled which institutions aren't worthy of public trust.
Via polls conducted by @elonmusk Twitter users can to an extent influence company policy. This is in contrast to how other companies operate and different from prior ownership implementing vague politically driven policies like the 'misgendering' ban while ignoring child content.
A large burden inherited by New Twitter is a technical product that still dishes out punishments using arbitrary criteria. #FreedomFridays have been a fun tradition where some accounts that were unfairly banned get reinstated.
Long term, there'll need to be some changes. Some ideas are:
- Fix the bug where some accounts are unable to appeal
- Remove permanent suspensions (or require human review to issue a permanent ban)
- Safeguards to mitigate mass reporting campaigns
I've written 2 articles arguing the existence of a Racial Industrial Complex:
- The Racial Industrial Complex: An Introduction & The Legacy Media's Grift
- The Racial Industrial Complex: Universities, Fake Degrees, & Woke Racism
Other articles might be cited but there are the two primary ones where I discuss the RIC.
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First, I will provide a definition:
“Racial Industrial Complex” (RIC) refers to an industry that has monetized racial discourse as entities have recognized that Americans, and human beings in general, respond strongly to perceived incidents of racial injustice.
4 terms that describe phenomena I've observed amongst the Woke Left:
- Wokam's Razor
- Progressive Fragility
- Projective Altruism
- Bigotry of Good Intentions
Wokam's Razor: If an opposition authority presents itself to challenge a pre-existing consensus, shave off that authority to restore the state of 'expert consensus.’
Let's examine an under-discussed reason Twitter's “Visibility Filtering” method of censorship, more commonly known as shadowbanning, as revealed by the #TwitterFiles was, and potentially still is, so damaging.
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Although a lot of focus has (for justifiable reasons) been given to larger accounts like @libsoftiktok, @DrJBhattacharya, and @charliekirk11, let's take a step back from recognizing large accounts being banned, tagged, and censored.
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Think about the zeitgeist of 2012-2020. The legacy media and establishment politicians would have you believe it was a massive swing back and forth from one side to another. What if it wasn't?
Going to work with @BIPOCracism to document some of the "Wokesgiving" sentiments this year.
I'll be using this tweet to start a thread where I attach Woke Media takes on Thanksgiving and @BIPOCracism will be finding Thanksgiving-themed hate tweets.
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"An Asian-American with a 25% chance of admission would have a 35% chance if he were white, a 75% chance if he were Hispanic, and a 95% chance if he were African American."
If @Harvard removed ‘race’ as a factor in admissions the following would happen:
Some might remember this story where an Indian student faked being black (akin to @SenWarren faking being Native American) to gain acceptance into medical school. nypost.com/2015/04/12/min…