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The pernicious rise of conspiracy theory—accessible, attractive, violent—is arguably the biggest threat to open societies today. This threat is most acute in the US. Twitter's choice to deplatform aggressively, including Trump, is the right one, no matter what Merkel & Navaly say
Open societies must defend themselves against closed systems of political thought. Conspiracy theory is a closed system of thought, inaccessible to corrective feedback. When the threat gains strength in unprecedented ways, our defensive mechanisms must adjust.
Deplatforming violent conspiracy theory is not "censorship"—what we are witnessing is an attempt to push Qanon back into the fringe, to ostracize it, a bit like extreme displays of violence or pornography; it remains accessible & legal, but is harder to get to, harder to spread.
Let's use the word "censorship" with a little more caution and nuance. Think first.
Excellent question. Last week it was not politically viable to have anybody other than large tech companies make that call. They rose to the occasion. We now need to have a long, careful conversation about how to assess and improve their emergency measure. https://twitter.com/thorstenbenner/status/1348998230395281409?s=20
Fair, late. But better late than not at all. And arguably it needed a cataclysmic event like the storming of the Capitol to enable a decisive response. I thought that yesterday's discussion on Pod Save America was helpful https://crooked.com/podcast/tweets-and-reconciliation/ https://twitter.com/daithaigilbert/status/1348991455046598657?s=20
David Kaye makes an excellent point here. Most of those citing Merkel's critique of Twitter don't appear to understand what they are inviting https://twitter.com/davidakaye/status/1349000595609448450?s=20
Or: Q is now a national security problem.
An excellent short essay here, don't miss it: https://arcdigital.media/qanon-woke-up-the-real-deep-state-72bbfcb79488
An excellent short essay here, don't miss it: https://arcdigital.media/qanon-woke-up-the-real-deep-state-72bbfcb79488
Shorter Merkel on Twitter's Trump ban: the problem isn't the decision; the problem is that a company made the decision, not the government.
And that take, in my view, is simply naive in the context of last week's events and the US political situation. https://twitter.com/pwnallthethings/status/1349006395136503808?s=20
And that take, in my view, is simply naive in the context of last week's events and the US political situation. https://twitter.com/pwnallthethings/status/1349006395136503808?s=20
And just for the record, I've been fiercely critical of Twitter in the past. But credit where credit is due. https://twitter.com/RidT/status/925697039631044608?s=20
This morning it sunk in for me just how misguided, naive, and counterproductive it was for Angela Merkel to weigh in on U.S. technology companies (among others) trying to help minimize the risk of political violence in the United States, at a most critical moment.
