In the article, Jack links the Twitter thread wherein he reflects on a specific controversial ban. He only links the first tweet in the thread, but clearly still intends it to be read long-form and stands by his prior reasoning despite any principles enumerated in this article itself.
In the thread’s second tweet, Jack wrote:
> We faced an extraordinary and untenable circumstance, forcing us to focus all of our actions on public safety. Offline harm as a result of online speech is demonstrably real, and what drives our policy and enforcement above all.
In the current article, he doesn’t address this topic at all. In fact, he focuses very much on eliminating barriers to serving content which, again according to his own thread, was inciting offline violence.
He proposes solutions which instead put users in control of moderating whether their feed is full of incitement to violence. In other words, he’s proposing that the people who would be incited to violence are the ones who should moderate their exposure to such incitement, without interference, and suggests that this would encourage healthier dialogue, with greater transparency, reducing the influence of powerful governments and businesses on acceptable speech.
What happens offline vanished from his analysis, but it can’t be ignored. If all OtherPlatformBesidesTwitter users have a free hand in deciding what OPBT serves them, and it’s acknowledged that content on OBPT can pose safety risks to other people completely off-platform…
… what Jack is suggesting here is that the incitement to violence should be facilitated without hindrance, and the potential victims should just tune it out because it’s not their preferred content.
Somewhat amusingly at an emotional distance, that’s almost exactly Twitter with human moderation removed. More darkly, what he’s proposing is a recruitment tool for literally any wonder imaginable, no matter how much it would also be an unspeakable horror.
I share most of Jack’s stated principles, as a former anarchist who mostly hasn’t shifted values apart from some more nuanced analysis of power. It’s unforgivable that he’s using that analysis to promote a model of social media that puts the onus on platforms to serve those eager for violence and gives no consideration for anyone who doesn’t want to be their victim.
And in case I’ve minced words, lol… I’m very much saying that Jack is finally coming out and admitting his goal is a social media specifically for nazis, stalkers, and other monsters whose victims either never escape or suffer lifelong trauma if they do escape.
Also, say what you want about Elon Musk, but at least he doesn’t have much pretense about twirling his evil mustache. Jack doesn’t even seem to want to figure out what side anything is on. I take that back: that’s his whole thesis, “seem” is too mealymouthed.
While dunking on previous Twitter staff when they enacted that very precise policy (some moderation actions were shown to be reach limitations in the Twitter Files nothingburger).
Don't think because Musk can construct grammatically correct sentences he has any kind of coherent vision for Twitter.
Musk is dimmer than Jack but that has the benefit of being more obvious at showing his same motives. Case in point: he’s already doing what Jack proposed in the article.
In the thread’s second tweet, Jack wrote:
> We faced an extraordinary and untenable circumstance, forcing us to focus all of our actions on public safety. Offline harm as a result of online speech is demonstrably real, and what drives our policy and enforcement above all.
In the current article, he doesn’t address this topic at all. In fact, he focuses very much on eliminating barriers to serving content which, again according to his own thread, was inciting offline violence.
He proposes solutions which instead put users in control of moderating whether their feed is full of incitement to violence. In other words, he’s proposing that the people who would be incited to violence are the ones who should moderate their exposure to such incitement, without interference, and suggests that this would encourage healthier dialogue, with greater transparency, reducing the influence of powerful governments and businesses on acceptable speech.
What happens offline vanished from his analysis, but it can’t be ignored. If all OtherPlatformBesidesTwitter users have a free hand in deciding what OPBT serves them, and it’s acknowledged that content on OBPT can pose safety risks to other people completely off-platform…
… what Jack is suggesting here is that the incitement to violence should be facilitated without hindrance, and the potential victims should just tune it out because it’s not their preferred content.
Somewhat amusingly at an emotional distance, that’s almost exactly Twitter with human moderation removed. More darkly, what he’s proposing is a recruitment tool for literally any wonder imaginable, no matter how much it would also be an unspeakable horror.
I share most of Jack’s stated principles, as a former anarchist who mostly hasn’t shifted values apart from some more nuanced analysis of power. It’s unforgivable that he’s using that analysis to promote a model of social media that puts the onus on platforms to serve those eager for violence and gives no consideration for anyone who doesn’t want to be their victim.