Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Twitter’s New Trans Speech Rules

Running a social media company sounds like a terrible job. Sure, you get to be really important and make a ton of money selling users’ private information to political consulting firms and presumably underwear manufacturers, but you also have to figure out how to avoid censorship in an industry where the business model is “hand a megaphone to a bunch of froth-mouthed rage-addicts and let them spend all day screaming every demon-thought that’s ever popped in their heads.” 
Such rage addicts seem more attracted to Twitter than to any other social media platform, so you might think the company would have more experience, and thus more expertise, at the delicate balancing act of defending free speech while policing vile and ugly language. However, with a recent tweak to their terms of service, Twitter has made it quite clear that it’s not in the business of creating a platform for people to exchange ideas without being cruel. Rather, it’s in the business of silencing conservative voices and exiling anyone who deviates from the new political-religious orthodoxy. (Read more.)
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