And yet, you seem to have managed to use the internet for years without ever having to read his stuff. So what exactly is the case for banning him? It seems the standard tools (follow/unfollow/mute/block) are sufficient for people being able to avoid him.
Do we really want social media monopolists and search engines to decide on what is truth and what isn't? What makes them the authority?
Obviously Twitter, as a private company, is allowed to ban whoever they want. I just find it sad that people don't find it grounds enough to switch to a more open network.
Maybe in part because such networks don't really exist atm, perhaps in part because of government regulation?
> Do we really want social media monopolists and search engines to decide on what is truth and what isn't?
Judging by HN and reddit threads, this is exactly what people want. In fairness, it's human nature. The vast majority of people are okay with censoring media that they personally find disgusting.
> I just find it sad that people don't find it grounds enough to switch to a more open network.
They don't have many other options, and the ones that are available are likely to follow suit. I don't know if I'd go so far as to call Twitter/Facebook non-competitive, but there really aren't great alternatives. The community is the draw, and that takes time to build. Also, it really isn't much of an exaggeration to say you're not truly a full member of society without social media. A startling number of people I know basically don't recognize that you exist without Facebook.
Can you name me a single government regulation that would prevent a decentralized twitter from forming?
Let's not just hand-wave our blame for the government.
There have been many, many, many attempts to create a more open, decentralized version of Twitter, Facebook, and various Blogs. But they've all failed because there just simply wasn't enough incentive for people to leave these popular sites to go to a random site, for a value proposition that most don't really care to understand (open and federated vs run by one company)
I live in Germany. Here, for example, the government threatens to fine companies who don't censor "hate speech" - with no way to appeal and no exact definitions. So even if you just operate your own node, you might be liable for fines if you don't censor at the whim of the government.
Maybe a decentralized Twitter, with some kind of magic anonymization that is usable for normal people, could work around that. But then I guess decentralized approaches never achieved a good performance so far?
A decentralized alternative seems like the only hope, but it might be very difficult or impossible to implement.
You can easily familiarise yourself with his history of abusive behavior towards innocent and undeserving people as well as his chronic incitements of violence.
Do we really want social media monopolists and search engines to decide on what is truth and what isn't? What makes them the authority?
Obviously Twitter, as a private company, is allowed to ban whoever they want. I just find it sad that people don't find it grounds enough to switch to a more open network.
Maybe in part because such networks don't really exist atm, perhaps in part because of government regulation?