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I don't think this is ... necessarily the wrong thing.

Acknowledging that it is a difficult problem and you don't know how to solve it might be better than thinking you know how to solve it and doing something worse.

People are also quick to blame platforms without acknowledging that a lot of people are awful, the venue in which they practice their awfulness isn't necessarily at fault but it's easier to blame a thing which could be destroyed (religion, organization, social network, etc) than to acknowledge that this is a feature of humanity.




"the problem is unsolvable nothing can be done" is obviously false, because things were not always this divisive. Of course it's people's fault that twitter is awful, but twitter isn't in charge of people, it's in charge of twitter. Investors won't take "not our problem" as an answer here.


> things were not always this divisive

Um… *gestures vaguely towards all of human history*


all of this is true.

but those people had no such platform before, maybe not thinking about the consequences because "growth" wasn't a great idea after all.


>but those people had no such platform before

They absolutely did. Twitter et al. just change the shape of who you socialize with, humans weren't in solitary confinement before the Internet. The platform was more local more community based for example there were often awful people at church.


You're choosing an overly generous definition of platform.

A surly neighbor, a dreaded personage at church, has limits on their influence based on simple geography. They experience pushback against their behavior via ostracism (exclusion from events and groups) and non-verbal cues (facial expressions, body language).

The same type of character on a massive online platform has the opportunity to reach a much broader audience, aided by engagement-focused algorithms that can suggest similarly cantankerous personalities to commiserate with. There is less opportunity for negative feedback against their opinions and actions, because there are seldom any "unlike" buttons, and bans and mutes are usually invisible to the originator of the speech: they can opt to interpret silence as acceptance.


Thank you for saying this.

Twitter and similar platforms aren't just bigger versions of a soap box in a town square, or gossip circles in a small community. They're categorically different things, with categorically different effects on society.




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