For what it's worth, my day job is running a reasonably large discussion forum (whirlpool.net.au) which is relatively famous for its heavy-handed moderation. We aren't shy on banning people and we stamp down on trolls hard.
But I don't see the parallel between that kind of moderation and a firehose like Twitter. My experience of twitter is almost entirely defined by the people I follow. Yes there's junk and the occasional troll, but I'm an adult capable of making observations about the properties of any "bad" content I might see. Expecting other people to sanitise my experience for me is unhealthy and doomed to failure.
> My experience of twitter is almost entirely defined by the people I follow
This is probably, broadly speaking, false.
Maybe it was once true, and maybe it should be true, but I guess it’s more likely that most people (including you) see and interact with all the people you follow, interacting with all the people they follow (retweets, etc.) interacting with all the people they follow.
3 degrees of separation.
If you never saw any tweets other than the immediate people you follow tweeting to each other, then perhaps… but, that’s not how twitter works.
…and then on top of that, how did you end up following those people? Personal friends? Or perhaps, via twitters moderated hash tags?
That’s different moderation, not no moderation.
What you’re describing is something closer to signal/WhatsApp groups; different, much less moderated personal groups. Sure. Good for what it is…
> Maybe it was once true, and maybe it should be true
Which is pretty much exactly the point I was making in my original contribution to this thread.
Yes to the degrees of separation. That's the point of following people—to be exposed to their curation. I followed many people because they were friends of friends; I've unfollowed many people because I wasn't impressed with the people they interacted with, even if I had no problem with them.
But I don't see the parallel between that kind of moderation and a firehose like Twitter. My experience of twitter is almost entirely defined by the people I follow. Yes there's junk and the occasional troll, but I'm an adult capable of making observations about the properties of any "bad" content I might see. Expecting other people to sanitise my experience for me is unhealthy and doomed to failure.