I agree that this is the future. I even feel US politics have suffered from being hoisted onto a global stage. When everyone on the internet (globe) can weigh in on or muck with the politics of your smaller community (country or state) you’re going to get into situations that make it hard to practically make decisions and run a country. One of the foundational principles of the US the ability to justifiably oppress minority factions for the good of the majority, but checked by systems of power distribution so that it’s not a simply mob rule and limited so as not to impinge on a set of inalienable rights afforded to all citizens. Yet on the global theatre the assumption is that minority opinions now take precedence over the majority. And what’s worse, 100 people screaming on twitter now has the same impact as 200,000 matching on Washington (to be clear, 200k marching on Washington is significant and should matter, 200 people on twitter should not).
So what? Well now when we need to oppress minority factions more than ever in the face of a public health crisis and tell people sorry suck it up you live in American where the majority says to mask up and get vaccinated if you want to be in public, we “for some reason” at critical moments in curbing the spread of the pandemic fumble around for months on end because a few anti-vexers all of a sudden have infinite civil liberties and a global platform (note, one that they didn't have when we solved previous public health crises). My fear is that we’ve become a society of “piss off I can do what I want” rather than one of calculated and ideally minimized oppression.
I also don’t understand as a society why we have to hold platforms accountable for content. If the problem is a bunch of illicit material showing up, implement KYC requirements so that individuals are exposed legally to the consequences of posting illegal material. Anonymity is a tool/privilege to be used, not abused, and distinctly not a fundamental human right in the US. Make the default less anonymous (but still private, that is something we’re supposed to care about constitutionally) and I suspect a lot of content moderation problems go away.
> 100 people screaming on twitter now has the same impact as 200,000 matching on Washington
It doesn't, though, unless at least one of those 100 has a giant following, but “one person with a media megaphone is louder than 100,000 without” isn't new, its older than radio competing with newspapers.
I believe a group took a look at how viral topics and memes emerged on twitter and simply having something like 50-100 people participate in your hashtag or retweet some content was enough to land you on trending. Their conclusion was that twitter disproportionately represents reality. Wish I could recall where I read this but it definitely made its way through HN in the last year or two.
And anecdotally we see people de-platformed and/or removed from their work because some company’s hr department got wind of a twitter stink and the company made the calculation that the feelings of a few people on twitter are so meaningful that it warrants terminating some employee. Unless that employee was seriously not pulling their weight, there no way appeasing those people on twitter is more valuable than the work your employee is doing and the cost of hiring a new one. Take that boing guy retired military who was removed from his position because of a 15yr old post about how he disagreed with putting women in combat roles for biological reasons…
Point is people’s reality is shaped by what trends on the internet and what trends on the internet is at global scale when you run a global platform/community. This global context is good in some regards e.g. the proliferation of cultural exchange and appropriation but can also be somewhat of a nightmare to manage when trying to solve logistical problems like moderating content or writing laws. I am dubious we should be entertaining “local” politics on global platforms e.g. twitter. Seems like an impedance mismatch to me.
While I think you make good points, my reasoning is far more simple: people just enjoy communities that feel smaller, more intimate, and police themselves. This is a human nature thing regardless of whether we're talking digital or physical worlds.
So what? Well now when we need to oppress minority factions more than ever in the face of a public health crisis and tell people sorry suck it up you live in American where the majority says to mask up and get vaccinated if you want to be in public, we “for some reason” at critical moments in curbing the spread of the pandemic fumble around for months on end because a few anti-vexers all of a sudden have infinite civil liberties and a global platform (note, one that they didn't have when we solved previous public health crises). My fear is that we’ve become a society of “piss off I can do what I want” rather than one of calculated and ideally minimized oppression.
I also don’t understand as a society why we have to hold platforms accountable for content. If the problem is a bunch of illicit material showing up, implement KYC requirements so that individuals are exposed legally to the consequences of posting illegal material. Anonymity is a tool/privilege to be used, not abused, and distinctly not a fundamental human right in the US. Make the default less anonymous (but still private, that is something we’re supposed to care about constitutionally) and I suspect a lot of content moderation problems go away.