This seems like a pretty big "if". Arguably, Automattic is better than most for-profit companies since they develop a FOSS product, and I think you can make an argument that any sort of FOSS makes the world better.
OTOH, it's not clear to me that making it easier and cheaper to blog or host websites makes the world better. I'm sure there's lots of people using WordPress and similar products for horrible things, like tobacco companies, arms manufacturers, animal ag companies, etc. And that's not to mention the no doubt plenty of personal users who are blogging about conspiracy theories, white supremacy, or Hindu nationalism.
I think the best case for most software is that it's net _neutral_. I work at a database company. Our products are used by many, many different companies, non-profits, and governments. I think some of our customers are horrible, some are great, and most are neither. But that would be the case for me at nearly every software company I might work at.
These casual calls for censorship are really dangerous. Every idea that we take for granted today started as something that was justifiably censorable for the social standards of the time (civil rights, women's voting rights, etc).
If Billy Bob wants to out himself as a white nationalist, I'd rather he do it out in the open. If it's really a terrible idea then it won't get any traction.
When you censor these people it gives them even more reason to get angry and people start supporting just to fight the perceived injustice. This was a key driver in Jan 6th.
I would phrase it as "I'm not sure whether making it easier for everyone to spread their ideas is a good thing." But that's _still_ not a call for censorship.
I don't think the plan that software is not neutral is any more supportive than it is good or bad. If anything, neutrality seems extremely unlikely because if you were to total all of the impacts, it seems exceedingly unlikely that they would perfectly sum up to zero.
That said, you are right in that these judgments certainly depends on your mental model of the world. Ex. Are blogs and websites good or bad. A proponent of radical back to the trees movement would probably disagree. I tend to think logs are a good thing for the world
This seems like a pretty big "if". Arguably, Automattic is better than most for-profit companies since they develop a FOSS product, and I think you can make an argument that any sort of FOSS makes the world better.
OTOH, it's not clear to me that making it easier and cheaper to blog or host websites makes the world better. I'm sure there's lots of people using WordPress and similar products for horrible things, like tobacco companies, arms manufacturers, animal ag companies, etc. And that's not to mention the no doubt plenty of personal users who are blogging about conspiracy theories, white supremacy, or Hindu nationalism.
I think the best case for most software is that it's net _neutral_. I work at a database company. Our products are used by many, many different companies, non-profits, and governments. I think some of our customers are horrible, some are great, and most are neither. But that would be the case for me at nearly every software company I might work at.