> a disproportionate number of the targets of censorship on Twitter are of a certain political influence.
Yeah see I don't worry so much about this. I purposely follow people with whom I disagree (but who are well spoken) on Twitter to avoid ending up in an echo chamber. So I don't disagree with you about quashing diversity; the last thing I need in my life is to preach to the choir.
But the fact remains that, 1st Amendment or not, you can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater and then plead "but, but, my rights!" to evade responsibility. Credible threats are assault (look it up, it's in every state's legal code). I would not be surprised if doxxing was found to fall under similar statutes by an enlightened judge if done with malice aforethought.
Furthermore, an individual's rights to free expression do not include a right to make Twitter spend money or lose opportunities due to their chosen expressions. Twitter != the government. If push comes to shove, their self-preservation must take precedence (legally, since they have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders as a public company).
It's a chestnut, to be sure, but freedom of the press applies to those who own a printing press. Until and unless Twitter is nationalized (heaven forfend), they're restricted (at worst) by common carrier provisions. They can do a good job if it's in the best interests of their shareholders (and recent events suggest that may be the case). It's really an issue of how (how to maximize shareholder value, how to improve public perception, how not to drive away ads...).
Well, let me put it this way: banning people for threatening violence against other users in the name of social justice costs Twitter opportunities due to being unacceptable to a large chunk of the tech community (and I'm not even talking about them doing it to right-wing blowhards like Milo).
And yet, here you are on a platform that does not permit its users to threaten violence against other users.
Is that costing Hacker News "opportunities?" Compared to what? The opportunities afforded by not driving away all the users for whom threats of violence make a site toxic even if you aren't on the receiving end?
And what do you mean by a "large chunk of the tech community?" Do you mean a significant proportion relative to the "tech community?" Or a significant proportion relative to Twitter's user base as a whole?
And how do you define "the tech community?" Do you mean this cosy little echo chamber we inhabit made up of startup hackers and like-minded individuals? Or do you mean everyone working in tech, including the kinds of people working for BigCo who never go near Hacker News and visit Reddit for affinity subreddits like /r/volvo?
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All design decisions are tradeoffs. If you make one choice, you alienate a certain set of users. But if you make a different choice, you'll alienate another set of users while placating some of the first set.
So yes, there is some opportunity given up if Twitter goes around banning people who incite threats of violence (your example), but there is some other opportunity given up if it tolerates them.
I don't know if you've noticed, but Hacker News is not exactly terribly popular amongst the social justice part of the tech community. Also, users' opinions can only be influenced by threats of violence that they hear about, very few people who aren't in the immediate social circles of the offenders generally hear about these threats, and those are under social pressure to accept them for obvious reasons. Not banning people who haven't made threats of violence but whose opponents have tried to tie to unrelated people that have for political reasons has probably done far more damage to Twitter's acceptance amongst people who refuse to participate in communities where death threats are normal.
It's a small fraction of the tech community that has a problem with banning people for threatening others with violence. And the tech community is a small fraction of Twitter's userbase.
Not catering to the libertariat has never really harmed a mainstream-targeting business.
Yeah see I don't worry so much about this. I purposely follow people with whom I disagree (but who are well spoken) on Twitter to avoid ending up in an echo chamber. So I don't disagree with you about quashing diversity; the last thing I need in my life is to preach to the choir.
But the fact remains that, 1st Amendment or not, you can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater and then plead "but, but, my rights!" to evade responsibility. Credible threats are assault (look it up, it's in every state's legal code). I would not be surprised if doxxing was found to fall under similar statutes by an enlightened judge if done with malice aforethought.
Furthermore, an individual's rights to free expression do not include a right to make Twitter spend money or lose opportunities due to their chosen expressions. Twitter != the government. If push comes to shove, their self-preservation must take precedence (legally, since they have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders as a public company).
It's a chestnut, to be sure, but freedom of the press applies to those who own a printing press. Until and unless Twitter is nationalized (heaven forfend), they're restricted (at worst) by common carrier provisions. They can do a good job if it's in the best interests of their shareholders (and recent events suggest that may be the case). It's really an issue of how (how to maximize shareholder value, how to improve public perception, how not to drive away ads...).