Twitter Tuesday: Is Open-Source Centralization the Answer to Hate Speech on Social Media?
Decentralization is the best alternative to the mess caused by the likes of Twitter
It’s Twitter Tuesday! What better way to say “Yo” to a beautiful day than to talk about what people are saying on Twitter…about Twitter?
First up, The Verge reported that Twitter Blue will begin charging $19.99 for the privilege of being verified. It makes sense that Elon Musk would increase the price of Twitter’s premium product from $4.99. Musk, after all, didn’t buy Twitter to lose money. He aims to make a profit. But he also wants Twitter to be a reflection his capitalist values. Those values include making a profit as much as providing a “free speech” platform. Liberals are afraid that he’ll turn Twitter into a hate speech paradise. Probably not. But what they call hate speech is often just a ruse for their own biases. Conservatives, on the other hand, are hoping Musk will turn Twitter into a bastion of Trump-like nationalism. I don’t expect he’ll do that either. First and foremost, he’s going to turn Twitter into a haven of profit, and to do that he’ll have to walk a fine line between allowing free speech from both the left and the right without allowing toxic speech to take control. That will be quite a tap dance, but to pull it off he’ll have to court Big Business and their deep pockets through a centralized management approach.
Case in point, basketball star LeBron James says “unfit people” think “hate speech is free speech.”
James is responding to the 500 percent increase in the use of the “N-word” in the first 12 hours after Musk’s purchase, as well as hate speech targeted at Jews and transgendered people. Certainly, that’s cause for concern, but if anyone thinks any individual could clean up the sludge in just 12 hours, they’re delusional, particularly since that sludge didn’t rear its head until after the trigger event. The accounts spreading that bile are troll accounts. That’s not the free speech Elon Musk celebrates. In many ways, the previous management of Twitter is responsible for the trollish behavior. If Twitter were decentralized from the start, the majority of its sane users could send the rubbish to the pits where it belongs. While centralization can curtail the bilge to some extent, it can’t solve every problem on social media. Musk’s idea to make Twitter’s code open source is a step in the right direction, but it’s just one solution to a complex problem.
Elon Musk tweeted a hidden treasure for those interested in the lawsuit Twitter filed against him earlier this year.
This guy thinks freedom lovers are brainwashed.
One man thinks the solution is to go back to the 20th century.
U.S. Senator Chris Murphy wants to investigate the national security implications of Saudi Arabians owning a part of Twitter.
The Kingdom Holding Company and Prince Alwaleed bin Talal are jointly the second largest Twitter shareholder now. I can’t imagine how owning a private company could possibly be a national security threat. Are government employees tweeting classified information? If so, the Saudis are the least of the problem.
An employee resigned and laments her work being cut off.
One trans individual thinks Musk bought Twitter just to harass people like her, simply for “merely existing.” She’s talking about Grimes and Chelsea Manning, who is out of prison and living la vida loca as a cryptographer for DeFi project Nym. Musk’s trans daughter severed ties with him earlier this year.
Whatever is going on in Musk’s personal life is irrelevant to Twitter, except perhaps in whatever may be motivating him internally to want to own a social media platform. Maybe that has something to do with transgenders, but whether it does or doesn’t, what people say on Twitter matters, and how Twitter facilitates that speech matters. The only thing that will really change about Twitter after Musk’s takeover is its flavor. It will remain centralized.
One more thing about Chelsea Manning, the cryptographer formerly known as Bradley, we all owe a debt to this whistleblower for sharing documents that shed light on abuses and misinformation within the ranks of our government during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. If anything, Manning’s existence illustrates why decentralization is important in our day.
In case you missed it, yesterday was Bitcoin white paper day.
For all it’s worth, Bitcoin ushered in the age of decentralization. Today, there are more than 100 decentralized social media platforms that can give Twitter a run for its money. None of them are named Parler, MeWe, or Gab. I talk about them in my book Cryptosocial: How Cryptocurrencies Are Changing Social Media.
Snark and commentary in italics. Inclusion of an item does not mean I agree or endorse the ideas presented. Of course, it also doesn’t mean I don’t either.
Cryptocracy is a decentralized newsletter published several times a week. I curate the latest news and crypto analysis from some of the brightest minds in crypto, and sometimes offer a little insightful and snarky commentary. Always fresh, always interesting, and always crypto.
First published at Cryptocracy. Not to be construed as financial advice. Do your own research.