@unchartedworlds @futurebird
If I have been “deplatformed” from twitter I can no longer speak on twitter.

Obviously someones ability to “speak” isn’t removed. I still have my mouth and my brain…I can still talk to people. But my ability to speak, in this case on a specific website, is ultimately limited.

I’m still not sure why its okay to do this when, if its so obvious why we should deplatform someone, that we can just tell others why they are wrong.

@Unit @unchartedworlds @futurebird because it's asymmetric, for one. It's super easy to flood the zone with bullshit that drowns out the real, well researched stuff. And rebutting BS takes orders of magnitude more effort than print the BS out there.

Also, some of that stuff can do actual harm to real people, even if it is eventually rebutted.

@Unit @unchartedworlds @futurebird Finally, EVERYONE has absolute, unbroachable limits as to what they'll count as legitimate debate. It's a normal thing! And when those are breached, it typically results in immediate expulsion from polite society, much less an online platform.

Don't believe me? Try advocating hard for cannibalism or pedophilia and see how quickly you are shut out of society altogether. Advocate for normal people to be allowed to own nukes and see who wants to debate you.

@Unit @unchartedworlds @futurebird It's okay because you agreed to it when you joined Twitter. These are private spaces that exist by invite only, and those invites can be rescinded.

And that rule applies to every private space, even your residence. You can see why it would be especially useful in, for example, a women's shelter or an alcoholics anonymous meeting.

Also, "telling others why [the user] is wrong" just *elevates* their speech, while deplatforming them makes their message less accessible. When you think about trolls and spammers, the benefits of that route become obvious; few bad actors argue in good faith.

A group choosing to disassociate with certain individuals is one of the ways a group defines itself, and is itself a form of speech.

@LouisIngenthron @Unit @unchartedworlds @futurebird
The deplatforming question is an interesting question to me. If we set aside legitimate targetted harassment, intimidation and threats, I cannot work out good first principles for deplatforming on social media. For one, if you don't like what someone is saying, you can just ignore them, block them, dont follow them or whatever. Deplatforming is only done to limit other peoples access to a certain individuals ideas. In the case of children I could understand having parental controls on what ideas they come into contact with since they are not yet mature in their thinking. But for adults I can't come up with a non-paternalistic reason why I should be allowed to limit what other people see online and I also don't trust other people to make these types of decisions for me.

@Clementulus It sounds like you feel a degree of ownership over the social spaces provided by the social media servers.... but that's an illusion.

You're in somebody else's house, and they can ask you to leave if you offend them, whether or not they think that's good for the rest of the guests at their house.
Sure, sometimes moderation decisions are made with the community in mind, but it's much easier to think of it as "Ew, I don't want to pay to host this crap on my server." With that context, the right to do so seems perfectly fair.

As users, if we don't agree with the decisions of the server's owners/administrators, we're free to find greener pastures from someone who more closely aligns with our values.

@LouisIngenthron I do understand why deplatforming happens in a lot of cases in the real world. I was just saying that I could not think of a *principled* reason to do so. Clearly I am not the one making these decisions at Twitter or anywhere else. But also I would not think it correct to participate in protest deplatforming, where some people go to public lectures or presentations and make a rukus to prevent the genuine guests from hearing what the speaker has to say; or petition public institutions to refuse spaces to certain people based on their ideas (and usually very skewed views of their ideas at that).

I think the mistake is looking for "first principles" in the first place-- a social media site is a kind of community, and there are probably some shared values. You hold open discussion and find a consensus.

Companies running social media should think about their image, what sort of place are they creating? Who would want to be there?

Now universities and other public institutions probably have the hardest questions. But again: these places have mission statements, what are your values?

What should reddit do?

Like you they initially tried to reason this out in an abstract way.

This meant that some very toxic people took over parts of the site. Other people left.

That's the thing about community standards: it's not just what you are excluding, but it's also about who you choose to value.

As for if people running their own social media can decide these things for adults? Obviously we can. And we do.

@futurebird reddit is a decent example of an open structure that in some ways mirrors reality, you can try to find communities that interest you and then participate in those communities and yes, they have shares values that are reflected in their moderation but the platform itself is neutral. Did I ever choose to go on rpolitics? No. But when I wanted a good chuckle at goofballs throwing all their money into gamestop stock, rwsb was the place to be. I think that I just use social media differently where I mostly look at OPs and rarely the comments, which I put zero stock in since its mostly just people trying to be obnoxious.

@Unit @unchartedworlds @futurebird saying this as a person who lost a number of accounts on twitter before i decided to remove myself from there (one for telling a republican politician “you too will pass”, and another for mentioning that david james cleary is the “soldier f”), you're talking bullshit.

and no, no-one owes platform to genocidaires, being nazi is not “just having a political stance” or “just having an opinion”.