Comment by phlakaton
5 years ago
> it follows that every alternative platform [will] do the same.
No, it does not. Particularly not in the case of Twitter. And the proof of this is self-evident in the alternatives to Twitter that exist today.
5 years ago
> it follows that every alternative platform [will] do the same.
No, it does not. Particularly not in the case of Twitter. And the proof of this is self-evident in the alternatives to Twitter that exist today.
I'm sure you didn't mean it, but inserting "will" misrepresents what I was trying to communicate. A more accurate word would be "should" or "obligated to". Saying that they will follow in taking adverse action is more prescriptive than what I meant. My fault, not yours.
There are sort of alternatives to Twitter, though you have to admit that Twitter's approach and audience size is quite different from, say, someone's forum using vBulletin. Nevertheless, there are mainstream alternatives such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and perhaps TV and radio, but that's not to say that they aren't likely to make a similar choice to Twitter, if it is generally agreed upon that Trump's message is bad and either shouldn't be seen or shouldn't be engaged with. Since they have similar financial incentives, it's not totally unreasonable to think that these mainstream platforms would follow suit if Trump decided to abandon Twitter and start posting solely on one of these alternatives. Whether or not you agree with Alex Jones, he was banned from all these platforms in coordination. It's absolutely possible that the dominoes would fall, and non-mainstream alternatives like Minds or Gab or Mastodon aren't necessarily viable alternatives if their audience is incredibly small.