Trusting Twitter with our free speech?
Article publisher:
Colorado Springs Gazette
Article date:
4 December 2021
Article category:
Colorado News
Medium
Article Body:
On Monday, after Parag Agrawal was announced as the new head of Twitter, the social media company’s CEO concluded a mission-statement-like letter to employees with a challenge:...
"... Let’s show the world Twitter’s full potential.”
He’s right. We are watching. Globally, free-speech proponents who are wrestling with the utility of post-modern public-square platforms like Twitter rightfully recognize how Dorsey’s passing of power to Agrawal is a seminal juncture in the story of how social media affects society.
Twitter already has a checkered history of applying a thumb to the scale of free speech to favor messages of particular philosophical and political persuasions. The most obvious example is the platform’s outright, indefinite ban of President Donald Trump this year.
As Agrawal’s statements suggest, Twitter likely will only further ratchet it up from here. ...
Then, as Agrawal made the following statement, George Orwell turned over in his grave.
“ … We focused way less on what’s true and what’s false. We focus way more on potential for harm as a result of certain content being amplified on the platform without appropriate context.”...
“Our role is not to be bound by the First Amendment,”...
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