Just a quick reaction to the following article:
We all know the biggest platforms do not genuinely care about "free expression." They care about keeping as many segments of users engaged on their platforms for as long as possible, e.g. to serve ads, among myriad ways to monetize your attention.
How do they do this? One school of thought is for platforms to ensure algorithmic promotion of scandalous, salacious, and rage-bait-y content to guarantee heavy user engagement. Even if that content is controversial, platforms want more of it, and will promote it under the guise of "free expression"
There's a hitch to this theory though. There are already platforms that have cranked up the dial on low-quality rage content while banging the drum of "free speech" e.g. 4chan, Truth Social, Rumble, and while popular (debatable), they do not translate into a Fortune 500 business endeavor.
Why not? Because they do not appeal to the broadest range of users. It's easy to go onto these type of sites and at best, just feel like everyone is trading inside jokes that fly over your head. Sure, many feel a sense of belonging in this chaos. Most, however, don't.
At worst, you are actually the butt of the jokes, because you don’t subscribe to same hostile worldview of transphobic or christian-nationalist content. For some reason all this weird stuff is getting amplified, front and center in the discourse. And regardless of how repulsed you are, you are forced to react to it.
This alienates lots of people, drives them off the platform, and most importantly, affects a platform's bottom line. With the exception of Twitter/X, corporations including Meta are still going to be very afraid of this for a long time coming (barring any monumentally stupid blind spots, ala X)
My experience working in Tech (w/ capital T), I was surprised to find how fearful execs are of their product being subjected to negative press. Who would want their product to be associated with the Christchurch shooter, Rohingya genocide, or Sandy Hook conspiracy theories? We are certainly not entering an age of moderation utopia. But at that same time, those moderation concerns are not going away.
Most people know this is also about staving off regulation. The symbolic fealty to the new admin is (a) reasonably concerning (b) embarrassing, but also (c) should be understood as a business bet. It's why corporations hire DC insiders for VP positions (e.g. Joel Kaplan), who presumably straddle the political aisles to rep their company.
It's why Meta is doing the dance over balancing out its "liberal bias" because they know a subpoena from Jim Jordan can happen on a whim. Because, then you get hauled up to congress, then internal documents surface, then a national spectacle is made over censorship, then you get regulated and your business takes a hit.
But I want to give a nod to the pessimism, I too think we are entering a new dark age, I just don’t think it is going to look like what everyone says it is going to look like.
