I’m mad about Twitter
Twitter’s new policy paper raises more questions than it answers.
Yesterday Twitter published a policy paper grandly titled Protecting The Open Internet with regulatory recommendations for policy makers for an open web. It’s a manifesto to promote dialogue and mutual understanding on the web.
The adolescent social media platform is marking its own homework, and naturally finds itself a force for good in society.
It sets out a vision of the internet more akin to the 1980s than the 2020s. Back then conversation took place around shared interests on web pages called blogs and in user groups. It was an altogether more upbeat and positive space.
Where to start? How about the title. The internet is not open. It has been carved up by media organisations and technology platforms such as Twitter into silos. Each silo requires its own set of credentials to gain access.
The Twitter policy document outlines of five principles for regulation.
The Open Internet is global, should be available to all, and should be built on open standards and the protection of human rights
Trust is essential and can be built with transparency, procedural fairness, and privacy protections.
Recommendation and ranking algorithms should be subject to human choice and control.
Competition, choice, and innovation are foundations of the Open Internet and should be protected and expanded, ensuring incumbents are not entrenched by laws and regulations.
Content moderation is more than just leave up or take down. Regulation should allow for a range of interventions, while setting clear definitions for categories of content.
You’d find it hard to argue with any of the points set out, if only Twitter itself as a platform was aligned to its own vision.
Twitter is second only to Facebook for toxicity and misinformation. Academics have should how bad actors pollute the platform in a bid to corrupt the public sphere. Abuse, from plain bad behaviour to trolling, has been normalised.
Unsurprisingly there is no mention or attempt to atone for past ills such as the platform that Twitter gave President Trump during his term in office. His account was finally removed in January 2021 for inciting violence.
Twitter’s solution is to fiddle around the edges with user moderation techniques such as soft block and conversation settings. It’s Transparency reporting and policing of the platform inspires neither trust nor confidence.
Twitter is getting an easy pass from the media and the public because of the much bigger issues that challenge Facebook. It needs to work a lot harder.
