Thisarticlewas originally published onBuilt Inby David Ryan Polgar.
Maybe Twitter should be a nonprofit, said the high-level Trust and Safety employee.
Rumors were swirling about itspossible impending sale.
Unfortunately, its ad-based business model was in obvious conflict with serving the public interest.
That isnt a future Id want to live in.
This happened in October 2016.
Both Salesforce and Disney were rumored to be interested in purchasing the company.
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David Ryan Polgar speaks on MSNBC
Since that time, Twitter has posted a profit lossalmost every year.
They also have an ability to do a lot of bad.
I didnt want to take that on.
Yet these platforms still remain constrained by their structures as for-profit companies with a duty to their shareholders.
That isnt a future Id want to live in.
What is the future of social media?
Yet these platforms still remain constrained by their structures as for-profit companies with a duty to their shareholders.
Unfortunately, the phrase tends to be misconstrued.
Its about protecting the right to engage.
Thats what makes deliberation and democracy possible.
No single person should ever have that much power in a healthy democracy.
Thats not progress; its a dystopian future.
Society becomes trapped in a benevolent dictatorship where we have to hope that he makes the right decision.
No single person should ever have that much power in a healthy democracy.
But for Musk to recognize Twitters public role eliminates his very authority to privately govern it.
In other words, public squares are governed publicly, not privately.
To imagine ceding that authority to one person should send shivers down your spine.
You know, the stuff we have in a functioning democracy.
Where do we go from here?
I like to say that theres no magic button for fixing the problems facing social media platforms.
To tackle misinformation on social media turns companies with limited transparency and public accountability into arbiters of truth.
Making determinations regarding speech means diving headfirst into a messy world of tradeoffs.
The public allows the government to make these difficult decisions because we exercise power through the political process.
That isnt the case with social media platforms, however.
Anything less is anti-democratic.
to untangle, we may need to become more tangled.
What would this look like?
This is exactly why theOversight Boardwas originally dubbed FacebooksSupreme Court it has a similar structure and goal.
What hasnt happened yet, however, is the creation of more reliable ways to ensure transparency.
Anything less is anti-democratic.
