It's not often I side with Donald Trump on anything. But I think it's high time, the likes of Twitter, Facebook et al got a good kicking.
To be fair, the problem is not with the sites themselves. They are private companies and [within the law] can do whatever the hell they like with regard to who can use their platforms and what they can say while doing so.
The problem is that these type of sites [and especially Twitter] have been elevated by the rest of the world and transformed from being outlets for vacuous chatter into being the official conduit for 'news', for any lazy journalist who can't be bothered to research a story properly.
Even on such esteemed organisations as the BBC and Reuters, it's becoming increasingly common to see news articles in which the 'sources' are little more than lists of what various parties said on Twitter. And on a smaller and even local level, more and more companies are only contactable through their Twitter accounts or Facebook pages. I even got message from the UK Government's unemployment service a few days ago, informing me that they would be announcing nee vacancies on their Twitter account, from now on.
Now, as I said, that's not Twitter or Facebook's fault. It's the rest of the worlds fault for increasingly elevating them to this pseudo-official status. But it does create the situation whereby anyone who's not on Twitter or Facebook is increasingly disenfranchised from having their viewpoint heard or from participating in the great and small issues of the day.
And what if Twitter or Facebook decide to ban a user or suspend an account? That user has no recourse but to plead with the company in question to reinstate them, which is entirely arbitrary decision. There is no legal recourse, as there would be if some authority tried to remove a person's vote or to ban them from speaking, writing or otherwise putting forward their opinions in the 'real world'.
As chance would have it, I've run into this myself. About a year ago, I logged into my Twitter account to find that it had been suspended as had my business Twitter account --with no reason given and nothing that I had done [that I can see] to have justified this. I never verbally attacked anyone or posted anything dodgy. I can only think my accounts were mistakenly caught up in one of Twitter's periodic automated sweeps, after which they proudly announce they've removed X-million bot accounts.
The only recourse is to fill in a form asking them to review the account suspension. Which, needless to say results in nothing but an autoreply, assigning you a case number. And then... nothing.
Likewise, as chance would have it, just today I logged into a Facebook page I'd set up for my business to find a message saying that had been suspended for "suspicious activity". Again, nothing I can see that i've done that could possibly justify that. In fact, I don't do FB at all. So I don't even interact with that account apart from to occasionally post links to the latest 'thing' I've made and am selling on Amazon. I've not even added any friends to my FB account, so I couldn't have 'offended' any one! In order to lift that suspension I was asked to verify my mobile phone number [OK... with great reluctance] and then upload a photograph of myself, so they can 'verify' me [WTF? Am i applying for a passport to the fucking internet now?
Now, I know those last few paragraphs sound like I'm just whining and crying because I can't use Twitter or Facebook any more. I'm honestly not. I couldn't give a flying fk about either of them. I only created accounts on both because [as I intimated above], with the state of the internet today, we've arrived at a point, where, for a lot of people, Twitter and Facebook ARE the internet. It's where they talk to their friends, where they arrange their social lives, where they do their shopping, where they read their news, where they run their businesses and where they exist online. So, sometimes, you've just got to swallow the rising vomit and at least establish a token presence there, just so people know you exist.
Anyway, given that's the state we're in, should all that vast mass of human commerce and interaction be dependent on the whims of a couple of monstrously rich individuals and a couple of monstrously rich corporations? It's a toughie.
On the one hand, I'm generally opposed to government interference in how people run their lives or their businesses. On the other hand, I believe in freedom of expression and freedom of access to the media and the government, which isn't dispensed or withheld at the whim of a few individuals.
To be fair, the problem is not with the sites themselves. They are private companies and [within the law] can do whatever the hell they like with regard to who can use their platforms and what they can say while doing so.
The problem is that these type of sites [and especially Twitter] have been elevated by the rest of the world and transformed from being outlets for vacuous chatter into being the official conduit for 'news', for any lazy journalist who can't be bothered to research a story properly.
Even on such esteemed organisations as the BBC and Reuters, it's becoming increasingly common to see news articles in which the 'sources' are little more than lists of what various parties said on Twitter. And on a smaller and even local level, more and more companies are only contactable through their Twitter accounts or Facebook pages. I even got message from the UK Government's unemployment service a few days ago, informing me that they would be announcing nee vacancies on their Twitter account, from now on.
Now, as I said, that's not Twitter or Facebook's fault. It's the rest of the worlds fault for increasingly elevating them to this pseudo-official status. But it does create the situation whereby anyone who's not on Twitter or Facebook is increasingly disenfranchised from having their viewpoint heard or from participating in the great and small issues of the day.
And what if Twitter or Facebook decide to ban a user or suspend an account? That user has no recourse but to plead with the company in question to reinstate them, which is entirely arbitrary decision. There is no legal recourse, as there would be if some authority tried to remove a person's vote or to ban them from speaking, writing or otherwise putting forward their opinions in the 'real world'.
As chance would have it, I've run into this myself. About a year ago, I logged into my Twitter account to find that it had been suspended as had my business Twitter account --with no reason given and nothing that I had done [that I can see] to have justified this. I never verbally attacked anyone or posted anything dodgy. I can only think my accounts were mistakenly caught up in one of Twitter's periodic automated sweeps, after which they proudly announce they've removed X-million bot accounts.
The only recourse is to fill in a form asking them to review the account suspension. Which, needless to say results in nothing but an autoreply, assigning you a case number. And then... nothing.
Likewise, as chance would have it, just today I logged into a Facebook page I'd set up for my business to find a message saying that had been suspended for "suspicious activity". Again, nothing I can see that i've done that could possibly justify that. In fact, I don't do FB at all. So I don't even interact with that account apart from to occasionally post links to the latest 'thing' I've made and am selling on Amazon. I've not even added any friends to my FB account, so I couldn't have 'offended' any one! In order to lift that suspension I was asked to verify my mobile phone number [OK... with great reluctance] and then upload a photograph of myself, so they can 'verify' me [WTF? Am i applying for a passport to the fucking internet now?
Now, I know those last few paragraphs sound like I'm just whining and crying because I can't use Twitter or Facebook any more. I'm honestly not. I couldn't give a flying fk about either of them. I only created accounts on both because [as I intimated above], with the state of the internet today, we've arrived at a point, where, for a lot of people, Twitter and Facebook ARE the internet. It's where they talk to their friends, where they arrange their social lives, where they do their shopping, where they read their news, where they run their businesses and where they exist online. So, sometimes, you've just got to swallow the rising vomit and at least establish a token presence there, just so people know you exist.
Anyway, given that's the state we're in, should all that vast mass of human commerce and interaction be dependent on the whims of a couple of monstrously rich individuals and a couple of monstrously rich corporations? It's a toughie.
On the one hand, I'm generally opposed to government interference in how people run their lives or their businesses. On the other hand, I believe in freedom of expression and freedom of access to the media and the government, which isn't dispensed or withheld at the whim of a few individuals.