Social Media Censorship

Joe Rogan's podcast podcast with Vijaya and Jack and Tim Pool really helped me appreciate how complicated social media censorship can get. There is currently a lot of dependence upon user flagging content which is then moderated by human. But it seems that Twitter moderators have been unable to reign in their own biases while taking decisions. To make matters worse, there seem to be bias in the rules themselves, such that even if they are perfectly implemented, it will lead to a biased outcome. The difficulty in moderation is in balancing between opposing opinions? The present policy on platforms like Twitter and facebook seems to be "feelings over facts". This is untenable and not scalable, for the simple reason that some people are just too sensitive, and easily outraged, irrespective of being factually incorrect.

Vijaya and Jack often stated that they want the platform to be welcoming to be as many people as possible, and also take care of the "health" of the conversation on their platform. The problem is how would you define "health of conversation". It seems to me that to social media companies like twitter, a healthy conversation just means a pleasant conversation. But that is wrong. Even an uncomfortable argument can be healthy, while a pleasant conversation could be a bunch of biased, ill informed individuals just validating each others beliefs.

Health signifies long term well being, not just immediate pleasure. The present policy around free speech on these giant platforms are akin to only having junk food because it tastes better. For me, there is an important metric to measure the health of a conversation, "Does it attempt to reach a higher truth?". An attempt itself to understand things better by having a dialogue signifies that the conversation is healthy. It may reveal a problem that people are not ready to address yet, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it. If a supposedly offensive comment is true, or could be true, it should effect effect moderation process.

“men are not women,” ~ Meghan Murphy

This comment may offend a lot of people, but from a biological point of view, it is accurate. All subsequent moderation actions should give importance to the truthfulness of the offending comment.

Jack Dorsey said several times that he wants to "reduce echo chambers" on twitter. How could that possibly work without exposing people to the view they don't agree with? It is just too easy to be offended by views you don't agree with.

Even if a comment offends a majority of the audience, if it is true, and is not explicitly only supposed to offend people, or cause trouble by removing context, it should not be censored.

There are places in the world where even general population has either been radicalised or scared in to submission. Social media, which could possibly be a light of knowledge in such places, becomes just another medium of propaganda when feelings take a precedence over facts.

Let me finish with a few words about the nature of truth:
"Man is not travelling from error to truth, but climbing up from truth to truth, from truth that is lower to truth that is higher." This, and the teaching of Mukti (liberation) — the doctrine that "man is to become divine by realising the divine," that religion is perfected in us only when it has led us to "Him who is the one life in a universe of death, Him who is the constant basis of an ever-changing world, that One who is the only soul, of which all souls are but delusive manifestations" ~Swami Vivekananda