Why are you talking about a universal right to access Twitter? AFAIK, no one here endorses that.
b/c it’s a private company that excludes people (e.g. people without mobile phones).
Poor comparison on my part. But it seems your sense of what is a right or not depends on whether it is accessible for all (which Lemmy/Mastodon/Bluesky isn’t either as like you mentioned not everyone might have a phone or computer), whereas I argue that this only matters if it is the sole means of communication used by said politician.
I’ve had a twitter account for years with little more than an email address, so not sure if this is a country-specific barrier or my account was grandfathered in. I only use it to lurk as the platform is still useful to obtain information related to my job, but never tweeted.
Either you lick Musk’s boots or you bounce. Those are your choices. Politicians who lick Musk’s boots and drive exclusion cannot effectively represent the people.
If these politicians have been voted in by the people then I see no problem here democratically. The people presumably will find out in time who they really voted for and hopefully learn from it.
Those are different times. We are in Twitter times.
I’d argue that because every tweet is just another voice in the void and there is little filtering of opinions, Twitter is likely less effective than shouting on a street corner for the everyday man to get his opinion across. The sheer prevalence of bots distorts this even more. Also if platform size is the criterium here then Lemmy and Mastodon are still terrible substitutes to Reddit or Twitter in terms of reach.
Also if platform size is the criterium here then Lemmy and Mastodon are still terrible substitutes to Reddit or Twitter in terms of reach.
That’s currently true, but it would still behoove them to have it from a public accessibility and national security perspective, and there is nothing stopping them from cross posting on Twitter until it becomes irrelevant (or Musk kicks them off).
There are moral problems with crossposting to Twitter.
Twitter is financed by advertising. I do not finance public services to then finance the advertising revenue of private corporations. Politicians IT staff, time, and resources used to feed Twitter are not free. Public money is used for the tooling and the operations on that platform of inequality. So people who are excluded from Twitter are financing content fed to Twitter involuntarily via taxation. And those who are priviledged to be on the Twitter platform are hit with ads as a precondition to reaching content they already paid taxes for – due to an inappropriate intermingling of public and private sectors.
Network effect: making Twitter a superset of content exacerbates the stranglehold Twitter has on the world. The private sector will do its thing, but the public sector has a duty to work in the public interest. A public office adding to Twitter’s network effect disservices the public interest.
Twitter is a politically manipulated venue with a bias toward right-wing populism. People who vote for a green party or socialist party politician do not endorse feeding an extreme right-wing US agenda with worldwide consequences. They do not have an equal voice on that platform which is wired for right-wing propaganda.
Recall how Trump took power in 2016: Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. FB and Twitter are pawned by right-wing extremists.
I absolutely agree, and the most I get from Twitter is from other people posting about it elsewhere. But there is a need for politicians to reach their constituents, and if they can be effectively reached by an imperfect method, then I can accept them using it while also promoting better methods.
Poor comparison on my part. But it seems your sense of what is a right or not depends on whether it is accessible for all (which Lemmy/Mastodon/Bluesky isn’t either as like you mentioned not everyone might have a phone or computer), whereas I argue that this only matters if it is the sole means of communication used by said politician.
I’ve had a twitter account for years with little more than an email address, so not sure if this is a country-specific barrier or my account was grandfathered in. I only use it to lurk as the platform is still useful to obtain information related to my job, but never tweeted.
If these politicians have been voted in by the people then I see no problem here democratically. The people presumably will find out in time who they really voted for and hopefully learn from it.
I’d argue that because every tweet is just another voice in the void and there is little filtering of opinions, Twitter is likely less effective than shouting on a street corner for the everyday man to get his opinion across. The sheer prevalence of bots distorts this even more. Also if platform size is the criterium here then Lemmy and Mastodon are still terrible substitutes to Reddit or Twitter in terms of reach.
That’s currently true, but it would still behoove them to have it from a public accessibility and national security perspective, and there is nothing stopping them from cross posting on Twitter until it becomes irrelevant (or Musk kicks them off).
There are moral problems with crossposting to Twitter.
Twitter is financed by advertising. I do not finance public services to then finance the advertising revenue of private corporations. Politicians IT staff, time, and resources used to feed Twitter are not free. Public money is used for the tooling and the operations on that platform of inequality. So people who are excluded from Twitter are financing content fed to Twitter involuntarily via taxation. And those who are priviledged to be on the Twitter platform are hit with ads as a precondition to reaching content they already paid taxes for – due to an inappropriate intermingling of public and private sectors.
Network effect: making Twitter a superset of content exacerbates the stranglehold Twitter has on the world. The private sector will do its thing, but the public sector has a duty to work in the public interest. A public office adding to Twitter’s network effect disservices the public interest.
Twitter is a politically manipulated venue with a bias toward right-wing populism. People who vote for a green party or socialist party politician do not endorse feeding an extreme right-wing US agenda with worldwide consequences. They do not have an equal voice on that platform which is wired for right-wing propaganda.
Recall how Trump took power in 2016: Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. FB and Twitter are pawned by right-wing extremists.
I absolutely agree, and the most I get from Twitter is from other people posting about it elsewhere. But there is a need for politicians to reach their constituents, and if they can be effectively reached by an imperfect method, then I can accept them using it while also promoting better methods.