The Public Should Regulate Silicon Valley — Not the Other Way Around
Twitter profited from Donald Trump's racist outbursts for years, only to delete his account a few days before his departure. A figure with such media platform runs no risk of being "no platformed" — but tech giants still have too much power over what the rest of us say.
Tech giants have gone from risking being pariahed by all sides of politics, to accepting the mantle of arbiter of truth from grateful politicians and commentators.(Unsplash)
Donald Trump’s Twitter ban is a poetic end to his performance.
In 2016, the outsider-insider outmaneuvered his enemies and seized power with the aid of an aggressive, nimble base stitched together online. Now the failing God-Emperor’s soliloquy is silenced by the very force who helped him come to power, amid the tragicomic denouement of armed furries and blood on the Capitol floor.
But beneath the aesthetics lie the politics. Twitter birthed Trump, giving him a platform that incentivized his every behavior. A format where 280-character zingers replace serious debate, conflict is rewarded, and attack mobs form and dissipate at light speed was always fertile ground for the hard right. A blank-slate AI became a neo-Nazi within twenty-four hours of Twitter exposure.
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