Ok, so now mr. Musk has bought Twitter. To me, that is good news. I have, recently, criticised social media a lot, because to me, as a Democratic philosopher, it goes against what public dialogue is supposed to do.
What is public dialogue supposed to do? It is supposed to create a frame around the democratic institutions, so that the politicians are inspired to do good decisions.
In other words, if there is a problem in society, politicians try to understand the public debate, and serve the public by applying the conclusions the debate finds.
So that is why freedom of speech is such a vital virtue. Because without free speech, how are the citizens supposed to discuss difficult issues?
It is exemplified in the example of Socrates, who went to his death, because he did not want to relinquish his criticism of what he saw was wrong. So it became a pillar of Democracy.
Social media has not observed this basic tenant of Democracy, but has started censuring ad lib. This is simply illegal according to the very constitutions of the different democratic states.
I understand it, because social media is also just a business, and they are making money. So too much fuss and anger is not good for business.
But, as I have said before, Social media is the realisation of the very idea of the internet. The founding fathers of the internet were actually great thinkers and technicians, before social media, they had dreams and vision, of an open world.
To forget this, just to make money, is against the very idea of the internet.
So what we need, is a balance.
At one hand, discussion needs to be open. At the other hand, I understand, that the toxicity of the debate is often counterproductive.
What we need to do, is have an open debate on all issues, but ask for a good tone. Right? All this yelling and cursing that is going on, is not good for an open debate.
So ideally, there is a kind of school teacher process that needs to start. People needs to talk in a nice way, and if they start flaming and cursing people, they should, somehow, be told not to that, or..
But the debate should be free. Mr. Niels Bohr dreamt of a world, where we are able to meet people in trust, thereby creating peace.
These days, it works, to some degree. We are actually able to understand what is going on in the world, but the censorship based on a POLITICAL VIEW that is the norm in most social media, is a step in the wrong direction.
We need openness, in both code and dialogue, everybody should be welcome, as long as they search for truth and gives space for argument.
G-d bless the open world the founding fathers of the internet envisioned, and let be strengthened not weakened.