Given that I’m always saying how Facebook and Twitter should unilaterally delete asshole accounts, I suppose I should take this concern seriously. It’s a big part of the nineties cyber-utopianism that these companies (ab)use to justify their lack of human policing, and even if it’s used cynically, that original idea wasn’t completely wrong. Taking the men out of the loop might be the only way to stop money and power taking over the conversation.
Then again, that’s already happened (e.g. @RealDonaldTurmp), even with the minimal policing they already do. The concern would be more apt if PepsiCo were censoring a genuinely laissez-faire platform like 4chan, and that’s unlikely because those platforms are so toxic anyway that no one even worries about them influencing decent people.
Also, personally, I never thought user-driven moderation was much of a solution to anything. I think the solution is for platforms to decide who they are, and summarily remove users and content that aren’t compatible, and that’s probably a bit less open to corporate subversion. I mean, that’s how newspapers operate, and yeah, they’re influenced by advertisers (and cultural cliques), but if it gets too brazen that hurts their business. And ad-free platforms could be much more independent.
