“If you’ve ever hosted a potluck and none of the guests were spouting antisemitic and/or authoritarian talking points, congratulations! You’ve achieved what some of the most valuable companies in the world claim is impossible.”
“If you’ve ever hosted a potluck and none of the guests were spouting antisemitic and/or authoritarian talking points, congratulations! You’ve achieved what some of the most valuable companies in the world claim is impossible.”
It’s not like they’re like, “yay Nazis!”, but their business model necessitates being extremely permissive. More eyeballs means more money.
Fediverse admins and mods don’t have any other goal beyond protecting their communities. It’s why corporate social, even before Elon took over Twitter, was crawling with suit Nazi alt-right accounts dog whistling their Nazi bullshit. Also why Eugen Rochko could famously say “that bullshit doesn’t work on me man” when offered a typical argument justifying the existence of those accounts.
More people here may draw more attention from Nazis, but it wouldn’t change the interests of admins/mods. More eyeballs doesn’t mean more money here. And shitty users means both unhappy communities and much more work for mods. There’s just no incentive to put up with it.
Very well said all around, (and in many fewer words than it took me) I may actually quote you in the future! Hadn’t seen that 2018(!) Esquire article before today either. Kind of sad “Twitter without Nazis” wasn’t a more compelling selling point. Just speaks to the power of network effects, I suppose.