By @Alvy — August 17, 2024
Estimated @OdonElorza2011:
I have read your proposal for a “public Twitter managed by the EU” with great care. And although I understand your arguments and agree with you that this is – among other things – a quagmire of noise and manipulation, I radically disagree with your approach.
These… https://t.co/rHR2UhnWgU
— Jaime Gomez-Obregon (@JaimeObregon) August 17, 2024
It can’t be done more than strongly agree with Jaime Gomez-Obregon in his argument in the face of the approach of Odon Elorza about the need to create a «Twitter is a public service managed by the EU». This petition is developed on the politician’s blog as A public and European social network against cyberpopulism*.
The summary of propositions/arguments against would be this:
- Elon Musk and by extension his control over X/Twitter is a problem. The reality is that the “problem” is something that extends to all social platforms: YouTube, Facebook, X, GitHub, TikTok, WhatsApp, Telegram, Reddit, WeChat, Discord, Twitch… They are all private companies, none is openthey are all centralized and none has algorithms that users can consult in an open, complete and up-to-date manner. The solution is not to create yet another platform, but to decentralize these networks again.
- Content must be moderated. It has been known for decades that content moderation on the Internet is an unsolvable problem, one that can only be solved by applying patches. We are not even capable of solving this in today’s society: the reality is that neither experts nor lawyers agree on issues regarding this. what is an insult and what is not, what is a fake and what is not and of course what are the «democratic values»If we don’t know how to do it even in the Real World™, why would we be able to control it on the Internet?
- The public sector, the EU, “wise advice”… None of this guarantees that a new (and unnecessary) platform will work. The list of public, state and European fiascos is enormous: I am asking, Kelifinderthe Web of Renfe (no matter when you read this), Lexnetlos marketplaces locales (“Extremaduran Amazon”, “Torre Pacheco Amazon”, etc.), Radar Covidthe so-called infojobs public, idealistic public… Even companies with gigantic resources sometimes fail to launch new platforms due to competition… Let’s not even try without knowing much about the subject and with rather limited budgets and equipment.
Obregón’s summary is clear:
An “EU Twitter” would be an impossible task, putting someone who doesn’t know how to solve the wrong problem.
What is coming make a loaf of bread like a wafer in plain language.
I do not doubt Elorza’s good intentions, whether he is fed up with insults on his Twitter (which he has closed to responses) or whether he aspires to something better. But I also think that those who know about the role of technology in the development of social networks have much wiser things to say.
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* Curiously, Elorza’s article on his blog is nothing more than simple text: Not a link, not a reference, not a piece of data to consult with a click… The exact opposite of what a blog post should be, in other words. Obregón’s post on X ends with profuse references and links in a separate thread. In addition to that, Olorza could simply publish it on his blog – a decentralized platform controlled by himself – instead of doing it on X/Twitter if he doesn’t like “playing on Musk’s field, with his rules.” But, of course, then he probably wouldn’t get even a thousandth of the people to read it.
