Elon Musk Now Owns Largest Stake In Twitter With 9.2%!!! What’s Next For Free Speech Online???

in News & Views2 years ago

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Elon Musk is now the largest share holder of Twitter stock with a 9.2% position and he made the move just 10 days after creating a Twitter poll that asked it’s users if they believe the platform rigorously adheres to free speech principles and an overwhelming 70% voted no (including myself). Meanwhile the liberal government in Canada is attempting to rebrand and reintroduce the controversial Bill C-10 into the new equally Draconian Bill C-11. In this video Dan Dicks of Press For Truth looks into Musk’s apparent intentions with becoming the largest Twitter share holder while also exposing the new controversial Bill C-11 which is really just Bill C-10 rebranded!


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Dan, we are curious whether you appreciate that Hive already delivers all of the features that you read out from Twitter. Open source, free speech, decentralized social media is the fundamental value proposal of Hive. I'm sure if you were to echo this to your wider audience you would garner more support from upvoters here and also play a part in solving the problems online generally. Relying on massively centralized wealth is unlikely to result in decentralization.

I suggest you ask @logiczombie these questions. Perhaps the claim that free speech is possible and wealth is decentralized on Hive is insuperable. The Hive fork of Steem did not alter the power structure of the platform at all. It just replicated it without Sun Yuchen. While Yuchen's acquisition of the Founders' Stake centralized power in his sole person, presently Hivewatchers exerts a similarly potent stake on Hive, while managing that power differently than did Yuchen.

All that differentiates Hive from utterly centralized and censorial management of platforms like Twatter are the mechanism of censorship, and the intent of the management of the bulk of stake.

Thanks!

Edit: I find the fork to Hive essentially identical in effect as the legacy financial system's seizure of Russian assets. Don't you?

In the current climate, all designs for social networks require a certain degree of information control, whether it be to prevent those operating the systems from ending up in jail for unintentionally facilitating distribution of criminal materials or just to limit the flow of spam that will absolutely affect the viability of the platform if left unchecked. Does Hive handle this 100% perfectly? Absolutely not! Do we need elegant improvements, 100% yes! However, these problems apply to all social networks and we are not yet aware of any network that exists which does a better job of enabling people to own their own account and to publish almost whatever they want, without being depublished than Hive does.

The malicious downvoting on Hive is a big problem at times, but it is also a problem that could be addressed through community co-operation and social interactions that largely have not happened. This is not a failure of the software that runs Hive, rather it is the net result of the priorities and decisions that have been chosen by the community as a whole.

While free speech networks are very important, it is still true that the majority of people don't really have much passion with which to say much which would result in them being censored and so they don't have much passion to fight the malicious downvoting of others.

As far as the power structure on Hive goes, it follows the basic logic of capitalism - namely, that those who put in the most valued time/resources in will tend to get the most out. So the developers who have the most expertise on-chain (also the most expertise globally) will tend to acquire the most power and that is what we see. Is this an ideal design to base a community or social network on? Probably not, since the marketing and growth of a decentralized network kind of depends on it proving it's own worth through obvious levels of decentralization taking place.

Ultimately, there is an opportunity for great marketers, social organizers and thinkers to work together with the mains stakeholders to get them to delegate their stake to make more happen that can solve Hive's problems. We would love to see that take place, but such requests are not something that has been forthcoming from the community thus far, from what has been obvious in the community at least.

"these problems apply to all social networks and we are not yet aware of any network that exists which does a better job of enabling people to own their own account and to publish almost whatever they want, without being depublished than Hive does."

I agree to the extent that I remain here and posting. Depublishing Hive users continues, the latest I am aware of is @baah, whose posts are now muted. He has continued to post anyway, which I find admirable.

"This is not a failure of the software that runs Hive, rather it is the net result of the priorities and decisions that have been chosen by the community as a whole."

I strongly disagree. Human nature is the most relevant aspect of the environment in which the software that runs Hive is deployed, and it is software that is infinitely mutable. Therefore, software which replicates the very abuses of legacy social and governmental institutions that Hive users come here to avoid is inadequate to provide the benefits of forthright social intercourse and at will financial interactions potential to Hive.

Hive is potentially able to enable voluntary government of it's users, because it can enable forthright discussion, such as we undertake here, and agreement of people to fund development of every kind, besides specifically participating in the governance of the Hive platform. Given the rampant and odious repression of users for reasons other than spam or scam, and the concentration of stake which is the mechanism by which governance is effected on Hive, that awesome and evolutionary potential Hive could deliver to humanity is prevented from eventuating.

BTC, nor any other token that does not natively empower it's HODLers to forthrightly discuss, agree, and fund development, does not potentiate governance. That potential is of inestimable value to humanity. It is indeed the most valuable of possible goods or services. That potential seems to be trivially squandered on Hive, for merely the ROI of whales. Worse, were Hive code nominally competent to prevent the abuses at issue, that incomparable and unequalled value Hive could deliver to humanity has potential to financially reward whales beyond limitation.

Whales shoot themselves in the wallet by scrabbling for immediate returns and preventing actual investment dividends of limitless potential. It is this that marks them as profiteers rather than investors, IMHO.

"... the basic logic of capitalism - namely, that those who put in the most valued time/resources in will tend to get the most out."

It is undeniably obvious that capitalism is not merely a mechanism to reward investment, but also enables innumerable mechanisms of fraud, oppression, and every type of criminality extant. Human agency is limited by the laws of physics, and the sociocultural context we effect. We are not free to will ourselves to kinetically affect the universe, but must understand and apply the mechanisms the laws of physics mandates to do so, and must further moderate our affects in order to respect the sovereignty of our peers, lest we criminally harm them.

Hive software remains inadequate to fully potentiate voluntary social interactions without enabling abuse, and that abuse deprecates Hive and prevents realization of it's most valuable potential.

I have long and passionately recommended several changes to Hive that would improve it's ability to enable voluntary governance, better defend free speech, and reduce concentration of stake, to no avail. The most effective change I recommend is elimination of curation rewards, that degrade curation by substituting pecuniary interest for curative, and the implementation of savings accounts @edicted has proposed (not via a formal HPS request, but via post and discussion) that would provide investors more traditional ROI mechanisms that do not degrade curation, nor incentivize suppression of speech.

I appreciate very much your considered and substantive comment.

Thanks!

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Dan, I am unable to view the video here, or on 3Speak's site itself. Can you please provide another link?

Thanks!