#191 #TwitterMustDie?

Yabi Lali

24 min

Knowledge

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Global Policy Watch: Tu Cheez Badi Hai Musk, Musk (umm, sorry)Insights on global policy issues — RSJOne of the great problems of policy, or even philosophy, is who should own things that are or that behave like public utilities. For instance, who should own news broadcasting services? Suppose you prepare a case study explaining what’s news broadcasting, the perils that someone abuses such a service to spread fake news and propaganda, and the damage they do to society. Now hand over this case to a bunch of well-meaning people and ask them: how would they frame a policy on ownership of such a service? What do you think the answer will be? I don’t have any empirical evidence to back this, but I think in most scenarios, you will find a group of well-meaning people supporting some kind of ownership by the state or a distributed set of individuals. They might suggest a set of tightly regulated norms on what should be broadcast, and they could also throw in a stringent penalty regime for violations. It is unlikely that any group will come up with the answer that it should be owned by a megalomaniac rich man who believes in free speech, flips the bird to regulators on most occasions and has a penchant for poop emojis. A public utility cannot be left to such unstable people regardless of their genius, is what most would say. Twitter is the equivalent of a global public square where news stories are broken, and opinions and trends are generated. Should it be owned widely by the public with a governing board that regulates the platform, its content and its algorithm? Or should it be owned by the state, which can run it like a public utility without a profit motive? Or should Elon Musk own it? What do you think?Twitter Is DifferentBefore I venture to write about the options, it will be useful to lay out the unique character of Twitter as a platform. During the week, I reached out to Amit Varma </st

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