or Why Twitter’s Like a Lighthouse
The story of The Independent journalist suspended for, erm, tweeting wrongly, has again drawn attention to a fundamental problem with twitter (and social media generally).
Twitter is providing, I would argue, an incredibly important, revolutionising, digital public square (more on that in my MA thesis, to be published here um soonish). But it’s a privately run platform. It has to make a profit from its sponsors, such as NBC.
As Alex Howard tweeted:
“The “new public square” online is complicated by the fact that “platforms” for free expression are owned by private companies. “
As Ben Goldacre tweeted:
Welcome back @guyadams. Twitter’s eagerness to suspend him makes me VERY nervous about investing effort in this place.
Joe blogs. 