I don't know if you can quite draw that parallel. /r/The_Donald (which I myself am banned from) isn't the entire platform. Twitter is an entire platform. The_Donald is meant to be an echo chamber, much like Sanders for President was, they too would ban people on a whim. However, me being banned from /r/The_Donald is not any where near being banned from Reddit itself. Someone blocking me on Twitter is not me being banned from Twitter.
My fear here is that Twitter and Facebook are now political machines, even if I agree with what they are doing -generally-. Facebook is cracking down on "fake news," I saw fake news all the time on Facebook, from left (re: vaccines, GMOs, The Kochs) and right (re: Obama, Hillary, Global Warming.)
So, which is Facebook going to crack down on, and which one isn't it going to? I get trolled on Twitter more from the Right, but I do get trolled from the Left as well. Which is Twitter going to crack down on? They don't seem to have an open coherent policy. If I'm harassed by left and right, but I see more of the right being banned, at what point does this stifle speech?
Sure Twitter and Facebook are private companies and can run themselves in whatever manner they wish, but if they -do- have a bias, they should be open about it. If Facebook and Twitter wants to win my trust that they are handling this correctly, they should make the data of their bans public. Even old forums have a ban list and often reasons for bans as public. There is no such public face for these two platforms. They don't even have to have names/handles as public, just a graph that shows the data behind it.
My fear here is that Twitter and Facebook are now political machines, even if I agree with what they are doing -generally-. Facebook is cracking down on "fake news," I saw fake news all the time on Facebook, from left (re: vaccines, GMOs, The Kochs) and right (re: Obama, Hillary, Global Warming.)
So, which is Facebook going to crack down on, and which one isn't it going to? I get trolled on Twitter more from the Right, but I do get trolled from the Left as well. Which is Twitter going to crack down on? They don't seem to have an open coherent policy. If I'm harassed by left and right, but I see more of the right being banned, at what point does this stifle speech?
Sure Twitter and Facebook are private companies and can run themselves in whatever manner they wish, but if they -do- have a bias, they should be open about it. If Facebook and Twitter wants to win my trust that they are handling this correctly, they should make the data of their bans public. Even old forums have a ban list and often reasons for bans as public. There is no such public face for these two platforms. They don't even have to have names/handles as public, just a graph that shows the data behind it.