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When @jack was CEO of Twitter and Trump was president there were many calls to ban Trump from Twitter. There were many people demanding Trump be removed because either he violated the TOS or because they saw Trump’s tweets as dangerous. While catching up over kombucha at the Square office, Jack mentioned some of these conversations and how there were compelling arguments on both sides. He asked lots of people what they thought twitter should do. So he asked me about Trump and other accounts, like Richard Spencer’s and the alt-right. I’m very anti-Trump but I said I thought Jack shouldn’t ban him, because he’d face a shareholder revolt. Everyone said that it was Jack deciding things at Twitter and Mark Zuckerberg for the meta empire, but that wasn’t really true. The real power is in the money and that’s shareholders and advertisers. I can only imagine what a hard and stressful job it would be to decide what can and cannot be said in the public sphere, as twitter effectively was at its height. It was an impossible job, one which shouldn’t exist. Jack did incredibly good at managing to find balance, and everyone hated his decisions because there was no right answer. The reason for Bluesky, and now Nostr is to make it so no company or person has that kind of control. That the public sphere that is social media shouldn’t owned or controlled by any corporation or government. When something of value is held together without being ultimately owned by a person, organization, or government, the it is held in common. What we’re building together on Nostr is a commons. By making it a commons that’s held up by our software and contrbution as users, we escape the trap that caught twitter. A commons where we come together to make and sustain space. A commons where we can do business freely without someone who can arbitrarily shut us down. A commons where groups of users can decide the rules for themselves, and everyone doesn’t need to follow some universal set of opaque rules.

Replies (47)

true. if the company didn't go down this path, the advertisers would leave. if they left, the business crashes and the hedge funds come in. the only path forward was a protocol that we didn't own or control, or going private. going private however does not address the long term problem, as there is still a single owner, no matter how great their intention (and I know Elon's intentions are great).
X (formerly Twitter)
jack (@jack) on X
I do not celebrate or feel pride in our having to ban @realDonaldTrump from Twitter, or how we got here. After a clear warning we’d take this act...
↩ replying to jack
I believe that a number of excellent companies will emerge based on Nostr in the future, perhaps not just in the social field. A large amount of open user data sharing can inspire a lot of innovation. Elon has done very well so far, at least he has withstood a lot of pressure. He has a tendency to maintain the values ​​​​that he identifies with even if X goes bankrupt, FYS advertisers. I respect him very much for that.
Didn't the Twitter Files show that both the current regime and the prior both had access to Twitter and influenced decisions on who to ban, and censor? No offense, but I feel like this note is lacking in some of the explanation of what actually transpired at Twitter. Hunter Laptop, COVID, vaccines, etc. But you are right, this is why I'm not on Twitter and here.
Thank God for Elon Musk who actually has a spine and is restoring freespeech to the most important global forum. NOSTR is YEARS from becoming something as important for freedom that X has become during Musk’s year at the helm of it. NOSTR has the potential, but potential is ONLY potential until it’s realized. We’ll see.
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I'm inclined to think there was a right answer, which was to not become a tool of democrat propaganda. Twitter's actions may have changed the outfome of the election in 2020. That's inexcusable. The fact that it was at the behest of advertisers is a poor excuse. Many people lost their source of income that year under pressure to get the jab, but maintained their integrity. I think the problem is, like you said, the shareholders. An organization like Twitter can have no integrity, almost by definition. There are so many competing opinions and influential stakeholders that there is no possible outcome for a difficult decision other than more or less compromise. So for people who have integrity or a clear moral compass, the question becomes whether to stay and exert influence, or leave. Jack was free to do what he personally thought was right, but he likely wouldn't have lasted long. So I think there was a right answer, but impossible to give without losing all influence. I don't know what Jack would have done as a free agent, but I know generally what I would have done (though I don't know if I would have had the courage). All that to say, I agree that nostr is not so easily corrupted. But that does not lessen the need for people in difficult situations to courageously refuse to compromise. Brokering compromise in a corrupted system perpetuates the system. Sometimes it's best to dissent in order to testify to the illegitimacy of the system, even at one's own expense. Solzenitzsyn will be my guide if ever I find myself in a similar position.
↩ replying to jack
No. You were exactly where you were supposed to be. You saved Twitter. FUN FACT: Elon became majority shareholder at Twitter to earn a seat on the board and make much needed changes to Twitter. Elon was shut down entirely by the board at every attempt to suggest changes which led to him buying Twitter outright. And that would not have been possible without @jack!!☀️🌬️✨💋🦁🫂💖
↩ replying to npub1grer...md0c
I think you forget that the “problems” you talk about, which must be the left actually trying to defend people’s rights by force because some incels can’t actually do it of their own accord, are very trivial compared to the real problems faced by those who have always been oppressed. people working on these kind of platforms, if they want it to be for everyone, need to account for all the issues that all people face eg women and harassment, people if different religions, gender identities, sexualities etc. Its just not fair to say YOUR idea of “problems” is perhaps proportional to someone else’s when very real harm could be caused by the cultural conditioning that comes as a result of allowing hateful things.
↩ replying to jack
This is what caused Trump the election. Period. The American public was on the brink of death and starvation while Republicans callously blocked every effort to get immediate relief to people. They couldn’t vote Biden in fast enough!! The Republicans botch handling of COVID lost Trump that election not freaking Twitter!!💖 image
↩ replying to jack
Voters. Voters. Voters. I don’t know maybe it’s best for Republicans to just sit this one out if their only election strategy entails disclosing the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop to these 10000+ carloads of starving families who were lined up at the Texas *food bank* on that day, many of whom were turned away and left empty handed, not to mention the millions of Americans across the US who faced the same predicament.🇺🇸💻💖
It’s ‘People, People, People’ as Lines Stretch Across America (Published 2020)
Lines for groceries, food aid and unemployment assistance stretch for blocks as the coronavirus crisis forces Americans into quarantine queues.
image image
Who is going to step in though at the point someone is intentionally inciting harm to others, or propagating hate and oppression to extreme levels?? Like Hitler with the Holocaust etc….I am all for freedoms and allowing people to express themselves when they are subject to an unjust regime, but there still needs to be more thought and accountability for some things and not just wringing hands, sitting on the fence and letting everything awful happen…what about, and it sounds weird but allowing people to vote to have a post removed?? Don’t know if I have been removed from a relay here but think what hypocritical garbage if that’s the case, for what hahaha??? I also wholeheartedly agree that this platform needs to be able to delete items yourself. Seems nonsensical to remove that freedom from an individual