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Comment by FreeTrade | Hacker News Reader

Federation is fine for groups of like minded people who want to discuss topics in echo chambers. That might be most of the discussion that happens online. It's absolutely fine.

However we also need a public square online. One where anyone may speak and anyone may respond and challenge the ideas. A place where anyone can put their claims on the record. It's not a place for sharing holiday photos. It is a place for public figures, journalists and politicians. Twitter has already been moving out of this space with it's various 'snowflake protection' policies and I hope Mr. Musk can restore this public square and strengthen it.

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This comparison of Twitter to some fantasy public square will never stop bewildering me. What was the global public square before Twitter? When did we have a place where every person on the planet could freely express themselves?

This is just a purely imaginary space which for some reason even very smart people keep bringing up.

Even if the public square analogy held, wouldn’t that be an even better argument for federation? Do people really want the “global public square” to be controlled by one man, or even a publicly traded company?

The fact that Twitter is controlled by one man or a group of investors is precisely why it's not a public square. It has nothing to do with the amount of users; if the public doesn't control it, then it's not public.

I can see logic in this. "Local", federated spaces are more analogous of a public square in my view.

On the other hand, a global neutral public square where all ideas can be expressed and challenged is just not feasible in any meaningful way.

It's an argument for decentralization. Decentralization > Federation for a global public square.

The idea that Twitter is a "public square" was recently popularized purely to create the argument that it should be owned and/or heavily regulated by the government. The imagined goal of this is for Twitter to somehow no longer have a moderation policy and only follow by the first amendment.

The idea that a company with an audience of hundreds of millions should not be able to impose its own bias on its users dates back at least almost a hundred years with utility service policies. I highly doubt this was invented overnight by the government.

This is just not a solid argument. Let's replace Twitter with the US government. Why should it be allowed to impose its own bias on billions of people worldwide?

One problem with this argument (and there are many) is that we assume that this _global_ public square should be controlled by the US government. That doesn’t make it much more fair or impartial than the current ownership. If being gay is illegal in many parts of the world, should people from those countries be able to call for punishment and basically harass gay people? If not, why not if this is a global public square.

The internet allows for new things that didn't exist before.

> However we also need a public square online

Why? What is this notion based on? A global public square never existed in the history of our species, why do we keep bringing up the idea of a public square as something completely reasonable?

I guess some people like the free exchange of ideas and others do not.

There is place like that already: 4chan. How is that working so far as a public square?

It's pretty great, you don't get immediately banned just for calling someone a slur. I prefer it.

4chan started as an imageboard for and by Japanese cartoon enthusiasts, not "a public square".

It's kind of like pointing at an institution run by edgy, lonely teenagers and asking, "How is that working so far as a ${institution_type}?"

You are certainly aware that Twitter did not start as a public square either (the original idea was to share SMS messages with a group of friends). So I am not following your argument.

My argument is that there is a place online where anyone can go and express an idea and challenge ideas of other’s. That place is (among others) 4chan. It’s not some obscure personal blog, it’s a large and influential platform. Is it working as a public square? Are you using it to challenge ideas you disagree with?

> Are you using it to challenge ideas you disagree with?

If someone says something dumb you call them a slur and move on. So yeah, actually.

It is actually a perfect analogy. You have most of the world leaders and government officials on Twitter. On the other end of the spectrum, I can get local ISP updates and my local fire department is on Twitter.

Twitter really is a public square in the true sense of the term.

Privately-owned global public square with laws and regulations set by the said private company? Then we all agree and there is no problem to solve.

Why does that need to be a single place? Surely having a single place ensures a limited set of views because there has to be a "one size fits the world" moderation policy.

Smaller distinct places that iter-operate and have the same UI for consistent UX seems strictly better for a public square.

Yes, interoperability between multiple interfaces is ideal. However federation can break this interoperability because the conversation can be fractured by instance owners. Decentralization with strong user-selected filters is the ideal model for a public square.

You do not need Mr. Musk for that - there is already 4chan.

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