@LouisIngenthron scale and network effects are real things. at some level, a firecracker is functionally similar to an atom bomb, but their implications are quite different.

twitter was never a numerically huge platform, but it was and is a disproportionately influential platform. in particular, it was and remains where journalists talk to one another. that is not because they have any affinity for Musk and his message. 1/

@LouisIngenthron it’s because there’s a network effect that is important to their careers. groups of journalists, economists, some academic disciplines tried to coordinate a common exit, but they failed, and the network effect bas reverted to twitter. it is not dehumanizing to point that out. many, many people active on twitter will be glad to tell you they wish they were elsewhere and they detest Musk. network effects are powerful. 2/

@LouisIngenthron the way Musk turns an election is not by persuading or ranting himself. it’s not even by just amplifying people who agree with him and suppressing others, though he does do that and it doesn’t hurt. still, as you say, the numbers there are relatively small, that could only turn a very tight election. 3/

@LouisIngenthron the way a smart operative uses control of Twitter is, in the leadup to the election, to tilt what seems to be the news of the days towards the issue set the public trusts his preferred party on. Twitter exerts tremendous influence over what journalists, always scarce fresh and relevant material, consider to be the newsworthy of the day. 4/

@LouisIngenthron Musk can encourage controversies over crime, immigration, fentanyl, Hunter Biden to dominate strategic news cycles, rather than healthcare, abortion, minimum wage, or labor. He need persuade no one of his own views: the public trusts Rs more than Ds on set A, and issue salience at the time of the election drives marginal voters. You’ve got to stretch your JS Mill pretty hard to call this “free speech”. 5/

@LouisIngenthron of course noble journalists could resist, opt out, refuse to let the twitter controversy du jour drive their coverage. but journalists could have opted out of twitter too in theory by now, but they have not. it turns out they need it. part of what they need it for is to tell them what the news is that they’ll look out-of-touch for failing to cover. 6/

@LouisIngenthron if you don’t cover what everybody else is covering on your beat, why not? is it noble independent judgment? or are you just missing a beat, were you scooped? or maybe you are pushing your own agenda. failing to follow Musk’s agenda setting in the run-up would look a lot like “liberal media censorship”, a charge journalists contort their work frequently to avoid. 7/

@LouisIngenthron is all this guaranteed to succeed? absolutely not. but for the 30B of value Musk has vaporized, he does hold an important location of influence. depending on factors outside his control it might not be enough, but in an election as close as the last two, Musk could easily deliver the deciding margin. 8/

@LouisIngenthron not by “free speech”, but by the same kind of manipulation and gaming campaign operatives on all sides exploit and have normalized, attack surfaces that we to our collective discredit have failed to protect (because our politicians and the consultants to whom they dump our donations rely upon attacking them). /fin

@LouisIngenthron We know WTF we are fighting against. Is Musk any better than DeSantis? The regulation the right is currently after is basically no moderation, common carrier status. Mostly, that just kills the megasites, which is fine, better than Elon picks. As you say, if vigorously enforced (including "reach") the user experience would be terrible. Overtly viewpoint-specific regulation is and should remain unconstitutional, though of course tacitly it does and will exist.

@LouisIngenthron A nice thing about the Constitution is the kind of regulation it allows to be overt is mostly the kind of regulation that makes the megasites unworkable. Which is what I'd like to see.

@LouisIngenthron a 'zines comment section is afforded Section 230 protection, sure. but a small organ can't make its comment section its business model. Section 230 immunity certainly is not a constitutional rights, and I'd prefer we draw a lot more lines—hopefully more wise than arbitrary, but of course there are risks—in its boundaries. I'd love stronger antitrust too, but given the reality of political obstacles, you can't fight just one front. 1/

@LouisIngenthron regardless of what I want or what you want, while they are what they are, they are and will be regulated, tacitly if not constitutionally. the govts of India + China very obviously regulate what speech is tolerable on Musk's Twitter. US political risk has completely inverted Google's bias from exposing novelty to suppressing what is not already somehow certified as safe or valuable. Congress shall pass no law. Fine. Formally "free", necessarily regulated just less transparently.

@LouisIngenthron Mostly preventing the existence of platforms as vast and influential as twitter, facebook, etc and encouraging conditions under which a multitude of platforms with different and diverse allegiances emerge. I have no enthusiasm at all for state regulation of communications platforms, but I think it both naive and undesirable to imagine large platforms capable of discretionary shaping of public discourse can exist and be regulated solely in the interests of their owners.

@LouisIngenthron ("regulated" in the sense of controlled in that last sentence, i'm objecting to the idea that oligopoly communications platforms should have unfettered discretionary control in the way that a small publisher surely should.)