(I didn't downvote you but) I think the "elites" are the ones who most abuse the right to free speech, by controlling mass media and the public narrative, as well as conflating political contributions as "speech". Money talks.

When Jack says:

> This isn’t about free expression. This is about paying for reach. And paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramifications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle.

Paying for reach and political influence has already pushed democracy to the breaking point. The symptoms are everywhere, from the appalling state of public healthcare, to regulatory capture in virtually every industry, especially financial. The "elites" are not a single group, but a fractured one with varying interests vying for power - but they do have one thing in common, which is using money as speech to control the narrative.

Thank you for not down voting me — but I’d love you just the same if you did. I find it difficult to rebut the argument you present with the following exception: in the US we have several hundred years of rigorous iteration in our legal system with respect to what is and what isn’t protected speech. For twitter to decide now and it this juncture that the speech it most dislikes is x, something about that doesn’t sit well. That said there’s long been an odd relationship between campaign spending and the media. Many local newsroom’s entire budgets depend on election years and yet we are supposed to believe they’re impartial. So I get that there’s a principle involved in this decision that they simply aren’t going to be like the local newsroom. That’s what they say... but who is going to watchdog this policy to make sure it really works like that and who is going to even notice when they inevitably make decisions that go beyond the criteria initially laid out? Seems to me rather than being a principled stand this is simply a way for them to create an ever shifting rule set to promote the speech they like while silencing speech they disagree with.

That sounds sensible, and I'd agree with you that Twitter's decision does raise questions about who gets to decide what's allowed to have "reach".

I suppose your parent comment sounded a bit too incendiary for civilized discussion. It did seem somewhat reductionist to say the "elites" are banning free speech to control the narrative.

It's possible that Twitter is biased in favor of certain political leanings; it could be that this decision is not as altruistic as it sounds; maybe there are hidden (or even unconscious) political motives. And, as you pointed out, there's no saying what may happen in the future, when someone else is in charge of the company. I think these are valid questions about the power they have to shape the public narrative, at least in their sphere of influence.

For me at least, I'd like to give Jack the benefit of the doubt and take his words and this decision as an honest effort in trying to be a responsible social media company.

>> It did seem somewhat reductionist to say the "elites" are banning free speech to control the narrative.

Here’s a hypothetical to illustrate how this makes sense in my view: the incumbent is always going to control the lions share of the so called free media. Two or three elections cycles ago, the average campaign didn’t know about a/b testing much less how to leverage social to level the playing field. Now everyone knows... now the incumbent no longer has the home field advantage... except.. twitter just changed the rules. One less platform that the challenger can leverage to play up to the incumbent. And let’s see, everyone thinks Jack is great so maybe some of the other platforms follow on... now technology is basically useless for the challenger.. so we are back to the old system where the incumbent takes the free media attention. A return to the status quo. Now why would social media have an interest in that? Oh I don’t know why does anyone have an interest in seeing entrenched politicians staying in power and yet that’s the system we’ve made for ourselves... oh I know pac money / citizens united are all code for republican money so I’m sure a lot of the commentators on here are thinking this will suppress that because that is the “only people who buy political ads” these days... but I’d ask you this - what if some challenger out there might have a chance of flipping a red state and changing the composition of the senate in 2020... except now one of the tools they could have used just disappeared... how do you feel now? Maybe political ads aren’t so bad if they keep incumbents from sticking around so long.

I hear you about the potential downsides and consequences of Twitter banning political advertising, one of which might be that incumbents have lost a platform to rally support.

On the other hand, this ban affects those in power as well - and it might be argued that they're the ones who disproportionately spend and have reach on social media. So I find it hard to imagine that this decision was conspired to suppress those who challenge the status quo.

I suppose we'll have to see how it turns out. Maybe incumbents have more of a chance, if they didn't have to compete on ad spending, but instead on "organic reach" of genuine supporters.

I'm a cynic, and skeptical of politics in general (with good reason, based on study of its shameful history..) but there's a stubborn optimist in there who wants to believe humanity - even the "elites", at least a few souls - have a shred of goodness and hope left to turn things around.

Interesting... Who do you think buys multimillion dollar media ads, if not the elites? It's very much the opposite of what you're saying.

Well this sort of underscores the problem with this approach — who exactly is an elite? What exactly is political? We can’t even agree yet we think Twitter is going to be better at it than us? If it were up to me, I would design the platform as one in which all messages including those with mail-intent were allowed. Then I’d enable the client software to decide based on user preferences. Having a centralized scrutinizer is just a recipe for bad Ju-ju.