Trump Twitter Ban Raises Questions About Roles and Responsibilities of Social Media

 
By Bixyl Shuftan

It was about a week ago on Friday January 8 that President Donald Trump was permanently banned by the social medial platform Twitter. The reasons given by Twitter on it's official announcement were "recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter." The ban got attention for a number reasons. One was that no previous President had relied so much on the social media platform, or anything similar. His numerous, and unfiltered, tweets to his followers, sometimes "dozens a day," were a big part of how he communicates with the public. While Trump's separate Presidential account remains, the takedown of his personal account meant the loss of his most frequently used means to communicate.

While Trump's opponents supported the move, many saying the ban should have been done a long time ago, a number have expressed criticism and reservations. Conservatives and populists accused Twitter of taking sides in political debate. Libertarians expressed concerns about free speech issues, especially as like or dislike him that Trump as US President is a major figure in US Government while he is in office.

A number of Trump's statements over Twitter were flagged for misinformation, notably some during the election, which itself touched off controversy. Various civil rights groups have criticized Twitter and other platforms for allowing Trump to air conspiracy theories and false claims. But the American Civil Liberties Union, while critical of his statements as well in the past, also expressed concern about the ban, saying while they understood the reasons for the ban, "the unchecked power" of major social media "should concern everyone."

Katie Fallow, a senior staff attorney at Columbia University's Knight First Amendment Institute, felt the Trump Presidency has brought about new questions about the roles and responsibilites for social media platforms such as Twitter for both people in government and those advocating for free speech. "Some people have called for (applying) antitrust law to the social media platforms on the idea that there's essentially a monopoly on the speech environment, but those are untested legal waters," she spoke.

British Health Secretary Matt Hancock felt the Twitter ban, in addition to bans by Facebook and Instagram, raise a "very big question" about how social media is regulated, commenting the bans were "taking editorial decisions." He went on to say while the scenes in Washington DC, "were terrible - and I was very sad to see that because American democracy is such a proud thing," he added, "But there's something else that has changed, which is that social media platforms are making editorial decisions now. That's clear because they're choosing who should and shouldn't have a voice on their platform."

Other officials in Europe expressed concerns. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the ban "problematic." French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire condemned Trump's "lies," but also spoke out against the ban, "What shocks me is that Twitter is the one to close his account. The regulation of the digital world cannot be done by the digital oligarchy."

Currently, social media companies are protected under US Federal law by Section 230, a provision of the 1996 Communications and Decency Act, which shields platforms from being held liable in court for the speech of users, unlike traditional media companies. But critics feel considering how much has changed since then and how big Facebook and Twitter have become, it's past time for a change. Trump and some of his supporters have called for a repeal of the law. But Fallow stated such a repeal would end up hurting him and other populists as the law shields Twitter and other social media of responsibility for allowing them to use the platforms.

Jack Dorsey, the man in charge of Twitter, would issue a series of statements on Wednesday Jan 13, feeling the ban was "right," but also "dangerous," with potential consequences for free speech later on.

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 action, we made a decision with the best information we had based on threats to physical safety both on and off Twitter. Was this correct?

I believe this was the right decision for Twitter. We faced an extraordinary and untenable circumstance, forcing us to focus all of our actions on public safety. Offline harm as a result of online speech is demonstrably real, and what drives our policy and enforcement above all.

That said, having to ban an account has real and significant ramifications. While there are clear and obvious exceptions, I feel a ban is a failure of ours ultimately to promote healthy conversation. And a time for us to reflect on our operations and the environment around us.

Having to take these actions fragment the public conversation. They divide us. They limit the potential for clarification, redemption, and learning. And sets a precedent I feel is dangerous: the power an individual or corporation has over a part of the global public conversation.

The check and accountability on this power has always been the fact that a service like Twitter is one small part of the larger public conversation happening across the internet. If folks do not agree with our rules and enforcement, they can simply go to another internet service.

This concept was challenged last week when a number of foundational internet tool providers also decided not to host what they found dangerous. I do not believe this was coordinated. More likely: companies came to their own conclusions or were emboldened by the actions of others.

This moment in time might call for this dynamic, but over the long term it will be destructive to the noble purpose and ideals of the open internet. A company making a business decision to moderate itself is different from a government removing access, yet can feel much the same.

Yes, we all need to look critically at inconsistencies of our policy and enforcement. Yes, we need to look at how our service might incentivize distraction and harm. Yes, we need more transparency in our moderation operations. All this can’t erode a free and open global internet.

Twitter has also been criticized on the move on the grounds that while Trump's account is gone, some very undemocratic world leaders still have theirs. But Twitter has suspended some of these accounts on occasions in the past for violating it's rules. In another example of social media enforcing it's rules, a few days ago Facebook shut down several accounts liked to the Ugandan government.

President Trump is due to step down on Wednesday January 20. Joe Biden, whom also has a personal Twitter account, was given another one as President-elect, "Folks — This will be the account for my official duties as President. At 12:01 PM on January 20th, it will become @POTUS. Until then, I'll be using @JoeBiden."

Sources: BBC News, ABC News, Twitter, Politico

Bixyl Shuftan

News and Commentary: Sansar, One Year Later

By Bixyl Shuftan

It was a little more than a year ago that Linden Lab officially opened Sansar, it's "next-generation virtual world which had been in development for over three years, experienced a number of delays, and was the subject of no shortage of speculation by Second Life's residents. My initial impression was that while interesting it's best feature was it's, potential for improvement. Others had a firm thumbs down to the point it couldn't be mentioned in the Second Life Friends Facebook group.

Since then, there have been some improvements to Sansar. Last month, the Lab allowed content creators to sell custom avatars on Sansar's Marketplace. And less than two days later some appeared. As of the writing of this article, there were a total of 43 avatars either available for free or up for sale (some better than others). Among those you can get for free now is the "Draxacoon." The Lab also expanded the number of areas, or "experiences" that residents could have from three to twenty.

There are some visually stunning locations in Sansar. One of the more recent ones is the "Roddenberry Nexus," which according to Inara Pey was launched in August 1. Done by Linden Lab in cooperation with Roddenberry Entertainment, which is run by Eugene Roddenberry, the son of the man who created "Star Trek." Giving it a look, I found it offers more interactivity than previous Sansarbuilds I've seen with a lift that can move you between levels and buttons that when pressed will play recordings, such as one describing the transporter visual effects or the Star Trek Animated Series.

There was also another cooperative build done by the Lab with the help of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Among the most interesting stories I've seen was a video by Draxtor Despress, showing a number of people holding a "Hoverderby" game. These people weren't just looking at Sansar, but interacting.

But there's still plenty to complain about Sansar. Sansar is also a more restrictive place than Second Life. It was widely expected from the begining there would be more restrictions on adult content than Second Life. While I read somewhere at least one builder tinkered with such builds, the most recent set of content guidelines have pretty much stated "no nudity and sex."

Content featuring sexually explicit content and activities, such as pornography, sexual acts, nudity and sexual services, including solicitation and offers for such content, are prohibited.

The Lab does say, "However, in limited educational or scientific contexts, we may make exceptions to these policies in our sole discretion." One example might be the piece of nude artwork Ryan Schultz saw at the Smithsonian art exhibition. But this wasn't the only problem Schultz saw. Even mentioning the names "Sansar," Linden Lab," or "Second Life," on a build could get you in trouble.

Any content or Sansar store listings that contain any references to Linden Lab, Sansar, Second Life, or any other Linden Lab-related terminology that may imply a relationship with, sponsorship, endorsement, or employment by Linden Lab is prohibited. 

So even making a "Sansar" t-shirt would get you a takedown notice from the Lab. And it's not just inworld content as in January, Schultz was asked to remove some pictures, and there appeared to be a problem with the name he was using for his blog at the time, "Sansar Newsblog." Hassling a major source of news about a virtual world you want to get word out about, especially a friendly voice, (and a big source of information for this article) isn't exactly the best of business tactics. And then there's the following line.

Do not upload Content that promotes or could be construed as primarily intended to evade limitations on Prohibited Content.

This line of the Terms of Service certainly leaves a lot to interpretation. Considering the Lab's past behavior, some content creators might decide not to take chances with a certain idea and instead make and sell it on another virtual world. In addition to the lack of a fashion market, this is probably one reason why Sansar has attracted little attention from more than a few bloggers. Though Schultz would say this was a common case of most newer virtual worlds.

For those frustrated by the long time it can take details to rezz in Second Life sims, Sansar can be just as bad or even worse. And there are apparently some problems with buying Sansar dollars in bulk using the "bundle" option.

And of course, while Sansar looks good, it still lacks the interactivity of Second Life and OpsnSim worlds. As it's been stated before, it's like comparing a theme park to a residential area, a nice place to visit, but not one you can virtually live. The examples I've stated are Sansar at it's best. The majority of other "experiences" aren't as good.

For these reasons, the userbase of Sansar remains tiny compared to Second Life. In April, the Newser reported the next-generation virtual world was averaging less than fifty users a day. Schultz went further, saying that the average was never higher than twenty. In fact, the graph he gave showed it was sometimes less than ten per day. For now, it seems stuck at a tiny userbase.

So why has Linden Lab persisted in sticking with Sansar? The question has been raised on whether the Lab has a "cultural shift" away from it's established virtual world to this unpopular newcomer, numbers remained small. Yes, it's normal for a company to want to show off it's latest product. But why leave out it's tried and true moneymaker? Perhaps with the stories about cyber-affairs, incidents like the "flying penis attack" on live TV, being banned from the "Twitch" streaming service due to some of it's sims allowing explicit content, maybe the Lab is feeling it can't really mention Second Life much to a mainstream audience. Another possible reason, with the talk about "safe spaces" at colleges where controversial speech is prohibited, perhaps the Lab is wondering if the next generation is looking less for the ability to express oneself and more about security from what might offend them.

As for the possibility of Linden Lab closing down Second Life anything soon to force it's population to Sansar: not a chance. Near the start of it's development before it even had a name, Will Burns once commented if Linden Lab made such a move, about a third would move onto the new grid, a third to smaller virtual worlds, and a third would give up on virtual worlds altogether. Today, I'd have to say if Linden Lab made such a suicidal move, in my opinion less than five percent would be inclined to move on to Sansar as their primary virtual world. While Linden Lab might survive thanks to it's Blocksworld income, it would be a much smaller company. Of the rest of Second Life's residents, it's my guess about three-fifths would move on to the various smaller virtual worlds, perhaps some moving between two or three to continue to meet up with friends. And the rest would likely give up on anything more than a passing interest in virtual worlds. Even for those who moved, they would most likely not spend as much money. It's one thing to invest money in virtual land and property if you believe the grid will be around for years. But if you're not sure how things will be six months down the road, you may not be so eager to put down that money.

In any event, Sansar is very much a work in progress compared to Second Life, and even the more established Opensim worlds. It still needs at least a year, probably longer, before it can truly stand on it's own. For those who insist Linden Lab should get rid of it, such as one person I talked to who called it "the Edsel of virtual worlds," keep in mind the Edsel was in production for three years before it's makers finally gave up on it. Most likely, it will take longer than that before the Lab decides it's efforts are best spent elsewhere.

Sources: Ryan Schultz (formerly the Sansar Newsblog), Modem World, Sansar , Draxtor Despres, venturebeat.com  

Bixyl Shuftan

News and Commentary: More On InWorldz's Closing

By Bixyl Shuftan

InWorldz is gone.

Due to shut down on Friday July 27, the place began going down Thursday night as sims were shut down, and people packed their items away as the management stated they would try to save what could be through an OARS. On Friday, people could still log in at 2:30 PST, but soon after when yours truly was there, the last of the sims couldn't be acessed. From the chatter on Discord's InWorldz group, and the newly created InWorldz Disporia and Relay For Life of InWorldz, it looks like a few people were able to hang on for a while and even relog. but by Saturday July 28 at Noon, the last few people finally lost their grip as the place went completely offline.

There's a lot of sadness, confusion, and more than a little anger. And that's certainly to be expected. While HyperGrid Business reported about merchants in the virtual world being "concerned about perceived drop in users and commercial activity and worry that the grid owners are no longer committed to the success of the grid," the announcement on Monday hit people by surprise. "Why did she not have the funds to pay her bills?" As the co-founder of the place hasn't been around for over a year, he can't say. When another noted virtual world, Avination, went down, the reasons were the company's cash reserves being wiped out by thieves using stolen credit card numbers to buy virtual currency, and then a "catastrophic" data loss it couldn't afford to pay to fix. And this grid had a far smaller population, and numbers of private sims than InWorldz. How did a larger gird that escaped problems on this scale go under?

All we have to go on is Beth Reischl's explanation was that she took out a loan from a subsidiary of Paypal, of which she seemed to be saying she'd taken out loans before to cover development costs, and despite the money being available to pay them, for some reason the company declared "non-sufficient funds" and took out a lien against them. She stated when she called them to resolve the issue, the person she talked with was "very combative" in blaming her for the situation, and further attempts to resolve the situation were fruitless.

The Gofundme campaign Reischl started adds to the confusion. Started in an attempt to try to save the grid, once most of the money was raised, she stated that instead the money would be used to help make a new grid. Why the sudden change? Her words, "What then, what about next month?" was a suggestion the money troubles were pretty deep. The sudden change in the reasons for the Gofundme plus questions as to how the Grid could have found itself in need of a loan made for a lot of confused people, as well as a number of angry ones who suspected something fishy was going on.

Those whom were exclusively or mainly using InWorldz have a choice of where else to go. At least one, Mobius, is taking the moment to offer them a break if they move there.

To every resident of InWorldz,

We are sad to see InWorldz go, and you might need a new home so we at Mobius are offering to InWorldz Residents who want to make Mobius that when you order a region with the coupon code TTL31 you get the region 50% off for each month you have your region until you close it down. This offer ends 9/9/2018.

As Hypergrid Business stated, "for people looking for a closed, commercial grid" like InWorldz (or Second Life), which offer greater control over who can get in (such as griefers) and more power to protect content creators, there aren't that many options out there, "The three major closed grids are The Adult Grid, Virtual Highway, and DreamNation. There are also several educational grids that are closed, and some grids run by companies and other organizations that require privacy or control. Almost all other grids are hypergrid-enabled. As of May, hypergrid-enabled grids accounted for 98 percent of all OpenSim land area and 97 percent of all active users." According to a poll Hypergrid is doing, and still ongoing, the results as of the writing of this article suggests the greater shares of InWorldz users are heading to the Discovery and DigiWorlds grids, with Kitely in third place. As of July 28, Hypergrid says in DigiWorldz there have been "more than 250 new user registrations since July 24, and has up up 71 new regions." Maria Korolov's article would give a rundown of many of the worlds InWorldz users could head to (besides Second Life, of course).

Besides how come InWorldz went down, there have been a few questions yours truly has been asked. One is will there be a replacement for the InWorldz grid and when will it be? As of the writing of this article, there's been no date given for the opening of this replacement grid, or it's name. And outside the core group of hopeful inWorldz fans, it's usually being called the possible new grid or plans for a new grid. But there are a couple Discord groups, InWorldz and InWorldz Disporia one can join to talk to InWorldz members for possible information. But at this time, so far it's all speculation. It's current tech department head, Jim Tarber, has stated that he will not be part of any successor to InWorldz.

Talla Adam of the Metaverse Traveller would say, "No date has been mentioned for InWorldz II to open but it will probably be several weeks given the amount of work to do. When it does open, some may well return. So for some of the departing refugees it might be a two-way tip - hard to say really. But there is a lot of bad feeling and people feel put out losing stuff and having to move anyway. The longer it takes to rebuild will also play a part in determining how many will return."

What will happen to the Relay for Life in InWorldz event? In short, without an InWorldz and no date given for the supposed replacement grid, it's a safe bet that the event won't be happening. What is likely to happen is that the event will be moved to another virtual world. Which one this will be is unknown as to how long the decision might be. One can check the Relay for Life of the Metaverse Discord group for possible details.

Could this happen to Second Life? In short, not any time soon. While Linden Lab has been accused of a number of things, rightly and wrongly, over the years, not having a desire to watch the bottom line is something it seldom is. About a little over a year ago, it was suggested the Lab was making 65 to 70 million dollars USD. But while it's finances are sound for now, over the past several years Second Life has undergone a slow but persistent long-term decline in the number of it's sims. While it has been hoped that Linden Lab's recent adjustments in what it charges for sim tier can reverse this trend, the results are still less than conclusive. Even if this trend is halted, there's still the chance a future CEO could pull a series of blunders on the scale of the Content Creator Terms of Service controversy right when someone develops a virtual world that unlike Sansar people can make a virtual home instead of simply an experience. So trying to predict Second Life's future beyond a decade becomes problematic. But unless there's a global catastrophe such as a worldwide economic depression or a planetary power grid failure from a solar flare, it's a safe best the virtual world we know and love will still be around for several more years at least.

As hundreds, probably thousands as the days go on, set up in a new virtual world, and residents from Second Life look outside wondering what happened, no doubt there's many smaller stories to be told. Feel free to send the Newser any reader submissions about your experiences in InWorldz, or your new home.

Sources: Hypergrid Business, The Metaverse Traveller, New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan