Why are we so divided?! Whether it’s the war in Ukraine or Covid or the 2020 U.S. election or Black Lives Matter or abortion, it feels like there have never been such great divisions in society.

Recently, I had the opportunity to meet Daryl Davis. He is a swing, blues and rock musician, who has played with Chuck Berry for 32 year. He’s also a black man who has convinced 200 members of the KKK that racism just doesn’t make sense. Davis and Minds.com CEO Bill Ottman had some thoughts about how extremism can thrive.

“It’s when the conversation ceases that the ground becomes fertile for violence,” Davis says on the TechFirst podcast. “A missed opportunity for dialogue is a missed opportunity for conflict resolution … if you spend five minutes with your worst enemy, you’ll find something in common. This chasm will begin to shrink. Spend another five minutes, you find more in common and it closes in more.”

There’s a strong perception among people who identify with the right side of the political spectrum that the major social platforms from big tech companies censor or limit their political speech. Donald Trump was the former president launchedA class action lawsuit was brought against Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and YouTube in 2013. Tens of thousand of Americans provided examples of evidence. Elon Musk Slammed Twitter’s alleged “strong left wing bias.”

Whether they’re right or not, there’s no doubt that Facebook and other social media giants are intervening more and more in the content they publish, whether gun ownership second-Amendment posts or Information about accessing abortion pillsA world after Roe v. Wade.

A Facebook friend who doesn’t seem insane regularly shares instances of where Facebook deletes or hides her content.

In many cases the reasons seem silly or arbitrary, like an AI that doesn’t really understand the content or get the joke. One shows a floating tent, captioned “Floating tent sleeps 4 and offers a cool new way to die while camping.” Other deletions seem more understandable, like the thumb with a face on it and a string tied around in a shape like a noose: it’s not explicitly about lynching, but it’s clearly intending to evoke that imagery. It’s a poor joke and likely to offend. But is it acceptable?

Facebook often gets things wrong.

“My account has been restricted,” another friend recently . “Someone posted how cockroaches were under the benches in HB and I wrote ‘Burn them all down.’ I meant the bugs, but okay Facebook. Lol.”

But while there’s the mistaken and the comical, there’s also the Covid deniers and the anti-vaxxers and the election conspiracy theorists. The decision of when to censor is difficult, if it’s not impossible, seems almost unachievable.

Elon Musk, whose deal to “save free speech” …read more

Source:: Social Media Explorer