Comment on Musk’s plan to axe X's block button is a real win for stalkers and abusers.

• MagicShel@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  I don’t think I would agree that just because something is public that it’s a public forum. I feel like the public has to own it as well. I looked it up and maybe it’s because I predate social media by rather a lot, but I think of it in the classical sense:

  Public forums are typically categorized into three types:

  1. Traditional Public Forums: Long-established spaces like parks or sidewalks, where people have historically exercised their rights to free speech and assembly.
  2. Designated Public Forums: Areas that the government intentionally opens up for public expression, such as town halls or school meeting rooms.
  3. Limited Public Forums: Spaces opened for specific types of discussions or activities but with certain restrictions on the subject matter or participants.

  The important factor being public orders of the forum. I will concede that it has colloquially come to include public social media, but I think it’s important to distinguish that it’s not really the same thing at all as has been discussed through most of our history.

  Food for thought. I just think calling them public forums attaches too much importance to a profit seeking endeavor.

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  • ulkesh@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Exactly. You were much more articulate than I, with my comparison, but it was effectively the point I was trying to make — it’s not a public forum at all and it’s now overrun by a cesspool of nonsensical garbage.

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