Years ago, we have entered into a world where communication with one another is instant and nearly cost-free. For broadcasters, this is the golden age that they could spread their messages easier than ever.
But that time seems to the last, as tech firms supporting those platforms are taking or required to take more actions in limiting messages/ads allowed to broadcast.
The underlying thesis – people realized that the nature of information will change depending on the number of audience.
Twitter’s recent action is to ban political ad purchases – to reach a large audience just by spending money. We could easily see that in a world such thing is allowed, it would just become a competition for war-chest, candidates bidding higher prices to reach the audience.
Some actions are for general accounts/messages – a Facebook account or post for example. Most are justified actions now. But this is a slippery slope. More messages could have been banned for the sake of overall well-being.
On the other hand, tech firms don’t want to spend too much on screening messages/ads. After all, they are not speaking those languages. But the challenges they are facing are more real than ever, while implementing more rules will also draw more critics.
There is a balance and trade-off here.
Tech firms need to balance between the percentage of communications allowed and the overall “healthiness” of the platform. The latter would impact long-term ads sales, users growth/engagement and political pressure/costs.