Your weekly mail is one of the best reads for me. Please consider this as a request, but is it possible to provide a list of books which one should read? Even books for different subjects such as Economics, Philosophy, and so on.
Thank you for running such a wonderful newsletter.
Thanks Pranay. I am also listener of Puliyabaazi. Conversations are quite enriching. If you can make a list of books to read if some one starting to understand Economics and philosophy. Would be great.
It is surprising to see the below (seems to be an offhand remark) in an otherwise excellent post:
"Suppression of free speech is an issue only when the state is involved. Private entities don’t have that monopoly on violence. If they suppress free speech on their platform, well, there are other platforms."
While private entities don't have "monopoly on violence" and "well, there are other platforms" are true in the strict, narrow sense of the phrases used, evidence has emerged worldwide that private entities like Twitter whose main product is dissemination of speech have great power, and therefore great responsibility. The power emerges from economic network effects. In fact, that reason is the very basis on which the intermediary guidelines (applying to "significant social media intermediaries") have been formed.
Whether it is deplatforming Trump or Kangana, or warning ManjulTOONS, Twitter and other social platforms have a monopoly on the reach they enable and other platforms simply do not replicate it. Case in point: the loss of fame and income suffered by thousands of TikTok creators in India after the government's TikTok bans, in spite of the wide availability of copycat apps.
Platforms have been policing user-generated content, whether it is through legal requirements (copyrighted content; content related to weapons, pornography, drugs, etc.) or through the platform's own rules (which are a tool to control the experience a user gets and thereby preserve its financial interests) - the "violence" ranges from extreme (deplatforming) to limited (withholding content) to warnings-only (tags of "manipulated media") and even as signals evaluated by feed curation algorithms, based on the offense.
Fair points. Thanks for bringing them up. We have been writing on platforms and ways to regulate them for a while. We will write more in future on this topic as we read further and hear from other voices like yours. Hope to hear more from you.
Any inquiry should be truthful restricting itself to facts and evidence and the commitment shall be to accept whatever comes out of such inquiry as Truth, even if it is inconvenient!
Your weekly mail is one of the best reads for me. Please consider this as a request, but is it possible to provide a list of books which one should read? Even books for different subjects such as Economics, Philosophy, and so on.
Thank you for running such a wonderful newsletter.
Chintan,
Thank you for the kind words of encouragement. Grateful.
Happy to send you a few names based on what I have liked over the past couple of years. Pls drop your mail id here
Hi Chintan, thanks. You will find lots of books in our HomeWork section every week. Separately, we had done one edition on books on Indian Constitution here https://publicpolicy.substack.com/p/103-constitution-chronicles-4-books
Thanks Pranay. I am also listener of Puliyabaazi. Conversations are quite enriching. If you can make a list of books to read if some one starting to understand Economics and philosophy. Would be great.
It is surprising to see the below (seems to be an offhand remark) in an otherwise excellent post:
"Suppression of free speech is an issue only when the state is involved. Private entities don’t have that monopoly on violence. If they suppress free speech on their platform, well, there are other platforms."
While private entities don't have "monopoly on violence" and "well, there are other platforms" are true in the strict, narrow sense of the phrases used, evidence has emerged worldwide that private entities like Twitter whose main product is dissemination of speech have great power, and therefore great responsibility. The power emerges from economic network effects. In fact, that reason is the very basis on which the intermediary guidelines (applying to "significant social media intermediaries") have been formed.
Whether it is deplatforming Trump or Kangana, or warning ManjulTOONS, Twitter and other social platforms have a monopoly on the reach they enable and other platforms simply do not replicate it. Case in point: the loss of fame and income suffered by thousands of TikTok creators in India after the government's TikTok bans, in spite of the wide availability of copycat apps.
Platforms have been policing user-generated content, whether it is through legal requirements (copyrighted content; content related to weapons, pornography, drugs, etc.) or through the platform's own rules (which are a tool to control the experience a user gets and thereby preserve its financial interests) - the "violence" ranges from extreme (deplatforming) to limited (withholding content) to warnings-only (tags of "manipulated media") and even as signals evaluated by feed curation algorithms, based on the offense.
The offhand dismissal was therefore jarring.
Mihir,
Fair points. Thanks for bringing them up. We have been writing on platforms and ways to regulate them for a while. We will write more in future on this topic as we read further and hear from other voices like yours. Hope to hear more from you.
Must say I truly enjoy the newsletter, and look forward to receiving every version. Glad to engage!
this is a fascinating point and we'll wait for RSJ to respond.
Mihir, I agree that in the Information Age, these platforms play a really important role, and hence their role deserves scrutiny.
The case of the TiKTok is interesting - it's a case of the government exercising its monopoly over "violence" over the entire platform.
Any inquiry should be truthful restricting itself to facts and evidence and the commitment shall be to accept whatever comes out of such inquiry as Truth, even if it is inconvenient!