Teo · 9 answers · 4y

As a follow-up to my last question, is neutrality necessarily something that a platform and its creators should strive for?

Neutrality is not the same as indifference. And depending on where the host is the local law might destroy any hope for free speech, neutrality or such.

The platform yes should be impartial the creators not really. It should be a place to share thoughts and opinions freely. If you're a right wing nut or a left wing loon you should be allowed to speak freely. The audiences will go to whom they agree with. Personally I think you should listen to all sides and not be in an echo chamber but not everyone is like that. And a platform shouldn't decide that for you

It's always best to be as impartial as possible and allowing your viewership to draw conclusions from the evidence presented to them. We (the American media) do a very poor job of that which is why I prefer British news sources like BBC and Reuters.

Definitely.

But...especially in current day and age, what might seem neutral to some, might seem like neglect or exactly the opposite to others. As someone with a certain outreach you'll never be able to appease everyone, and that also works with standing to certain topics etc.

Nah, it's perfectly fine to have a point of view and to run your platform in a way consistent with your values/moral code, as long as you're truthful and fair - and neutral and fair are not the same thing. Look at say, CNN or MSNBC...they'll have a climate change expert on with a denier and (uncritically) let them argue or whatever then shrug and say 'hey, you decide!' to be 'neutral', it is not 'unfair' to ask the denier 'hey, how do you respond to this mountain of evidence that refutes what you are saying right now?' and have them go through and explain it

I personally would find it boring! I like other ppl expressing their opinions (from their RESPECTFUL perspective) bc I can learn from them too (not all of them are gonna be that instructive tho) . For me, the key word is RESPECT more than NEUTRALITY. And that's what the platform should form its base on. And no, I'm not Aretha Franklin btw

Not necessarily. There could be value in debating these things, or if not that then at least value in having the freedom to speak openly about one's political opinions. But if a site's creators do strive for neutrality I think that's fine. There's enough forums out there that one specializing in being politically neutral wouldn't hurt--some people would probably like it, and those that wouldn't don't have to participate. (Though I would be angered if retrospring itself started enforcing neutrality by banning people..)

Retrospring uses Markdown for formatting

*italic text* for italic text

**bold text** for bold text

[link](https://example.com) for link