Twitter, Facebook dismantle Beijing-backed HK campaign

Click HERE

The accounts were suspended for violating the social networking platform's terms of service and "because we think this is not how people can come to Twitter to get informed", a senior company official told the Associated Press.

With respect to the qn below, the general arguments goes that on social media, users have greater control as we are the content-creators and self-publishers, so we get to decide what gets published on our social media platforms for all to see, without having to get the approval of traditional media companies. Think how celebrities try to wrestle control over how they are protrayed in the media by the paparazzi by creating their own social media platforms....Think also how Donald Trump bypass traditional media by publishing on his own twitter account, as he accuses traditional media of trying to demonize him by spreading fake news and twisting his words....On twitter, no one gets to twist his words, and he gets to craft them all by himself without going through an intermediary party...

BUT now, in the article below, we are shown how users' power over their social media platforms need not be all-encompassing....the social media platform owners (i.e. FB, twitter) can intervene to close or ban users' accounts, hence aborting the users' ability/power to use their own self-generated content to influence the minds of the reader. Think Russian meddling in the domestic politics of other countries, and terrorists using social media for their own nefarious activities.....

So while users of social media may exert considerable control over their own platforms, this is only insofar as the users are allowed to continue using the platform by the owners of that platform, or if they subscribe to certain terms and conditions spelt out by the owners.....

Qn: 'Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.' Do you agree?