Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

I hope he does.

These gigantic centralized silo monopolies that recreate the experience of AOL online.

They have way more power than any American (or any other country) company should have in the world. Their reach is global, what they do, impacts millions of people who have no say whatsoever.

I long for a much more distributed system. (Doesn't have to be some fancy federated system.

I would be happy with real competition by a few hundred companies distributed around the world.

Closing down, or neutering the behemoths would be the most useful thing Trump will ever do.

He will soon realize that he cannot, or maybe he just forgets about it, or maybe he tries and the supreme court strikes it down. I cannot imagine how much money is flowing from the silos to lobbyists in Washington right now.

He's extremely unlikely to take real action because Twitter is his primary channel for reaching his political base. It's not guaranteed they'd migrate to where else he may choose to go (ever helped a relative figure out how to install a Zoom-alike videoconferencing app on their phone? Like that, but multiplied by millions of people. The science of engagement and stickiness tells us about half wouldn't bother to follow if they had to install one more app to hear the President's words).