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leanstartupnoob | 5 years ago

Which government agency is censoring Twitter?

Conservatives and libertarians LOVE to bleat about property rights, but they can't handle it when private parties won't provide free advertising for right-wing conspiracies.

discuss

order

int_19h|5 years ago

Private censorship is still censorship, and when large monopolies or cartels dominate the market, it can be just as damaging.

lawnchair_larry|5 years ago

You’ve learned how to do a straw man. Next, try your hand at the steel man. Feel free to look it up!

artursapek|5 years ago

I'm not aware of any govt agency censoring Twitter - only conservatives complaining that Twitter is censoring their tweets.

lliamander|5 years ago

What we LOVE is a market free of force and fraud, and we love rule of law. Within that there are very nuanced conversations to be had about when the threshold for force or fraud has been reached.

Enforcement of contracts is essential to a healthy society, but is it good to enforce a contract where one party either lied or coerced the other to sign? No, or at least not necessarily.

The nature of the contract between social media platforms and their users (both explicit and implicit) has changed dramatically since the days that Twitter was "the free speech wing of the free speech party". Users have sacrificed a increasing amount of privacy for less and less obvious benefit. In the meantime, many people have come to depend upon these services for connecting with others, for their livelihoods, and for news independent of corporate media.

Have the social media companies deceived their users? Or have they forced unconscionable terms upon their users? Have they violated consumer protection laws?

I am not a lawyer. I don't know the answers to those questions. But I do know that there are some lawyers and judges who do think that some of these social media companies have overstepped. We don't necessarily need a civil rights case, or a constitutional amendment, or even to repeal Section 230. All I think is necessary is for existing contract and consumer protection laws be litigated and enforced.

This kind of action would benefit both left and right, and I think is more constructive than opportunistically deciding that "businesses can do whatever they want" when you think it only hurts people on the right.

leanstartupnoob|5 years ago

Twitter is a private company with zero legal authority to enforce anything other than not sharing your tweets.

Be honest that you really want to use the force of government laws to mandate that Twitter spreads your version of free speech across the platform paid for and developed by Twitter.