[attheicearcade]

My politics aren't aligned with Trump, but I find this utterly disturbing, and I'm amazed people seem to be celebrating this move (at least on Twitter). Facebook (and other massive social platforms) seem to have way too much unchecked power over this kind of thing. To ban the voice of a previous president is just... remarkable.

I also can't help but notice that this article is no longer listed on HN - I just went through all of the pages looking for it.

[Nextgrid]

I both agree and disagree.

I agree that these platforms shouldn't have so much power in terms of controlling global speech. It's a big mistake that the world's social fabric is now mostly controlled by a handful of companies, whose incentives don't even align with their users'.

I disagree that the platforms themselves should be forced to do anything. They should be free to publish (or not) whatever they want. Trump and his team are welcome to set up his own website and publish there, and offer an RSS feed or similar for readers to keep up to date.

I am actually quite happy that all this happened, as this raises the discussion about the problem beyond the tech industry. Now there's a much larger chunk of people (outside of tech) that are dissatisfied with the situation and would be more open to using alternatives that aren't under the control of any single company.

I'm not aligned with Trump's politics either, but if he and his supporters manage to fight back "big tech" and the whole advertising-driven social media industry then I'm all in for it. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.