If social media's bad then so is free speech?
 

As long as it's open source platforms, run by communities, what's the problem...

You should be able to guess my answer, "parents!" None of them are perfect but THINGS evolve. ;)

Corporations, on the other hand are all bad!?

It is my understanding that ALL social media has some form of "moderation" and moderators whether people with opinions and agendas or algorithms. By definition that is not "free and open" speech. The degree to which that is so creates an environment that encourages "rabbit hole" clickbait.

Of course corporations are not in and of themselves inherently bad but in some environments, like what is referred to as "Late Stage Capitalism" those that have succeeded progressively work their way into Law giving rise to such things as bribery, kickbacks, "pork" and the lobby system. It may possibly go even deeper when corporations are too concerned (or solely concerned!) with stockholders instead of customers. further fueling stagnation and artificially reduced competition.

It's weird. Corporations used to deal commonly in 100 year contracts. Now they often don't consider past the following quarter.

Aha. But none of the "most popular" ones are either of those things.

They're private services provided by businesses.

As such, they have the right to deny service to whoever they like. It has nothing to do with freedom of speech.

Politicians here love to quote Voltaire, but when it gets down to brass tacks they'll stop at nothing to silence voices they disagree with. This happens on both sides of politics. Neither side is more (or less) guilty of this behaviour.
"A million monkeys bashing on a million typewriters will eventually recreate the works of Shakespeare."

Well, social media disproved that theory.
No, not at all. Corporations are run by people. It's people who are bad.

Advocates of the right to Free Speech believe it's a natural right.

That's the reason it's enshrined in law in some countries; since it's a right that no-one should interfere with, lawmakers decided to explicitly block what they thought was the only entity that could really prevent people from publicly speaking freely, the government, from doing so.

As it turns out, in the modern world, there are issues with both the "government" and the "publicly" part of that reasoning. Governments are no longer necessarily the strongest enforcer of rules and regulations, and what do you do when the commons have all been bought by private corporations?

The problem is that, even though the platforms may be open source, control is most definitely not. Thanks to "cancellation", a penalty is often inflict for speech which was, until recently, considered noncontroversial and people were free to speak it. Pretty severe penalties can be inflicted too, including loss of jobs, income and reputation. So, control has been forfeited in many social platforms like Twitter whether "open source" or not and you can no longer say that the speech spoken by anyone is free.

And BTW. Has Donald Trump been free to say what he wants on Twitter since January? I know quite a few people who actually want to hear what he has to say, and some of those are people who don't agree with him (they do want to know the issues, however). And if he can't speak his mind there, can I?

I know you haven't asked the particular question I want to address, but for my money, the situation is odd and dangerous. You see, we used to live in a country - a world - where the government was at odds with the corporations. Many of us in the '60s felt aligned with the free-market (and protested government control) because the government was far more dangerous - they had the guns. I'm not sure when it happened (it happened so gradually). But now the corporations (not limited to "social media corps.") have aligned themselves WITH the government (and I haven't been able to determine if they capitulated to the politicians or bought them outright). We've lost a lot of our freedom because of that and we will lose more.

If you don't hold opinions that offend the censors at Twitter, you can. Otherwise, no.

That's why people like Donald Trump, certain feminists, and quite a few scientists are blocked on Twitter, while radical terrorists of all stripes get to post all sorts of horrific stuff with impunity, up to and including death threats. That's what a privately-owned public space looks like.

What commons? These are private services. If you don't agree to their terms and conditions, you're not obliged to use them. I don't have a Twitter or Facebook account for that very reason.
Again. They're not. These are private services. There are terms and conditions to which you have to agree before you can use these services. Only after you agree to those terms and conditions are you allowed to (for example) "Tweet."

By agreeing to the terms and conditions, you're signing a legally binding contract between yourself and the service provider.

If you are in breach of those terms and conditions the provider can withdraw service.

It is quite simple. It has nothing to do with freedom of speech. It's all about legally binding contracts. Some rights cannot be signed away, but you can easily sign away your right to free speech. Just ask anyone who has ever signed an NDA.
No you haven't. And no you won't.

If you don't like Twitter or Facebook, there are other providers you can use.

Me neither.

The Taxi services are private businesses. So are Lyft and Uber. Would you be OK with being banned from all these services because of some opinion you happen to hold? You could possibly still take the bus, of if no bus covers the area in question, you could walk. No-one's stopping you.

Walmart, Costco, and Kroger are all private businesses, and so are McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut, and Wendy's. Suppose they all decided you were persona non grata at their respective establishments because you made some slightly derogatory comment about the food processing industry. I mean, you could still go to a Farmer's Market and cook your own food.

How about being banned from using Amazon and eBay? Not because you've abused their services in any way, but because they just don't like you? How about Zoom and Microsoft?

The private entities mentioned above occupy large swaths of "the commons," to the point that in some areas there literally are no alternatives. Facebook and Alphabet (Google/YouTube) have maneuvered themselves into just that position on a near-global scale. Together, they are now in a position to ruin people's lives should they choose to do so. And they have indeed chosen to do so on numerous occasions.

If this is a valid principle, that privately owned spaces can be freely regulated by the owner in any way s/he pleases, regardless of the establishment's size, purpose, or general accessibility, then surely it must be fine to exclude, say, black people from an establishment in those parts of the world where there's no explicit law against it? And by the way, why should there be a law against it? Doesn't that infringe on the owner's rights?

(BTW, the U.S. Supreme court disagrees with this notion; see Marsh v. Alabama, 1946.)

I would suggest that "social" media is not inherently bad, but many of the persons who use it are.

Yeah. I take full responsibility for my own actions. If my conduct were to cause me to be banned from all of those, then I probably deserved it.

Actions have consequences. That is a universal law. It exists in every society on Earth. It exists in nature. It exists everywhere.
Oh please.

People "ruin" their own lives. They need to learn to take responsibility. A big problem these days is that everyone seems to think that everything is always everyone else's fault, and that there are no consequences for their actions.

Think of it this way: You have the right to free speech. As a direct result of you exercising that right, I have the right to think you're an idiot.
You're kind of missing the point that there are terms and conditions to which you must agree before you can use the service.

What we're talking about here is not publically accessible space. You cannot access the space until there is acceptance of a private contract between you and the provider.

Bingo, (no pun) teach all children!

1 year-olds learn to knock other's blocks over & don't say when they need to pee...

plus, (perhaps ironically or just most,,,) anyone who takes up law, was not taught at 1: by anybody who knows what they're doing!

Sorry to say!!! Doh!

My nephew was almost two, when, "parents" (no offense to mine who we're legal guardians @;) time +:D I too helped ​rear) put child locks to cabinets. I instantly taught him how they work:
,,, yelling at me: "what, he wanted to know how they work; I could tell!" (I then continue to put everything dangerous up high...) I feel like if ALL taught every one-year-old on the planet for generations to cum, I wouldn't have to yell at we'all... tho, not only because I'd b😚 dead!(?). :p

rkelsen said: "If you don't like Twitter or Facebook, there are other providers you can use."
Yes, true, and I don't use Twitter. I'm back on FB after years of ignoring them only to correspond to some old friends from ages gone past. But in both cases, no real alternative has appeared. In a society committed to free enterprise, alternatives would be apparent by now. The fact that they aren't tells us all that true competition is being effectively subverted. Some call that over regulation by g'ment bureaucrats. Some call it corruption. I say it's our willingness to put up with stuff like that.

I guess we'd have to define: social media, are we on it now?

Been told by family and friends that I'm::: "anti social" to which I reply, I'm not but if you invite me to a party,,, I don't want to have to go! Lol

I think frankbell hit it on the nose. Like, racist people may, or may not do, depending how stupid their parents or surroundings may have made us?! ;)

Are you kidding me? An internet search for "alternatives to facebook" yields 1.6 billion results.

This is one of the first ones: https://www.maketecheasier.com/faceb...cial-networks/
I'd call it a customer base with tunnel vision.

There is no conspiracy. There is no over-regulation. Just a whole bunch of dumb people eating sh_t sandwiches.
Now you're getting closer to the mark.

Logout of LQ n try using it...

Quite frankly: if people knew how to search and think for themselves, this site would be more useful? No offense ta small business men.

Both media and free speech, help people: not think for ourselves??? Or, are we just... enablers?

Forgotten what I was gonna say next? Smiley time!

The premise that social media is “bad” is not well supported, but has already been said, freedom of speech has nothing to do with social media in any case.
The whole point of the first amendment is that Congress (the State) cannot control the press nor prevent anyone from saying what they want. Congress.

If that is correct, why are demonstrators or protesters commonly given police protection to make sure their speech is not being silenced by others?

There are indeed to schools of thought here: Some believe Free Speech is a natural right and that the state exists partly to protect those rights, while others believe that rights only exist to the extent they are given to you by the state.

Yes, there used to be Parler and it became rather popular among people who had been banned from Twitter. And what happened then? Amazon Web Services, which hosts just about everything on the net these days, decided that they would not host Parler and they kicked it off their servers.

So much for free speech and alternative channels.

Again, Amazon Web Services is a private business. Are you arguing that private business should be regulated in this regard???

Private businesses have always been regulated when they become monopolies because monopolies are against the public interest. Why are online monopolies different?

They did this because Parler hosted right-wing hate groups. Same reason Twitter banned right-wing hate speech. Freedom does not equal anarchy. That is one concept lost among some people; they feel they have the "right" to do and say anything because (speaking of the US), this is a "free" country.

As other have stated, these are private companies and they can do whatever they want. They should not be regulated by any government because then the government can inject its interests into the business. We already have far too much government intervention in private business here in the US.

OK, as long as you recognize that according to the powers that be, you do deserve it. As in, right now.

The only reason you haven't experienced their ire is that you're neither in the public eye, nor in a position to inconvenience those disagreeing with your opinions. That can change in an instant.

If the "right" to voice your opinion means that if you do so you get fired, evicted, expelled from college or university, lose your bank account and credit card, and find yourself unable to shop or participate in any public discourse online, then the entire "right" is fictional.

That's been investigated and debunked by the FBI.

They did find some questionable online activity by some individuals. On Facebook.

Parler hosted people Twitter claimed were all sorts of things. That's not the same as them actually being any of those things. And of course they were on Parler, Twitter had just thrown them out.

Because they're willing to act as the extended arm of certain political groups. Also, they make political contributions.

They are mostly public companies. Finding those with overall control as well as those with major stakes can be an entertaining paper trail.

Don't worry about governments interfering in these corporations....

Worry about the level of influence and control they already have over governments... not just yours... as they include some of the major political donors - to the parties which have pledged to best serve their interests - not yours.

Everyones heard, sticks and stones may break their bones? I've always liked to say: if I can't say anything and get away with it, you're a moron? But,,, only a smart @#$ minus the smarts whould say that. :p

Hackers and anarchists are not same, except stereotyped?

Democracy seems a giant corporation? You (I say you because I've never voted for persons, only policies. Which should be mandatory and never taken away!) try to find people aligned with your views and hope they don't change? CEO Biden*... 🙄

https://www.gnu.org/software/social/
https://medevel.com/open-source-solu...ocial-network/

I think if we ever get to the point where we can say anything and get away with it? We won't be staying stupid 💩

FB/IG/WA gonzo. Did Zuck del all his BGP&DNS? (after 60minutes show)
 

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/co...down/?sort=new
(EDIT: that got locked. From 'legit': https://blog.cloudflare.com/october-...acebook-outage
Edit#2: (UNfortunately) it's back (BGP 'fixed') https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28752131

I'm looking forward to reading: How to delete *ALL* BGP&DNS info about a company. (new kali cmd?)
("deleting all BGP routing &DNS info" 'disappears' them from internet)

I'd love to be the fly on Zuckerberg's head right now.

What contract have I breached?

"You post has been found in violation of our policy against hate speech."

There. That's all it takes. And you have, without a doubt, said or posted something in the last year or so that someone, somewhere can interpret as "hateful." Everyone has. Remember, "off-platform activities" count as well.

Not that the censors really have to go to the trouble of interpreting anything, as they're not obliged to provide an explanation for their decisions. The policies are vague for a reason, and subject to change at any time. You just get to click "Accept." After all, it's their service, and they can do with it whatever they want, right?

Lots of people have lost their Facebook/YouTube/Twitter account in precisely this manner. When they complain, they receive no reply. There's no recourse.

Once you've been thrown off social media, the mainstream media outlets can then report on it as "Facebook deleted thousands of far-right accounts." Now you may want to argue that you are not and have never been "far right" or anything even close to it, but remember: You don't get to speak here.

Reminder that a ban on hate speech is LQ's first rule. If you find that to be a problem, then you shouldn't be here.

Interesting.

The term "hate speech" was invented by the Soviets to undermine ongoing work on a U.N. resolution on the right to free speech. They wanted that provision added so that they could never be held accountable for the egregious censorship and persecutions they conducted across their entire society. They succeeded.

There is no definition of what "hate speech" is or isn't. In fact, as the term "hate" itself, it's entirely subjective and thus can be anything you want it to be. And that was exactly the point.

And it gets even more absurd: Since it's obviously not possible to tell what another person feels, or whether or not that feeling motivated a statement he or she made, the entire concept of policing "hate speech" is preposterous on its face. It's just a convenient label one can use against people or ideas that one actually hates oneself. The good, old "accuse your opponent of doing what you are doing to them" tactic.

Note that I used terms like "he or she" in the text above. In many circles, that's considered pretty extreme "hate speech". Will I be banned now? Or is the "hate speech" clause in the rules just sitting there as a convenient excuse to be used at a more opportune moment?

LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Non-*NIX Forums > General ?

Very definitely a social medium. And, because of the uncivilised behaviour accepted by other sites to which I contributed, my last remaining online social medium.

Well if that was the case, then I deserved it like I said previously.

You still seem to be conflating the whole public/private thing for no purpose other than muddying the waters. They don't need to be. The situation is quite clear.
What you seem to be asking, albeit in a rather alarmist fashion, is this:

"What value is a right if private service providers require that you sign it away in order to use their services?"

Well then you head down the slippery slope of government intervention into private business. How far down that rabbit hole do you want to go? Where do you draw the line?

Are the private service providers not exercising their rights by stipulating the terms upon which they provide service? Why should business have fewer rights than the consumer in this regard?

Whose fault is this? It's the consumer. Not government. Not some huge conspiracy. Rights aren't being taken away. They're being given away. That has been my principal beef with FB since the start, and remains a significant part of the reason I still don't have an account.

If everyone stopped using Facebook and Twitter overnight and put them out of business the market might change.

Until then, complaining about something you've lost because you gave it away seems rather silly doesn't it?

The market is being driven by garbage because consumers increasingly consume it. Demand drives supply.
It's kind of hard to argue that AWS have a monopoly on web hosting when you have a web server sitting under your desk...

Slackware, which I know you use Hazel, comes with all of the software required to run a service like Parler... just like every other Linux distribution. And it'll do so on commodity hardware. The whole argument that they "was dun wrong" is ridiculous.

Erm, so if someone doesn't like you for whatever reason, your conclusion is that they must be right and are entitled to dish out punishment according to their standards? That sounds a bit weird.More like "what value is a right, if exercising that right is entirely dependent on you having something to which you have no right?" It's like being told you have freedom of movement while at the same time someone else is free to surround your property with barbed wire.

Facebook was once a web site. Then it turned in to a small social media site. And then it turned into an advertising behemoth and a massive monopoly on social interactions, and that's when the "Marsh v. Alabama" decision kicks in.

If you don't have a Facebook page, you're much less likely to get certain jobs. And if your employer tells you to do something on Facebook but you can't because you're banned, well, certainly you know what will happen next. That's not something that would happen if you were thrown out of LinuxQuestions or banned from the comment section of your local newspaper, so clearly something is fundamentally different with Facebook.

Facebook probably shouldn't be allowed to have such a dominant position, but they do. And since that has come as a result of their own meticulous strategy, why shouldn't they face the consequences of being a monopoly, like every other corporation would?
But we're already there, albeit in the opposite direction.

The social media giants are allowed to act as publishers of information, curating what is published, while at the same time being shielded by a law that treat them as merely a platform. This can happen because these corporations have support from powerful political actors, but the latter demand something in return: That the censorship must disproportionally affect their political opponents.

When a politician can openly state on TV that Facebook must censor "hate speech" more aggressively or else they will be regulated, you know the system is thoroughly corrupt. In most other nations that type of threat would immediately lead to criminal charges being filed, or at the very least impeachment, but in the U.S. nobody seems to bat an eyelid.

It's just a coincidence that one can get banned from Facebook, YouTube and Patreon on the same day? That's not the result of a conspiring cartel?
In the beginning, individuals did indeed give away their data to Facebook. Why? Zuckerberg concluded "they're idiots." But now someone else is continuing to give away the rights of the entire population by making sure Facebook becomes a necessity in daily life.
So unless absolutely everybody somehow agrees to do something at the same time, no-one has the right to complain?

Incidentally, it might have been possible to organize a mass movement of some kind, if there only existed some kind of really popular and accessible social medium that wouldn't instantly shut down any serious attempt to do so...
I'm sorry, but here I must point out that you're spouting absolute nonsense. :)

You absolutely cannot run any kind of social media site using a server in your home office. You need a massive server park, hundreds of gigabit of bandwidth, and effective DoS protection. I know the costs; I've been involved in building datacenters. And then you need cooling and UPSes, and then you have to pay for programmers to customize the software, for designers to make a working site, and probably for some advertising to get the word out.

This is why services like AWS are so revolutionary, because you can start small and easily scale up as needed (as the money starts pouring in, hopefully). Platform as a Service really leveled the playing field, and made the statement "if you don't like it, go build your own!" possible to live by.

Until AWS decided to selectively drop clients based on ideology, that is. Now it's "if you don't like it, go build your own, which we will then burn down using every dirty trick in the book, because we're backed by the entire establishment and you're not."

There exists only one single social network site that was built from the ground up with dedicated hardware in recent times. One. And they've had their share of teething problems dealing with rapid expansion.

Again, if I've agreed to a supplier's terms and conditions and then I go out and breach those terms and conditions, it's not weird at all. It's simple contract law. I can't understand why you don't see that. It really could not be any simpler.

It's not "punishment." It's termination of a contract because a party to the contract breached its conditions.
Except that in Marsh v. Alabama the defendant was not required to have signed a contract to stand where they stood. Marsh v. Alabama was about someone standing in privately owned and publically accessible space. Facebook is not publically accessible space because you have to sign a contract to get in. Why do you not understand that point of difference?

How different would the result in Marsh v. Alabama have been if the defendant was stopped at the border of the town and asked to sign an agreement, the terms of which included something like, "you cannot hand out religious literature within the boundaries of this town."

A more contemporaneous & relevant case is Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck 2019.
Really? Well nobody told me that. Not having a Facebook account doesn't seem to have harmed my career.
The same could be said for Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc... but we're a free society right? What's the alternative?
Once it becomes public knowledge that an individual has breached their contract with one provider and so the other providers check the terms of their own contracts? I'd say that it's not an entirely unexpected result.
As I said before, FB would die if people stopped using it. Demand drives supply. Facebook is not necessary for anyone's survival.
OK, I'll concede this point.

But it still stands that AWS are a private organisation providing contracted services. You have to agree with their terms and conditions if you choose to avail yourself of those services. While AWS might be the biggest, they're not the first and certainly not the only one offering these types of services.

Thought I posted some links saying we can, is this not freedumb?

@jamison20000e

Not that I know anything about Mastodon, but I'm surprised it hasn't been brought up yet.

Well, if you really agreed that they may do with you anything they want, and change the terms unilaterally at any time, then sure. But:It's not covered by contract law at all, because it's not legally a contract. Facebook knows this very well, which is why they have never, and will never, sue anyone for breaching this "contract," no matter how egregious the violation.

One reason why it's clearly not a contract, is that you haven't signed anything, and they cannot document that you, specifically, have agreed to these terms. Another is that the document they present contain the "Terms of Service", indicating that they're providing you with something, but unlike any other agreement you're not being asked to provide payment. That's because you're not the customer, you're the product. Facebook's customers are their ad business clientele.

Third, no contract can contain within itself a one-sided provision that one party may alter the terms of the contract at any time and for any reason. Unbalanced contracts that favor one side of the agreement to the detriment of the other party are declared null and void by courts all the time.

Consider this: If Facebook really considered this click-through document a legally binding contract, they would never try to make the argument that the private nature of the corporation or their "freedom of association" should allow them to ban people, because that would be entirely irrelevant to the conversation: You're out because of Breach of Contract, period.Again, there's no contract between Facebook and its users. But Facebook's click-through agreement is quite like the sign outside a mining town declaring that this is private property, and by entering you agree to such and such. Not a contract, and as we've seen not generally enforceable.
Have you noticed that an increasing number of non-FB websites will let you log in using your Facebook or Google or Microsoft account. Some offer no other alternatives; you literally cannot create a separate account just for that site.

It'll be interesting to see when online public services will start requiring an account from one of the large tech giants. Something very much like that has already been implemented in my country for claiming benefits.

^Brings to mind "my" Oculus Quest 2, the only reason I have a non used facebook account.
Other companies make VR gaming tho plus I've use a Raspberry Pi to create displays off the brim of a hat (no tip) so I can browse while I walk...

I wouldn't be so sure about that: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal...017-08-17.html Pages 28-30 are where you'll find the "meat" of the decision.
If you have to tick a box before clicking a button, then that conscious action on your part is sufficient proof of acceptance. That's my understanding of it.
In contract law here (i.e. not the US) consideration doesn't have to be monetary. It could be your email address or any other private data about yourself that can be monetised. I'd say it's probably the same in the US, since they also "inherited" many laws from the same place we did.
Right, but that's on a case by case basis. And there would be decisions on this both ways.
As above, if you have to tick a box to indicate acceptance, then that is the equivalent of a signature on paper.
Well here we have a system which you can log into from your "smart" device to apply for benefits. But, of course Android needs a Google account and IOS needs an Apple account, right? We're already there, it seems. But it's not mandatory. You can still file a paper claim or an online claim from the website.

Not really analogous, because the question was whether Uber had provided "reasonably conspicuous notice" with regards to the terms of service, in addition to whether the defendant had accepted the terms by clicking the appropriate button in the app ("manifestation of assent"). Note that the defendant had already stated that yes, he did indeed click on the "accept" button on his phone.

While the district court had ruled that no, this was not sufficient "manifestation of assent", the appellate court cites this:This was an important factor in their decision to rule in favor of Uber in this instance.

While this could be reasonable when discussing an agreement between Uber and one of their drivers, I have serious doubts whether you could make that same argument in the case of Facebook and their userbase.

There's also the issue of Facebook having no way of knowing who actually clicked the button. In the Uber case, that was not a contested issue.
No, that depends entirely on the circumstances, as outlined above. After all, neither the box nor the button clicks itself, so what's the big difference between that and having just a button? And both can easily be clicked by accident, by a script, or by a child.

There's a reason why paper contracts require a signature (and sometimes the signature of witnesses), and why digital contracts require, yes, a digital signature. The U.S. has a standard that covers this, because you have to be able to prove the identity of the person signing the contract. Clicking a button or checking a box are absolutely not equivalent to signatures.

And then there's the issue of competency; minors in general can't sign contracts, because they usually lack competence. What's the age limit on Facebook again, and how do they enforce it?Yes, that's probably true for most parts of the world, but it's also usually imperative that a contract specifies exactly what's being exchanged by the parties, and there must also be a balance between what's being offered and what's being given as payment/compensation.

For instance, an agreement that says you must give me "everything you own" in exchange for $100 would be declared void, not only because $100 is an unreasonably low amount, but also because "everything you own" is too broad (both as a term and as being all-encompassing).

Facebooks and Googles "Terms of Service" cannot possibly accurately represent what you're "paying" for the service, as that changes more or less on a day-to-day basis. And even if they were to say "all your personal information and telemetry", while technically true it would be both unreasonably vague and far to all-encompassing. And also worth far more than they offer you in return.

I'd love to see someone challenge Facebook in court, but unfortunately civil suits are only for the rich.
I don't know about iOS, but you can have an Android phone without a Google account. It's not even difficult. The problem would be if the app could only be downloaded from Google's Play Store.

I'd disagree with you there.
When you click on "create account" on the Facebook website you get a box which asks for your full name, date of birth and mobile phone number.

So it could easily be argued that they do take reasonable steps to verify your identity, including age.
I'd also disagree with you here. The components of a contract are: Offer, acceptance and consideration. Spoken words can make a contract. Of course if there was a dispute there would be no proof, but in the strictest interpretation of the law it is true. You don't need ink on paper. Clicking the checkbox is more than sufficient proof of your intention.
As a parent of teenagers, I can tell you that kids aren't using Facebook these days. They left in droves once they figured out that old people use it. But I do see your point.

They enforce it by asking you for your date of birth when you register.
Yeah, that or Apple's equivalent... And guess what?

That's not enforcement, that's asking the user to do self-policing.

If you tried "enforcing" the age limit in a bar in this manner, I think we all know what a judge would say.

No. Nobody knows what a judge will say. That's one of the first things they teach in 11th grade legal studies.

That aside, self-policing exists in other areas of the law... in fact, it's a common feature in western democracy.

What is your stance on the wedding cake issue? Is a baker within their rights to withhold service from certain customers, because his beliefs do not align with theirs? And if so, how is that any different to the issue at hand?

Incidentally, I saw a story this morning about a girl whose Instagram account was cancelled because her user name matched a recently popularised TV show which has the same name, despite the fact that she has used that name for many years.

Is that fair? Probably not. Is it legal? Absolutely. In their T&Cs it says that they can cancel your account without a reason. You have to agree to that in order to use their service. What would happen in court? Nobody knows, but they could probably afford better lawyers than her.

Hmmm so if I choose to open a liquor store that also sells assault rifles and handguns, has roulette and hookers in the back, I should be able to have combo sales and put up a sign saying "We don't require proof of age", yeah? Obviously in part, No, because I can't choose a policy that breaks a law (yeah... it was reductio ad absurdum). If your Constitution, the most fundamental list of basic human rights laws, claims "equality under the law" how can a discriminatory policy based on politics, philosophy, shoe styles or sizes etc. be upheld?

Already there are some laws in most democratic countries that trade regulation for the right to even open a business in that country's economic and legal environment to insure their Constitution is supreme law for anyone choosing to be a citizen. Even in that context "choose" assumes everyone has the power to actually choose when not everyone does. Choosing in your mind only without the power to effect any change is essentially useless. If nobody for miles around will sell you food, water, clothing, gasoline, electricity ... any basic service or material needs for basic survival, or, a step further, even choose to hire you for a job for which you're well qualified. or wait! a step further the schooling to become qualified, it's easy to see some regulation is required to prevent lopsided, what should be lawbreaking, private choices.

Freedom is obviously important and desirable but it is not absolute in any civilized society or freedom dissolves when one persons freedom is used to take away anothers' freedom. "Get along" interaction is basic to civilization. If you think you should be absolutely free to do anything you desire, to enact every whim, maybe you should buy an island and see how well that works out for you.

Social media is just part of the problems that come with what used to be "The Wild West" of the Internet. We have yet to work out how such services best serve civilization. Look how long even the most enlightened countries took to require such things as "Truth in Lending" or "Truth in Advertising" and also what happens when such regulation erodes. This is especially so when the New Golden Rule is "He who has the gold, makes the rules".

This business was totally misunderstood by the lower courts (not to mention the press) and it took the Supreme Court to inject a bit of common sense into the matter. The issue was not whether the bakers could refuse to serve a gay man (under UK law they couldn't and they hadn't tried to) or a man with political opinions about marriage which they disapproved of (again they hadn't actually done that) but whether they could be forced to publish, in the form of an iced slogan, a view they considered morally repugnant. The judges quickly concluded that there was nothing in English law which could compel any person, religious or otherwise, to do that.

Had the judges of the lower courts done their job properly, a lot of public money would have been saved. And had the man been prepared to modify his specification for the cake, he could have had it without any problems.

See https://hrussman.neocities.org/ramblings/cake.html

Time for a new job if it requires a corporation, law or government; reasons,,, many can't do for themselves?