So, let me see if I've got this right: A private business entity can rightly and legally refuse to publish opinions with which they disagree. Or perhaps even: A private business entity cannot lawfully be compelled to publish opinions with which they disagree.

How did I do?

Badly, if you're describing the bakery case.

An artist cannot be forced to produce a work promoting a message with which they disagree, because that would be compelled speech. In a similar vain, a tailor may refuse to make an SS uniform, a printer may refuse to manufacture Black Lives Matter placards, and a painter may decline to paint a UK police car in rainbow colours.

But you're right that a private business should be free to decide what they do or do not want to publish. That's called "being a publisher," and a publisher is legally liable for everything they publish.

Then there's being a platform, and those businesses are not legally responsible for what's being published or communicated. Phone companies are not responsible for people making threatening phone calls or planning terrorism via text messages, the post office is not responsible for mail bombs, and Amazon Web Services/Elastic Cloud are not liable for crimes committed by their customers.

All the above can of course be compelled to cease providing services to a customer by a court of law. And they and their customers are all subject to various laws and regulations.

If you listen to Zuckerberg, he clearly wants Facebook to be a platform. However, political activists keep pressuring them to curate content and remove legal speech from their platform, which makes them increasingly a publisher. Shouldn't they then be liable for the content they publish, just like with The New York Times and their comments section?

Loomer v Facebook [2020]: "Under well-established law, neither Facebook nor any other publisher can be liable for failing to publish someone else’s message."

Six4three v Facebook [2019]: "Facebook is a publisher, and a company that makes editorial decisions, which are protected by the first amendment."

But in any case, be they publisher or platform, they're a private business entity and cannot be compelled to provide service to any particular individuals.

Yes, these decisions are indeed diametrically opposed to the legislation Facebook claims to be protected by, so both positions cannot possibly be correct.

There's a reason why no-one in the political establishment wants this anywhere near the US Supreme Court. So instead of proposing legislation, political actors are putting pressure on the social media giants under the guise of concepts like "hate speech", "causing harm", or being "dangerous to democracy."
Except where compelled by law. Which means you cannot deny service based on "protected characteristics" like race. It's being proposed in at least one state that political affiliation be added to the list.

Unless they're publishers. In which case, they cannot be compelled to publish opinions with which they disagree... Right?

Denying service != refusing to publish.

But yes. If you are a publisher, you are the curator of the content and responsible for everything you publish. That's why you can't be compelled to publish, say, an article on a web site, because that would mean someone could compel you to commit libel or otherwise incriminate yourself.

Of course, once you've taken on the role of a publisher, you've also taken on the responsibilities of a publisher. You're personally responsible for everything you publish, and you can be sued. Publishers have no immunity, because no-one is compelling them to publish anything.

Surely the whole issue is that you cannot be both a publisher and a neutral platform at the same time because those two things are mutually incompatible. Yet that is precisely the kind of oxymoron that Facebook claims to be. When people complain about the Taliban using FB to promote their poisonous ideas, Zuckerborg says that he runs a platform, not a publisher, and he is no more responsible for how people use it than a telephone company is for how people (including terrorists) use their phones. But when he doesn't like what someone says (and it seems that there are a lot of people whom he dislikes more than he does the Taliban), he claims a publisher's right to refuse to let them speak on his platform.

How can people not see that this is self-contradictory?

I don't know if this misspelling is intentional, but it's genius either way.

It wasn't intentional but the pun is quite well known and that probably guided my hand.

I respectfully disagree. Twitter is a public square, according to its CEO. The internet as a whole, is a public square. I don't know who the owner of this website is, but I would not consider linuxquestions to be a public square since it has a very specific purpose. Rules and laws have already been laid out for public squares, and you can't just evict someone because you don't like their opinion. Which, let's be clear, Twitter and Facebook are doing just that.

If I was absolute dictator the US, I would do away with social media altogether. But I'm not, and never will be, so that will never happen.

Further, Twitter, Google, Facebook, and others, are not private companies. I see this falsehood being repeated over and over again. They are publicly traded companies on the stock exchange and therefor are not subject to the same freedoms as a private company would. But rules and laws are built around protecting big business (which are mostly public) and squashing small business (which are mostly private), so that's partly why said companies get away with what they do.

What? In the US the first amendment only protects you against the government, federal and state. In the eyes of the law Facebook and other social media companies are private sector.

Being publicly or privately traded has nothing to do with 1st amendment rights.

Partly because it may suit their interests to alternate between arguing for either position depending on the circumstances.

"If I get banned, it's an egregious free speech violation. If you get banned, then you shouldn't have said whatever you said because the company can do whatever it wants."

But there is a legitimate issue that could possibly confuse some people and muddy the waters: A forum may have a specific purpose, and hence some communication may be declared off-topic. It's not a violation of anyone's rights if a small knitting web site doesn't allow its users to debate vaccines, Star Trek, or Donald Trump.

Here's the actual text of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:Note the term "the freedom of speech." What does that mean? What did the people who actually wrote these words and passed them into law, want to protect?

They believed that the right to publicly voice one's opinion is one of several inalienable human rights. That's why congress "shall make no law" to curtail this freedom. It is also why the U.S. has ratified several human rights treaties.

The constitutional amendment doesn't say that "congress shall make laws protecting freedom of speech," because that's considered the default. The belief in the concept of "human rights" is why the government is obliged to come to your aid when such rights are threatened. Why else would the police be protecting marches and protesters, instead of simply telling them to stop being a public nuisance? After all, the counterprotesters aren't sent by the government.

The entire point of "Human Rights" is that no-one is allowed to curtail them.
That's entirely correct if you don't believe in the concept of Human Rights, and instead consider rights as something granted to you by the government in their benevolence.

I know what it is written.

Facebook can censor people and it is not a US 1st amendment right violation.

The courts have not ruled on this matter, and there are both legal opinions and case law that support either side of the argument.

But regardless of the 1st amendment, censoring legal content is by definition the abridging of the right to free speech, and if the effect of the censorship is severe enough, it is a violation of a human rights treaty to which the U.S. is a signatory.

(Not that anyone cares about these treaties, but still.)

Exactly right. People are blurring the line between public and private and that needs to stop.

I assume this principle applies to the rest of the rights listed in the 1st amendment as well?

As in: Congress may not put limits on your speech or the freedom of the press, nor may they hinder you from starting a religious organization or prevent you from worshipping, nor may they prevent you from peacefully assembling or asking the government for a redress of grievances, but it is perfectly OK if a private entity, like your employer or your landlord or some social media giant, prevents you from doing all these things?

I think you've finally got it! That took a while.

Your position is ... interesting. Unreasonable and in clear violation of treaties signed by the U.S. Government, but interesting.

Here's what it means if your extremely narrow interpretation was to be applied:

Let's assume Sam Jones believes, correctly, that he's been racially discriminated against when not being given a promotion at his place of work. He's a government employee, so he decides to sue to "petition the government for a redress of grievances."

On the first day of the trial, the Ku Klux Klan (a private organization) decides to rally their members (all 8000 or so of them, nationwide) to travel to Sam's city and drive slowly around while a passenger repeatedly calls "Dial-a-Grand-Wizard" on his cellphone. This causes a massive traffic jam, and no-one can get through on the phone.

Sam doesn't get to court on time, and in his absence the judge rules in the plaintiff's favor on a motion to dismiss. And no-ones rights were violated.

Your position is interesting to me.

Are you saying that private businesses should not have access to things like Non-Disclosure Agreements? Or that supermarkets should not have the right to evict people spruiking for their competitors?

A 'public square' with terms and conditions to which you must agree before you can enter? If you disagree with their terms and conditions, then you can only stand on the outside and look in.
Over here, there is no way to connect to the internet without using an internet service provider (ISP). The ISPs all have terms and conditions over the service that they provide, and you must agree to be bound by those terms and conditions in order to use their service.

So, while you're correct on a "theoretical" level, it seems to be quite different logistically.
That's an interesting take. Why do you think one particular internet forum is different to others?
But they're not "public squares," no matter what their marketing might say. They're private spaces. By the time you're allowed in, you'll already have agreed to at least two sets of terms and conditions governing your conduct whilst you are there.
This statement tells me that either your education did not include any commerce studies or that you fundamentally misunderstand how these things work.

Public companies != public sector. While public companies might choose to operate in the public sector, Facebook and Twitter certainly do not.
You should find out who benefits most from donations to political parties by "big business."

Instead of moving the goalposts by ascribing positions to me (using the rhetorical "are you saying" manoeuvre), why don't we address the main issue?

In the thought experiment above, were rights violated, or were they not?

My position is that the law acknowledges certain rights as inalienable, and that's why historically, the government has quite often intervened in disputes between private parties to prevent those rights from being violated. You're free to take the diametrically opposite position if you so choose, but let's at least be clear about it and say that in that case, there are no "human rights" and you're only free to the extent the state allows you to be.

But back to social media and to the "private businesses" argument:

Facebook is a publicly traded company. It is owned by it's shareholders (Mark Zuckerberg being the majority shareholder), and it's answerable to the government in any number of ways through a myriad of laws and regulations: They can't decide to arbitrarily withhold taxes from the state or paychecks from their employees, they can't dump toxic waste in the environment, they can't advocate for the violent overthrow of the government, they can't do insider speculation buying and selling their own stock using non-public information, and the list goes on and on.

Private companies absolutely can NOT do "whatever they want." That's never been the case. The question is, what can they do?

Facebook has rules. Fine, as long as they are clearly defined (which they absolutely are not, but that's another matter). Facebook is subject to pressure from the public and activist groups to prohibit certain types of legal speech. Also fine, people are allowed to hold and express opinions.

But: Facebook is also the subject of direct, overt pressure from Congresspeople to censor certain speech, speech that Congress is expressly prohibited from censoring by the 1st amendment, or else face regulation to possibly break them up. That is not fine at all, because not only are the Congresspeople in question violating the law, but now Facebook is acting as the extended arm of Congress. The latter makes them a state actor in the eyes of the law (yes, there's plenty of precedent for this), and that in turn should make them subject to the limitations of the 1st amendment.

There's also the "public square" argument, which may hold more merit than you think. Because what "the public square" is, varies over time.

Example: In the 1940s, news in the form of moving images was distributed using newsreels that were shown in movie theaters. Today, it's TV, social media, and the Internet in general. Banning someone from showing a newsreel in the 1940s would clearly be censoring the press. But banning a news organization from doing this today, while still technically illegal, would have no effect whatsoever.

Conversely, banning a news organization from Facebook and YouTube has the same effect of stifling speech as banning newsreels in the 1940s. The fact that technically, they could still make newsreels and show them in theaters, would be entirely irrelevant. That's just not how news is disseminated today, because that's not how you reach people with your message.

If "anything goes" as long as it happens on private property, regardless of that property's size or the consequences to the public at large from the actions being performed, then the 1st amendment is meaningless. A state could decide to sell all public land to a private company and then lease it back, and have the private company enforce any laws or "terms of service" they wanted. It would then all be private, but does that mean you would then have no rights?

Nice way to dodge the question.
Thought experiment? I only see a straw man.
We see police forcefully evicting people from private property every day. Whose rights are they protecting? Possession is 9/10ths right?
What was that you said about ascribing views?
You're kidding, right? https://www.facebook.com/terms.php
Is it really? Or is this just another sensational beat-up by the Murdoch press?
Haha... That's some bow you're drawing!

Actions have consequences. People need to take responsibility for their own actions.
Straw men everywhere!

I'm not coming back to this thread. Good luck.

I didn't, I answered it right below. On the other hand, I don't see you answering any of my questions. Not that you're required to, but then why reply to me at all?Then perhaps prescription glasses are in order.This has literally nothing to do with the topic. Are you arguing that eviction of tenants prove that private ownership trumps everything? Or are you arguing that since "possession is 9/10ths right" they shouldn't be evicted?Is me saying "if you choose" a form of ascribing that view to you? You could just have said "I don't think that describes my viewpoint," and that would have been that.You're just proving my point. I never said the terms were inaccessible, but that they were unclear.

Can you tell me the exact definition of "harmful conduct" in this context? How do one harm someone else with words that are not (illegal) threats or (illegal) incitement to violence?

The terms contain a link to their "Community Standards", and they are no better. For instance:

"We are committed to making Facebook a safe place. Expression that threatens people has the potential to intimidate, exclude or silence others and isn’t allowed on Facebook."

Well, threats and harassment (mentioned further down the page) are illegal anyway, but how do you "exclude" others? Refuse a friend request?

Or how about "silencing"? Are you allowed to block people? Can you say that someone really should be quiet? Or that a group of people ought to stop denigrating others?

And which statement does not have "the potential to intimidate" someone?

This is vague enough to cover everything and nothing at the same time. And that's by design.
Empty rhetoric and slogans are not arguments. You are not acting in good faith, my friend.

I suggest we just agree to disagree and leave it at that.

Actually it is my regarded opinion those terms need to have their definitions updated. If nothing else (and there is LOTS more) the revelations of people like Mr. Snowden have demonstrated that a great deal that people thought were private, are now public. This can also be seen in the movement to treat corporations as individuals in terms of rights but less so in responsibilities.

If you were taught wrong, would you know it?

More and more we can understand concepts behind the movie Lucy...

...we (specially wolves*) die sooner than needed because fuoking ignorance! (Not ignored, all, even if you're too stupid to realize it!!!)

Freedum of ignorance superproceeds we! l:pl

You're slowing down the traffic of the world, rubber necking? I don't want your hickeys, yippies!

How about the weather?🙄$udo.riot$

Sure.

The justices in the case of Manhattan Community Access Corp v Halleck [2019] examined the issue in detail. The points I've been trying to make in this thread are best summarised by Justice Kavanaugh below:

MANHATTAN COMMUNITY ACCESS CORP. v. HALLECK [2019]

KAVANAUGH, J:

"The Hudgens decision reflects a commonsense principle: Providing some kind of forum for speech is not an activity that only governmental entities have traditionally performed. Therefore, a private entity who provides a forum for speech is not transformed by that fact alone into a state actor. After all, private property owners and private lessees often open their property for speech. Grocery stores put up community bulletin boards. Comedy clubs host open mic nights. As Judge Jacobs persuasively explained, it “is not at all a near-exclusive function of the state to provide the forums for public expression, politics, information, or entertainment.” 882 F. 3d, at 311 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part).

In short, merely hosting speech by others is not a traditional, exclusive public function and does not alone transform private entities into state actors subject to First Amendment constraints.

If the rule were otherwise, all private property owners and private lessees who open their property for speech would be subject to First Amendment constraints and would lose the ability to exercise what they deem to be appropriate editorial discretion within that open forum. Private property owners and private lessees would face the unappetizing choice of allowing all comers or closing the platform altogether. “The Constitution by no means requires such an attenuated doctrine of dedication of private property to public use.” Hudgens, 424 U. S., at 519 (internal quotation marks omitted). Benjamin Franklin did not have to operate his newspaper as “a stagecoach, with seats for everyone.” F. Mott, American Journalism 55 (3d ed. 1962). That principle still holds true.

As the Court said in Hudgens, to hold that private property owners providing a forum for speech are constrained by the First Amendment would be “to create a court-made law wholly disregarding the constitutional basis on which private ownership of property rests in this country.” 424 U. S., at 517 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Constitution does not disable private property owners and private lessees from exercising editorial discretion over speech and speakers on their property."

Emphasis mine.

In the same case, from Justice Sotomayor:

SOTOMAYOR,J:

"The majority acknowledges that the First Amendment could apply when a local government either (1) has a property interest in public-access channels or (2) is more directly involved in administration of those channels than the City is here."

To the best of my knowledge the US Government neither owns nor controls any of the social media platforms. They are private property. I can't understand why anyone who prefers to live in a democracy would have it any other way.

I don't think anyone has argued that it does.
You know they do. They've openly threatened with legislation if Facebook does not censor certain legal speech. And it's not an empty threat when it comes directly from the lawmakers.

Do you have any support for this claim?

State controlled media is generally a feature of, shall we say, "less than democratic," societies.

The basic law is section 230 of the communications decency act. Its not that Facebook can not censor content its just that they do not do it evenly or fairly and certain Congressman(people?) complain of them being biased with respect to conservative "perspectives". The previous president did sign an Executive Order in 2020 to essentially eliminate this but it was never enforced and eventually rescinded by the current administration.

Florida tried their own social media law but that was blocked in Federal court.

Are you telling me you haven't seen the videos of the Speaker of the House threatening Facebook with regulations or with being broken up? She's done it more than once, and many of her colleagues in Congress have openly voiced their support.

I thought this was common knowledge. It's been widely reported in the press.

Here's from back in 2019, when someone had the audacity to post an obvious fake video mocking Nancy Pelosi. She received massive support from her party.

In early 2020, she accused the company of misleading the public, and suggested they could possibly be found guilty of antitrust violations.

In November 2020, she claimed Facebook was participating in "election-related interference."

Note how there are no concrete accusations of laws being violated, and how there's absolutely no relation between the supposedly "harmful" (and clearly legal) actions by the company (allowing mockery, misleading information, "misinformation") and the threat of legal action (antitrust violations).

Surely, a company guilty of antitrust violations should be investigated regardless? Why hasn't that happened?

"Nice social media company you've got there. Would be a shame if something was to happen to it."

Senator Josh Hawley has been after big tech and Facebook long before Nancy Pelosi. While both sides complain, censorship is a right and antitrust more of a left issue. The left wants more political misinformation censored the right less or none.

I don't see evidence of any form of government control in any of that. Just hot air from Pelosi... and so what? How does that even hint toward any evidence of the government controlling Facebook?

Have you got anything better than that? Preferably some concrete evidence which shows that the government is somehow controlling social media, or that it has a 'property interest' in any social media platforms.
Funny.

But no one individual has the power to do any of that, let alone the speaker. In my country (also a Western Democracy with a bi-cameral Parliament), the speaker has no voting power. I'd be highly surprised if that wasn't also true in the US.
Irony.
More irony.

I guess I've never understood "what all the fuss is about" concerning Facebook. I've never used any of these services and I never plan to. Even when it was "IRC = Internet Relay Chat" chatting endlessly with other people never really interested me.

I do think that the owners of these sites, including particularly "TikTok," should bear legal responsibility for what they allow to be on their sites. They are, indeed, "content producers" and "editors." Other people can "be damaged" by what is placed there. TikTok is being used to "challenge" people to perform illegal acts, and teenagers are stupid enough to do them. Google is purposely making information that it doesn't like harder to find. I don't think that property owners should be able to do things like that with impunity. The old "Section 230" rules are no longer descriptive of what these services now are and how they are now being used and managed.

If someone posts a challenge on TikTok to destroy the sinks in a bathroom, then both TikTok, Inc. and the person who posted it should be subject to legal and quite possibly criminal liability for their acts. If someone posts a Facebook page calling for and organizing jihad, then both Facebook, Inc. and the author of the post should bear direct liability for their acts. You don't get a "get out of jail free" card.

Here's a radical concept for you. I strongly suspect that a civilization having at it's most basic fundamental laws, boiled down to essences, that 100% Free Speech (even including an assumed right to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater) would have less and fewer problems than one of of 100% censorship.

If you don't like the fact that [Facebook] is censoring you ... "vote with your feet!" You can do business with anyone and you can also stop at any time.

Or, as in my case, "don't start." I have never used any of these sites, nor do I ever intend to. (Even with "IRC = Internet Relay Chat," I very quickly became bored with "chatting" and of my own volition simply stopped doing it.)

Whereas, I am very active with forums in which like-minded people facing similar problems – at work or otherwise – gather in an entirely different way to assist one another.

What worries me is what happened to Parler. I don't know whether or not Parler was "a right-wing echo chamber" as some people claimed, but it certainly had a right to exist and people who were unwelcome at Twitter had a right to go and talk there. That's how private companies are supposed to work. A private company can ban you from its premises if it wants and that's OK because you can always go elsewhere. But when increasing numbers of people tried to go elsewhere and downloaded the Parler app (it was for a short while extremely popular), someone had a quiet word with AWS, who run practically all the web servers, and they pulled the rug out from under Parler. Because they were a private company, right? So they could refuse to host anyone they pleased.

Sorry, but organisations which have the power to do that are no longer private companies, regardless of who owns them. Democratic countries put limitations on the power of the state, not simply because it is the state, but because it is powerful and would always like to be more powerful. When privately owned corporations have this degree of power, limitations need to be put on them too.

You all realize this forum is social media right? As is every other forum on the internet.

Dictionary:
Wikipedia:
But as to the question in the topic, its just a stupid question in the first place. Cuz it starts out "if social media is bad" which is really hard to imagine when you post it on social media in the first place, and anyone reading it, and certainly replying, probably doesn't feel that way or they wouldn't reply. But okay, IF it was bad, why would that make something else bad? One thing bad doesn't make something else bad. The whole topic of this thread is dumb. And the original post doesn't elaborate or present any argument or discussion of the topic, instead says some other silly sutff and suggests corporations are bad. If you want to discuss benefits of incorporation, that's a completely different topic and nothing related to social media or free speech.

Why is social media bad? I totally disagree with the topic starter, epecially if we take into account that our forum is social media as well. It's looking like an absurd.

Technically, you're right. Though as I'm posting anonymously/under a pseudonym - and most importantly allowed to do so - and I'm not posting pictures of cats or the cake I baked at the weekend, so it's a little different.

Other forums, set up for what ever reason, may require the person post as themselves and may not allow anonymous accounts - that's up to the board administrators - that would then make them more akin to "social media". It's more about how the site is utilised rather than the software it uses.

Similarly I wouldn't call stack exchange "social media" either.

Because "marketing and social media experts" say so?

You appear to have selectively quoted that Wikipedia article - here is the preceeding text:
I'm not going to waste time on the specifics there, but I will point out that [2] refers to a paper which attempts to accurately define the term, whilst the [40] in your quote is about "the extent to which companies are exploiting the potentialities of single or multiple social media platforms" - and from that perspective it's unsurprising if they want to apply the broadest most vague definition they can.


And that's part of the problem with the term "social media"; there is no agreed-by-everyone definition of where the boundaries are. Some people argue all online communication is "social media", whilst others require some form of networking/connect/follow functionality (and possibly other criteria).

Ultimately, I've found whenever people say "social media" there is always a more appropriate and more accurate alternative phrase they could have used instead, that would clarify what they are trying to say.

Which makes the term "social media" a buzzword - where the primary reason for use is to appear hip/fashionable, rather than being a useful definition.

If something useful is being said, clarifying what precisely is being referred to is worthwhile. (Most times, it's not.)

I also know that when AWS began to "de-platform" companies (and therefore, breach their contracts) because of what Amazon felt about them, they lost a lot of business. Companies began buying their own hardware again.

"Social media" companies are also going to be forced to realize that the only way they can continue, at least at their present size and wealth, is to remain neutral. People are going to speak, and they are going to speak freely. If you try to censor that, you're cutting off your own foot because there is absolutely nothing exclusive or proprietary about what you are providing. The present popularity of brand-name sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and so forth is really just a happy accident. "Past performance is not a guarantee of future results," and a great many companies find that out the hard way.

Here's the thing about free speech: You can say whatever you like and your neighbour can talk over you and ensure that you're not heard. That's their right. It's also their right to not listen to you, or block you. They're not "censoring" you. They're merely exercising their rights... the exact same ones you have.

It's a double-edged sword.

Unless, of course, you would you rather have rights which only apply to certain classes?

From what I've heard and read about Parler, it's "creators" did in fact, at least initially anyway, intend on it being natural or "center", and not just a "a right-wing echo chamber" as you put it. However from all I've seen and heard, it's very much become a "a right-wing echo chamber" to use your words once again - certainly Trump supporters have more or less "claimed it as their own" so to speak.

However, and while I don't know how much truth there is to this (if any), apparently it's "creators"/"owners" have offered a bounty for "the left wing to join and encourage debate" - for which it was supposedly and originally intended to be - ie. a place where both sides of the political spectrum supposedly have "honest debates".

While I do agree with what you've said to a large extent, and certainly support free speech without fear of repercussions from those that simply don't agree... I also think that those "private companies" do in fact have a responsibility for what they host and should try to minimize any potential harm that might be caused to others. So it's very easy to be simplistic about it, but for one thing, it's just not that simple when you are talking about what many commonly refer to as "social media" - it's a balance.

I think the problem that your post identifies is that; if you say on one hand that "private companies" should be regulated, but on the other, "I have every right to kick someone out of my house for any reason I choose, right, wrong, or indifferent", then do you have one set of rights for companies and another set of rights for the individual? My point is that there is a conflict between a company "accepting their social responsibility" and a company exercising their rights as a private company - eg. withdrawing services to another company or individual for perceived "political reasons/bias". Then it inevitability goes back to "my right to free speech" and "how dare you try to deny me that right!!".

So I think it's a very slippery slope when one set of "rights" outweighs another set of "rights" (eg. "your rights don't mean anything over OURS!!"), and particularly where there is no clear agreement on even just the definition of "social media" in this case - as evidenced by other posts in this thread. It needs to be an even playing field before you can even know who is right, wrong, or indifferent IMHO.

I also think that you are looking at it from a political perspective rather that an objective perspective, but far from the only poster in this particular thread guilty of that, that said.

FWIW, I tend to agree with a lot with the points made by both boughtonp and cynwulf is this case.

I know very little of "Parler". Wikipedia seems to slam it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parler

(it's a very biased article which makes no attempt to be impartial)

However, while apologists may say something along the lines of "they have a right, to say what they want to say", I'm sure those same apologists would quite happily see e.g. extreme left or Islamist sites shut down, even if there were no evidence of any wrong doing. Everyone is biased politically. If those same apologists were hosting some extremist propaganda on their own servers - they may also rethink their position...

With much of the web under the control of "Big Tech", it's fairly obvious what is going to happen. Corporations exist to make money, they dislike bad PR, shareholders especially dislike it, so they will in most cases, try to quietly shunt such embarrassments off their platforms. As they strive for neutrality, they achieve only bias. That's because "neutrality" only means following or conforming to the status quo, toeing the government line, etc - and the end result is always bias.

Don't politics and hypocrisy go hand in hand?

They certainly do at LQ if nothing else...

Yeah well it wasn't long before Parler started shutting down the accounts of many people whose views were, shall we say, less than perfectly aligned with the majority of it's user base:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...snt-like.shtml

"The part you're missing is that it's only censorship if it silences speech you like. When speech you don't like is censored that's just common sense, silly. What are you, some sort of commie mutant traitor?"

Gold.

The truly sad thing is that it's always the same the world over... "FREE SPEECH!!!" (as long as we agree with it)
You're right... But for today's dose of cognitive dissonance: Consider which kind of people invest in and hold shares, and what their political views are most likely to be. :D