In the US, the Net Neutrality position describes internet access as a utility, not a luxury. Further the UN declares it a Human Right. If either/both of those positions hold, then the gatekeepers - Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc - suppressing any view or blocking access to any group could be a violation of human rights.

I think that will have to be settled in court, but it will get messy for those companies.

Nobody is being banned from the internet. They are merely being banned by a privately owned American website. Businesses in America have the right to refuse service to any individual provided it is not due to protected status. In America your opinions do not grant you protected status.

ISPs are privately owned American corporations as well. Did you read what you're replying to?

ISPs are considered common carriers, which Net Neutrality addresses:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier#Telecommunicati...

I haven't seen this same argument made for websites in particular. If you have good references for that, please do share!

btw, did you create an account just to make this comment? If so, why? It doesn't seem too controversial.

No real reason for the account creation, boredom mostly (I lurk).

And I think that's the point. ISPs are precedent to show that a company being private isn't of itself a good enough reason to let it censor people. Google and Facebook are big enough that I think they should be considered public fora for speech. Hence the term "Gatekeeper" in the OP.

I understand what you're saying, but I know that I'm not qualified to give an informed opinion. So I'd prefer to see a more legitimate source than speculation on HN :)

Just riffing here, but would it be fair to require Amazon to sell any product I want to make available?

If the UN declared your product a Human Right, seems possible.