Facebook shouldn't be some kind of universal substrate on the internet anyway. Alternatives should be encouraged, and people can make their own choice about the kind of environment they want to spend their time in.
If you're saying that's impossible, and facebook is some sort of utility, or common carrier, then you can have rights which are enforced upon the space.
Ultimately, either it is a public space (which needs public rights analogous to what exists in the real world, enforced through constitutional or democratic means) or it is a private space, and the owners are free to regulate as they wish, and customers are free to make their own decisions, where to visit and where to spend their time.
Wholeheartedly agree that this is the ultimate resolution, but in order to actually get to that point we need a fundamentally different software architecture than the current centralized approach of "the web".
> Private people and organizations are well within their rights to set their own rules
Sure, but that does not imply that it isn't censorship. It's just within their rights to censor.
> If you're saying that's impossible, and facebook is some sort of utility, or common carrier, then you can have rights which are enforced upon the space.
It's not impossible, but it is Facebook's goal to have this level of necessity in people's lives. So, by their own framework, it does make sense to talk about rights on their service. The purpose of this isn't to incite government action of enforcing such rights, but to keep users' and devs' perspectives clear about the lack of freedom on centralized platforms.
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But parent comment has a point anyway. Political censorship had (ab)used moderation systems in that way, at the very least in some countries. It's not unheard of cases of censorship slipping under disguise of "protecting from bad/unhealthy things". I can think of a few examples from Russia.