What is concerning is that these particular companies are the main platforms used nowadays for conveying ideas and expressing thought, and there are no alternatives that offer the same level of reach. Sure, you can put your video up on another hosting platform. Nobody is going to find it like they would on YouTube.
In order to disseminate ideas widely authors have always been at the mercy of editors, publishers and distributors.
It's an impossible situation because if you force someone to publish something they find objectionable then you've stripped them of their own rights just so some arsehole can write shit about Jews/Muslims/Gays/Blacks/insert minority here.
You're right, it wasn't very charitable, I took it quite literally, and that means the 1st amendment has absolutely no bearing on preserving the right of one person when that is trampling on the publishers rights.
> Technical means of defying censorship, like this one, help to preserve that right.
I did miss the nuance there because I get angry that there appears to me an impression in the general populace that the 1st amendment applies everywhere and gives people carte blanche to say whatever they please without consequence.
"This is objectionable to me, therefore, no one should be allowed to consume or be exposed to it."
That's what bothers this particular commentor (me).
My own access habits are in practice similar to one who is banned or suspended regularly.
I have never felt like I essentially have no voice on the internet.
I understand that if some popular person with lots of followers gets banned then it seems like they would risk losing a lot of their audience that they may rely on for income etc etc etc, but that's hardly the reality of the average 10/100/1000-followers user, is it?
Just because the big social networks are really big doesn't mean that they are the only places you can find a way to have a voice on the web. I don't mean to diminish your feelings if you feel that way. If you love twitter or fb or whatever and you get kicked out, then I certainly get that would be hard. But there are other places on the web. Lots of other places. Maybe some alternative places let you have even more of a voice precisely because they're smaller and it takes less to cut through the noise.
This is completely different than, and carries higher stakes than the role that telecoms, hosting companies, and publishers have played in the past.
The problem isn’t that the voices of hate are being banned. The problem is that the mechanisms used to lower the volume on or silence hate speech can lower the volume or silence any other form or speech. This is why the US enshrined free speech as the first amendment of the constitution.
Technical means of defying censorship, like this one, help to preserve that right.