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Re:Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust laws... by tomohawk on Friday May 15, 2020 @05:45PM (#23197859)
The big tech co's have become politically active by infringing on people's freedom of speech, etc. You can argue they're private, but that doesn't really matter. The telcos are private, but they can't drop your connection if they don't like what you are talking about. They can't drop the account of an organization that agitates for things they disagree with.

The big tech co's have made their bed, now they get to sleep in it.

Re:Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust laws... by triceratops on Friday May 15, 2020 @06:03PM (#23198035)
> The telcos are private, but they can't drop your connection if they don't like what you are talking about

With net neutrality gone, an ISP absolutely could do that.

Re:Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust laws... by tomohawk on Friday May 15, 2020 @06:15PM (#23198155)
Can you cite even a single case where an ISP has cut off an organization's account because of the organization's politics?

Even if you could, does that make it right that big tech companies are censoring people and organizations for their views?

Re:Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust laws... by triceratops on Monday May 18, 2020 @02:49PM (#23226792)
Is it wrong if I'm kicked out a private club for saying something that offended the other members? Is the club's management obligated to allow me to continue expressing myself on their property, to their members?

Social media platforms and telcos operate at different layers of the stack. Even if something's acceptable at one layer, doesn't mean it's OK at another, because the consequences are different.

If an ISP allows someone to express something offensive (i.e. legal, but strongly disagreeable to the majority) on their network, it doesn't affect their other customers directly - they won't know or care which ISP this person was using. If a social media platform allows posting something that most other users would find offensive, those other users will leave. And yet people are arguing for deregulating the first (anti-net-neutrality) and regulating the second. It seems backward to me.

What you call "censoring" someone else might call "curation and removal of BS". The free market can decide whether it's too much or too little.

Re:Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust laws... by int_19h on Friday May 15, 2020 @09:33PM (#23199628)
It's okay for them to do it, so long as they're not in a position of market dominance. At that point, it should be treated as abuse of said position.