If anything, public figures should have LESS permissions than other citizens.

The main different between acting as a public figure VS a private citizen is that you represent (and influence) other people.

It boggles my mind that as a member of the military , I was more restricted in what I could do and say than our public figures are.... at least it seemed like that.

> as a member of the military, I was more restricted in what I could do and say than our public figures are

As it should be. The military reports to our civilian leadership. The latter constrains the former. That, almost by definition, leaves the latter less constrained than the former.

>One view is authoritarian, a person with lots of power who can do whatever he wants.

>The other view is democratic, a person employed by citizens to be a representative and have some managerial role.

but there are also views about what responsibilities are in relation to these kinds of figures.

One could easily conceive of the responsibility would be to not let the authoritarian (a dictator) broadcast because their authority is illegitimate. So not let them broadcast at all on your service, whether they hold to the rules or not.

But let the democratically chosen leader broadcast, whether they hold to the service terms or not, because of needs to serve user base of democratically chosen leader's constituency.

That said I personally believe in shutting him down, but I can conceive of lots of different viewpoints which might find him reprehensible but still consider that it is needed to let him have access, although probably the real viewpoint is "show me the money!"

It won't be much of a democracy if a few SV oligarchs decide what politicians are allowed to say.

Isn’t that what C-SPAN is for? A private company isn’t obligated to transmit anyone’s speech. Politicians can use government owned or subsidized media if they want to dictate the terms.

> A private company isn’t obligated to transmit anyone’s speech.

The phone company was.[1] TV networks were.[2] And while there is still some debate about this, net neutrality would apply that obligation to ISPs. Why not Facebook and Twitter?

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Act_of_1934

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine

That’s for common carriers. Twitter isn’t a common carrier.

Making them a common carrier would solve almost all issues, except complaints from some groups that some other groups are allowed to use Twitter to spread their own political speech.

All Twitter does is transmit messages between people. Why do you consider them different from other services that do so?

My opinion isn’t binding and I haven’t developed a position; more to the point, if they were a common carrier, I don’t see how their terms of service and code of conduct would not be applicable all the same. Common carriers can still refuse service to specific offending individuals if not the government as collective entity, for no reason, or for cause, such as violations of company policy or terms of service.

Twitter is a private company, which uses private servers and network switches, that communicates with ISPs and their private equipment, to send the information we're talking about.

Radio and TV use public resources (EM waves), to which they have been granted a government license, to transmit information, so the government can ask them to do certain things at times.

And the phone company? Aren't they a private company that uses private wires?

Most phone companies (and cables) were granted local monopolies that allowed them to build out infrastructure and amortized the cost over decades. (Actually, in the US, there was only a phone company for a long time: AT&T.)

These were regulated monopolies.

Which came first, the monopoly or the regulatory capture?

Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and so on are following (or being pushed for political reasons) down the traditional slippery slope where first they ban child porn, KKK recruiters, anarchist groups exchanging bomb-making instructions and people openly selling illegal drugs.

Then things get broadened because yes, that is copyrighted stuff being shared, guess we should stop that. Yes, if that revenge porn isn't illegal it will be soon, guess we should block that. Yes, if they literally chose a nazi flag as their logo we can agree they're a hate group. Yes, that user's post about the smooth taste of Lucky Strike cigarettes does look like it was upvoted by a botnet. Yes, we could probably detect those rape threat messages you received and block them, senator.

And before you know it, you're adjudicating whether that person was joking when he said he'd blow up the airport for cancelling his flight; whether that 'parody news' website claiming vaccines cause autism is clearly enough a parody; and whether the letter Q is a hate symbol.

Guys in suits getting interviewed on cable news wear Q lapel pins for a reason. It’s to show the 8channers that they’re part of the in-group. Just like Trump tweeting a doctored CNN chyron on top of a doctored Carpe Donktum video. Propaganda and dog whistles can be obvious; placebo effects still work even in cases where you know it’s a placebo.

I thought they'd basically won the war on net neutrality and it was no longer any form of common carrier?