A helluva lot of people joined these networks and got captured by the network effect because we were told or believed that they were open sites, just like the rest of the net. If content (or types of content) came along that folks didn't want? Nerds like us would make and give away (or sell) tools for getting rid of that garbage.
In a big way, what we're going through right now is fraud, plain and simple. It may not meet the legal definition, but to grow and scale using one model and then switch to another once you have a monopoly is a form of bait and switch. There's no way in hell I would have joined either site, and I would have vociferously told my friends and family not to join either, if they had been clear up front that this was what they were planning to do.
NOTE: I am not making a legal claim. I mean fraud in the moral sense. I understand with a zillion corporate lawyers that everything these guys do is wonderfully legal, no matter what the long-term social effects end up being. I am speaking in the vernacular, not legal sense. We were tricked.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/101320zor_8m...
Voters, and their representatives, made a deliberate effort to be as hands-off as possible to the early internet. It remained tax free. Public facilities were used. Section 230 was passed to remove the specter of liability and so on. We all did the most we could to stay away and let the net develop, knowing that if we came in too heavy-handed, not only would we destroy this new creation, we'd forever taint it in the world's eyes as just being some kind of US thing.
We had high hopes. We were open-minded and experimental. And here's where we freaking ended up: just another Standard Oil or United States Steel Corporation, only this time there wasn't any kind of behind-the-scenes mucking around in politics. It's directly in our face. (And when you point that out, the monopolies themselves will beg for regulation, knowing full well that by the time their money finishes paying off the legislators, the fix will be in. They'll set the wall so high they'll never have true competitors)
Not a happy political place to be, no matter what your particular political views.
from what I perceive, the angst now comes from Twitter, Facebook and Google acting like arbiters of truth or a moral high ground, when its clear they aren't and might be so drunk on their own koolaid that they can't perceive it internally.
it would be clearer for us for them to just say "we arbitrarily censor some things at our own discretion, there is no rhyme or reason to it, we all went to stanford and live within 2 miles of each other so it might have a pattern of leaning left, but it might not too, we have the right to refuse service to anyone, go somewhere else if thats a problem, but we might buy that service too"
people are just conflating the concepts, and I also would not be able to tell if they are consciously referring to the American constitution or a concept that goes far beyond that
And since you're standing up for corporate civil rights, I'd love to hear your defense of the Citizens United decision while we're at it.
deep breath
Citizens United merely clarified a reality that was already in play, enshrinment of corporate personhood going back to the passage of the 14th amendment, and simply shed light onto the toothlessness of the FEC and removed the discretion that was being used by people that didnt want a court challenge. With the attention I would have thought the people would gave attempted a constitutional amendment but one decade later this is clearly not the avenue people consider leaving only the reality of the tools available.
Corporate personhood is not a new concept and didn’t begin in 2010.
Regarding ISPs, section 230 has the capability of limiting their behavior in exchange for other privileges. There is a case platforms to be subject to that or a similar code.
You have the right to say whatever you want, everyone else has the right to not allow it on their property.
There is no first amendment right to compelled listening. We aren't remotely close to having that. There isn't even a strong argument having been made for that, there is nothing slithering through the courts that would change that.
This is what happens every time people "cancel" someone, everyone agrees not to listen to them.
The separate standard for platforms is that people are just observing that they can't cancel the platform, easily. Just because they too will lose their own sounding board, which is ironically still being tolerated by said platform. But that is their only option.