The mere act of making a message accessible from an internet connection is only 1% of what "publishing" is, and it's the only reason Google, Facebook, and Twitter make billions. Otherwise, the whole Geocities-type model where everyone has their own private website would be successful today.

The reason these technologies are successful is that 99% of "publishing" is getting messages to the eyeballs that want to see those messages. The essence of their monopoly is that everyone's content they want to see is on that particular platform, both political and apolitical. It is difficult to follow people who get excommunicated from platforms, and the whole reason anyone uses these platforms is to avoid this difficulty.

Wasn't this even MORE the case before things like Twitter and Facebook?

Were people making arguments that Simon and Schuster were wrong and censoring if they decided not to publish a book? There are a LOT of books that have been written that no 'major' publisher would touch.

Yeah, that means you have to go and publish the book yourself, and print your own copies. And it means that most bookstores probably won't carry your book, and you won't reach nearly the audience that you would if you had a major publisher.

No one argues that the publishers are wrong for doing that.

You're suggesting that the message you just typed out has the same weight as printing a few thousand copies of a manifesto for someone and shipping that book across the country to be put in bookstores and eat the cost if it doesn't sell. In no reasonable way does the "book publisher model" resemble the "social media model".

The "social media model" is far closer to discussions you would have in a coffee shop or at a dinner party. Starbucks doesn't need to listen in on your conversations and kick you out if they're not disturbing anyone else.

Sure, but Twitter conversations DO disturb other people.

Starbucks absolutely has the right (and would exercise it) to kick a group of people out if they were, say, conducting a KKK meeting and talking so everyone in the Starbucks could hear them.

First of all, we're not even talking about the censoring of terrorists, dictators, and extremist groups, which Twitter actually has allowed to persist on the platform in the past (e.g. Nicolas Maduro and ISIL). The current censorship at hand is a mainstream news outlet being blocked from releasing a damaging political story less than 2 weeks before the election. This is banana republic-type corruption.

Secondly, Twitter primarily serves content to those people who want it. It's what their algorithms are trained to do. The argument that the New York Post's article is disturbing and thus should be removed is easily used to justify any amount of authoritarian social manipulation. After all, everyone's actions eventually affect me, so I should be able to control all aspects of how they think, right?

>Power companies are regulated monopolies. There are no competitors.

The funny (sad) thing is that these utilities are almost easier to work around Twitter in this case.

Power company cuts you off? Buy a generator, no big deal.

Town turns off your water. IBC totes are cheap.

Comcast terminates your account? Verizon is happy to pay you money and if they aren't where you are then you can suck it up and by satellite.

If your a media business and Twitter/Facebook won't let you advertise and breaks links to your content you're basically screwed. There are no real alternatives because that's wher your users are.

Buying a generator is as poor replacement for grid power as starting a WordPress blog. If you want to live an off grid life in the woods you might as well blog like it’s 2004.

You can rent a big gen-set (like what they use for temp power to large outdoor events, construction sites, etc) for decently cheap (cheap in terms of business expenses). Should be able to get you by long enough for a judge to tell the power company to quit dicking around.

A very small handful of companies have a stranglehold over the lion's share of all global communications: Google, Facebook, Apple, Twitter.

So maybe Twitter isn't quite a monopoly on its own, but the consolidation of control over information and data distribution into the hands of a very small number of organizations has worrying implications for how we think about censorship and freedom of speech.

Those companies have a MUCH weaker stranglehold over global communications than the media companies of 30 years ago. I can publish a website and have it viewed by (almost) anyone in the world without going through any of those 4 companies.

If you had a video or book or article 30 years ago, you couldn't even distribute it yourself around the world without the partnership of a major media company. It is way easier now.

Did people consider this a danger to free speech in the 90s? I certainly don't remember it that way. No one was worried that you couldn't get a main stream publisher to publish your crackpot theories, or that no cable tv station would air your crazy rants. No, you were forced to self publish, and deal with the fact that your audience was a lot smaller than if you could get a major publisher/media company to publish your work.

The NyPost still has a website, and anyone can still go to see it. It is way more accessible than self-published work was 30 years ago.

It's interesting to see how quickly Silicon Valley culture has changed over the past 10 years from one of free speech absolutism to "benevolent censorship". The people so vociferously clamoring about the nightmare-hellscape of a world without Net-Neutrality are now telling us that a handful of major corporations actively and blatantly censoring speech is no cause for concern.

Net Neutrality is different. No one is arguing that it is ok to block NyPost at a network level. Free speech does not mean a free platform.

Net Neutrality is not really that different. These corporations just want to be the ones doing the blocking instead of allowing ISPs to do it.

You honestly don't see a difference between net neutrality and platform content moderation?

This is like not seeing the difference between allowing anyone to drive on a public road verse forcing everyone to pick up all hitchhikers.

If a very small number of platforms control essentially all of the content people are exposed to, the distinction starts to blur.

Sure I see a difference, but I don't think it's nearly as significant as you seem to. These corporations wield an immense amount of power, and although they don't (individually) have the ability to completely silence anyone, neither do ISPs.

I think the concern about the amount of power they wield is legitimate, and I think we, as a society, need to have a serious look at what that power means.

I just feel that the issue of blocking a particular site is tangental to the real issue of the power these companies have. I am much more worried about the way their algorithms work for choosing who sees what, but that is not a concern based on 'free speech'

I think people show their true colors when emotional, and many blame social media, misinformation, etc as why Trump won in 2016; whereas before they were praising how savvy Obama was to use social media, etc.

So if you think politicians utilizing social media to reach the people is ok, you also have to think it is ok for a foreign nation to use fake social media accounts to influence an election?

Social media is the tool, and some uses are ok and some aren't. I am not 'showing my true color' when I condemn someone who uses a knife to murder someone, even though I praised a master chef's use of a knife to cut food just the day before.

I, as the hypothetical Twitter CEO, choosing to silence or remove an account isn't a "big F" Free Speech issue.

The government telling me, the hypothetical Twitter CEO, that I am legally mandated to publish your tweet, be it actually misinformed or just plain unpopular, or face asset seizure and jail time as a consequnce -- that is an _actual_, real infringement on free speech.

It just turns out that a lot of those SV libertarian free speech absolutists were actually partisan authoritarian hacks that are now abusing the notion of free speech in the current online discourse, so that the government will step in and mandate publishing their particular flavor speech. The people arguing against Twitter having the ability to silence and ban accounts (for any reason) are arguing for a Propaganda-class of speech that must be repeated by all who have any influence.

>There are no competitors.

What an absurd statement to make on hacker news of all places, where every minor movement of tesla/solar city is reported as breaking news. Or in a world where more and more people are going "off grid" and making their own electricity.

The power company is the easiest/most convenient way to power my home. It is definitely not the only way to do it.