There is a difference between “can” and “should”. Twitter has every legal right to do what they did, but I feel that the decisions they (and other social media companies) are making are extremely dangerous and misguided.

These platforms were used to incite a coup of our government. This is a perfect, clear-cut reason to ban a user/group.

Platforms ban bad actors all the time. Anyone taking advantage of a service against its TOS or against the country it is bound to is not welcome.

also keep in mind that i’m the united states, free speech is restricted.

you can’t shout fire in a crowded theatre and you also can’t use hate speech which can incite riots or cause violence.

i think people forget this too.

Tell that to Ma Bell.

Ma Bell has pretty strict privacy laws that it must adhere to.

Ma Bell was broke up into pieces.

But many of the legacy telecom laws remain on the books. It's tech that was exempted from these regulations, not legacy telecom. Sadly the privacy protections we had on phone calls were never applied to data. That would have resulted in a very different world than that in which we live today.

That was a scam. Follow the money. Lots of it was invested in 1990s/early 2000s, and every penny ended up in the pockets of ATT, VZN, and their executives and investment bankers. Only now, as sibling observes, common carriage and other requirements are gone.