Many people make up these companies. It's not like there is a secret cabal of left-leaning tech owners that get together and make decisions like this.

In the case of Facebook and Google, their founders have voting majority shares and literally control the companies. It’s not a secret cabal of left-leaning owners, it is a publicly known set of left-leaning tech owners.

I’m not saying they act evilly, but Facebook is literally controlled by one person who cannot be outvoted by every other owner. And Google is controlled by two as well [0].

[0] https://fortune.com/2019/12/05/page-and-brin-google-control/

Ok, that doesn't mean there is a cabal of party operatives and big tech working together...

That's not what the parent poster suggested nor the one you initially replied to. What's being discussed is big tech acting as one given their homogenous political inclinations, and user Jochim thinking this is representative of "society" at large as a way to normalize and whitewash this chain of political censorship.

Right, but other people in "society" besides big tech, support this decision.

Nobody is thinking society is just big tech people. There are a lot of people who agree with tech's decision to cut off coup enablers.

I agree, that’s why I said “ It’s not a secret cabal of left-leaning owners, it is a publicly known set of left-leaning tech owners.”

Of course the key characteristic of secret cabals is that they are secret.

While I know of no evidence for secret cabals of big tech people, having individual capable of making unaccountable decisions is a different bad thing than secret cabals.

And I responding to someone saying these were big organizations with lots of decision makers. And that’s false for Facebook and google, since they have power concentrated.

It's not an explicit conspiracy but there are incredibly strong political bubbles in the US.

Yes, of course, that's how humans work. But these bubbles are often considered as a singular group moving as one, when in reality they are separate organizations and individuals who agree with each other.

Sure. But my point is that it's not correct to go from "multiple independent organizations think this way" to "basically everyone must think this way", as if those multiple organizations represent a random sample of the population.

Doesn't seem like any other groups are interested in supporting them either or else they wouldn't have any issue paying to self host/finding a willing provider.

So the same dynamics that has happened through history when one group is qualified as "untouchable" and any association with them, even if purely commercial, will bring retaliation.

We have to distinguish between those who are untouchable because of circumstances beyond their control (lineage, birthplace, disabilities) and those who are pariahs because of their behavior (criminals, militant anarchists, that mean old guy who sits on his porch with a shotgun).

I have sympathy for the former, but not the latter. While it would be kind to reach out to the latter group and help them mesh with society, there's no requirement anyone has to nor a guarantee the pariahs would want to mesh.

> We have to distinguish between...

No, we dont have to distinguish that. Your weak premise would justify the discrimination of atheists, anarchists, monarchists, pentecostals,marxists, epicureans... among thousands of other groups.

I dont really understand why it is so complicated.

At individual and private level I can decide who will I spend my time with, who I will invite to my place, go to the beach etc, with no coercion and I expect everybody else to have that right too.

At public level I have the expectation to serve all the people the same (ceteris paribus) unless I am forced by current legislation to not do so (like selling alcohol to a minor).

I would not extend that prohibition to a person who can request my services legally , if the person is going to pay and if he is going to behave like any other customer.

If I manage a 7/11 I would not create an ideological purity test to figure out if I will sell you gas or a soda and I think society will be way better if everybody does that too.