Thanks to the Reagan administration, that's fine, yes? It would violate Twitter's free speech rights to force them to do otherwise?
This is an ancient argument and Twitter neither "banned a whole side of the political spectrum" (the asshole Trumpian wing is hardly all of conservatism) nor did anything new to US history.
The reason Trump is pushing for the "public square" aspect is because in a decentralized world, his crowd would still be pushed to the fringes because it's expressing fringe (but loud) views. 90 out of 100 forums would have issues with him. So instead, he wants to have access on his terms.
Well, I don't particularly care for a corporation's free speech rights. I think it's better for citizens to have free speech rights, not corporations. Besides, I don't think Twitter's free speech rights are in danger or would be in danger if they were forced not to censor people. They could still print whatever message of their own (Twitter's) they want, exercizing their free speech. They just wouldn't be able to exercize censorship.
Same way I want net neutrality from ISPs, I want it from social media.
Maybe assholes shouldn't be able to use these platforms to shape public opinion and influence elections and news. Maybe having a Twitter account is a privilege, and not a right, and that privilege is correctly granted on the precondition that one will not use the platform to act like an asshole.
Then again maybe we shouldn't elect assholes President to begin with, but that's also neither here nor there.
>When one side, in a major public-opinion-influencing service can ban a whole side of the political spectrum though, and even the sitting president, that's a problem.
Except the "whole side" of the Republican, conservative, or even pro-Trump spectrum hasn't been banned. I don't know why people keep repeating this when even a cursory look on any popular social media site will show that there's still plenty of that speech active online.
And who judges who is the asshole objectively?
For example, in my book a president who actively bombed 7 countries, continued wars he was elected to stop, under whose terms ICE deported more people at the border than Trump (wall or no wall), gave Wall Street a "too big to fail" bailout, enlarged surveillance and hunted several whistleblowers and threatened journalists, is more of an asshole (and a danger) than another who is just a crass business/tv personality that wrote mean tweets and that rednecks liked. That's whether the former has had more political experience or is a smoother talker, and polite company.
But that's just me, and neither is even my President, so...
>Maybe having a Twitter account is a privilege, and not a right, and that privilege is correctly granted on the precondition that one will not act like an asshole.
No, I'd say that having an account to social platforms above some population reach level shouldn't be a "privilege" but a right (that is, subject to due process/law, not up to the whims of the company).
Else, those who control said platforms (where the majority of the public frequents and where most of public discourse happens), also control the public dialogue.
If Obama, or any other President, had acted the way Trump did on Twitter, I'd have no issue with them being banned, either.
>No, I'd say that having an account to social platforms above some population reach level shouldn't be a "privilege" but a right
And who judges what is a "social platform" objectively? Because you've just granted the government the right to use its monopoly on force to remove fundamental rights like freedom of speech and association from the people running any website which meets some arbitrary "population reach" threshold.
To me, that's a lot scarier than platforms fact-checking statements or banning racists and people calling for violence or spreading misinformation.
>(that is, subject to due process/law, not up to the whims of the company).
Companies aren't anarchist collectives, they are subject to due process and the law. You just disagree with companies having the right to choose with whom they do business, and with Twitter and other big social media platforms being able to moderate content and ban people. But they're still doing so within the framework of a state and its laws.
Actually it's the opposite: I "granted the government the right to use its monopoly on force to ENFORCE fundamental rights like freedom of speech and association from the people running any website which meets some arbitrary "population reach" threshold".
And the arbitrary threshold wont be that arbitrary if it's legally defined. We have lots of such thresholds in law (from "age of consent" and "21 to be allowed to drink", to "statue of limitations").
>You just disagree with companies having the right to choose with whom they do business
They can pick their vendors (whom they do business with), but not their users, same way a grocery store can't (and doesn't in a civilized country) just send you away ("refusal of service").
Well, what "angry people would agree with" is a pretty strange basis for an argument, anyway...
>Trump would've gotten himself banned from any of the forums I hung out in from 2000 to now. Not for being conservative, for being an asshole.
And that would be neither here nor there, cause your forums are not so massive as to shape public opinion and influence elections and news.
In smaller, disperse and diverse, discussion platforms, you would be entitled to think that he should be banned for "being an asshole" and even ban him from your forums, while others would be entitled to ban others that say the same or worse things from the opposite side of the political spectrum.
When one side, in a major public-opinion-influencing service can ban a whole side of the political spectrum though, and even the sitting president, that's a problem.
It's actually analogous to election influencing - same as if 9 out of 10 channels in TV only carried the views from one party and not the other(s).