I don't consider internet company cancellation authoritarian because they're just following the will of the market. It's a symptom, not the cause. If it were solely up to Ebay execs, they would rather people not be overly sensitive because they can make more money that way.

The same is true for content platforms like Reddit or Facebook. They were pro-free speech until they started to get bad publicity from it.

But market doesn't care about this, it's just some tiny group of insanely vocal people

The insanely vocal people will twist the narrative to convince the regular people to go on a morale crusade. The Youtube adpocalypse started because a journalist kept watching Isis videos before they got removed, until they found one with a Coca cola ad.

Conservatives wouldn't complain if private companies were censoring and cancelling left-leaning content. They'd be out there defending private property rights and corporate freedom to act. It's transparently political.

BTW: I don't think canceling left-leaning stuff is far fetched. If you think we have cancel culture now, wait until we have a serious "rebooted" labor movement in this country that starts getting traction. The gloves will come off.

Left-leaning stuff has been cancelled for ages. Try organizing a union in your workplace and see how quickly you'll get cancelled.

> Conservatives wouldn't complain if private companies were censoring and cancelling left-leaning content. They'd be out there defending private property rights and corporate freedom to act. It's transparently political.

I think you are confusing two very different things.

Criticizing Ebay for banning particular books, or AWS for dropping Parlor, or Twitter for banning various conservatives is not in contradiction with the libertarian/conservative idea that private entities should have the freedom to manage their business as they see fit.

Arguing for limited government oversight/power in these situations is orthogonal to criticizing the decisions on their own merits.

It's not in contradiction provided you don't encourage people to storm government buildings on the basis of private entities making their own choices. Which did happen.

What are you getting at? This comment seems to be unrelated to anything I'm saying even if I could understand it.

And for what it is worth the capitol rioters have been widely condemned by libertarians and conservatives.

Simply that Don Jr criticizing Dr Seuss or eBay for canning books is contradictory to lib/con views on free speech when his base uses such arguments to violently rebel against the government.

Bill Maher made this point, that Republicans have lately tried to appropriate "cancel culture" for being correctly rebuked, while what happens to people with his views is insane. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmXTUSP9a9M

Edit: Am I incorrect?

I always go into Maher from these recommendations thinking maybe I'll like his point here. Then halfway through I realize I've been duped again. In this case he laments republicans appropriating the term cancel culture, which he insists is a big deal for other reasons. Then at 4:15 he laughs while sarcastically saying "it's always okay when Trump's the nazi" and I'm like, oh okay. I remember how you like to draw people farther to the right while appearing as if you're anti-alt-right.

I think Maher is what the GP commenter would refer to as "transparently political" if he were on another side.

Yes of course the show is politically biased I just think his supposed thesis does not match the conclusions he draws. It is misleading that he presents himself as a centrist while laughing at those who would criticize the alt right.

Perhaps his thing is he just wants to criticize everyone and get away with it and if that's the case then I don't get what he stands for. Might be how I feel about conservatism in general which increasingly seems to be just anti-everything that would impose rules on the wealthy.

> The "private company" argument, while fully and technically correct, is such a ridiculous canard to trot out at a time when we slide rapidly into public-private authoritarianism

So make a company yourself that specializes in trading items banned from other shops. It wouldn't be the first and it's completely legal. I bet someone is already capitalizing on the outrage over this news. I don't know how exactly and I don't mean the media.

About the companies you list, we study them to look at the rise of Hitler, and we have put anti-discrimination laws in place to hopefully stop someone from abusing their positions like that again.

This isn't the state entering your home and burning books. Wrong hill.

How will you make your business when your banks are cancelling you ?

If you make a website selling used Seuss books and your bank cancels you I'll support you.

If you make a social media site that organizes domestic terror and your bank cancels you then that's your problem.

"If you make a social media site that organises domestic terror"

You do realise that most of the organisation of the "domestic terror" was done on Facebook right ?

How about making a website selling banned, unpopular or borderline racist literature? And then payment providers cancel services to it. Can I then take orders using cash via letters? Seems like it can work. Hopefully the post office, Fedex and UPS and other mail carriers don't notice and cancel it for some obscure money-laundering law/regulation about mailing money! Must I maybe resort to selling that literature on the street corner, back alley maybe?

What you describe occurs in China with books that might criticize their government, only they can't even sell them in back alleys. I've never heard of it happening with any material in the US short of things that encourage acts of terror. And I think that is the right place to draw the line.