Parler was literally kicked off of AWS and Twillio.
The highway is people typing parler.com in their browser, which was never interrupted. Parler could have made their own exit on the highway instead of telling people to take the exit for Amazon or Twilio.
And in the history of the world, this ability to reach everyone in the world was not possible until a couple decades ago.
1. Moderators of groups on social networks have no obligation to let you speak in a space they control. If you want to fully exercise your right to free speech, you must make your own group.
2. Social network companies have no obligation to let you speak in a space they control. If you want to fully exercise your right to free speech, you must build your own social network.
3. Datacenter as a service companies have no obligation to let you speak in a space they control. If you want to fully exercise your right to free speech, you must build your own datacenter.
4. ICANN has no obligation to let you speak in a space they control. If you want to fully exercise your right to free speech, you must make your own internet.
5. Payment processors have no obligation to let you speak in a space they control. If you want to fully exercise your right to free speech, you must make your own financial system.
6. A country no obligation to let you speak in a space it controls. If you want to fully exercise your right to free speech, you must make your own country.
I personally think 1 is obviously fine, it starts getting slightly iffy at 2, quite sketchy and worrying at 3, and 4 is where major alarm bells start ringing. Do you agree that it goes from fine at 1 to a major problem at 6, and merely disagree on where exactly on the road between 1 and 6 we should push back, or do you think 6 is perfectly fine?
#5 is also a problem, although I believe this should also be a utility. Although, as I understand the Fed is coming out with their own thing soon, but I don’t know if it will be treated as a utility.
#6 is, of course, way far gone.
#1 to #3 are the domain of private enterprises, but at #4 it becomes infrastructure like roads, water, gas, etc and you can’t feasibly have more than one so it should be treated as a utility.
If it really stops at 3 that's probably fine -- we'll see some new IAAS providers that accept money in exchange for not taking down content that is legal but some people don't like, the would-be censors will get mad but not be able to do anything about it, and that will be that. However, I expect that what will actually happen is the next social media site that is considered problematic and can't be cut off at the IAAS level because it self-hosts will be blocked off at either the DNS level or the payment processor level. Hopefully I'm wrong. Time will tell.
Right, because AWS is literally the only way to host a website, and Twilio is literally the only way to send emails.
I'm glad you feel secure enough to say that out loud, and maybe from some perspective you are technically correct. But the comparison you gave about email is easily refutable. Most email traffic is controlled by large providers, large providers which can denylist your mail servers for a myriad of vague reasoning which take forever to scrub yourself from. Given that major mail providers now regularly sniff your emails as a feature, your privacy now comes at a premium. In other words, privacy is a feature and a premium one at that.
So, while the future is not certain to be what I imagine it can be from this point, it's certainly not open and free as you've asserted.
Most people choose to use email controlled by large providers. I choose to pay a company for my email needs. Others have that choice too. They can also choose not to use the large providers. It's open and free as in speech (excluding illegal activities of course), but it's not effortless and not free as in beer.
I don't see how much more open and free (as in speech) it can get without taking away someone else's ability to do what they want with their computer.
Do you understand why some of us are viewing this problem through an anti-trust or public utility lens now?
In other words, "I don't understand how much more open and free (as in electricity) it can get without taking away someone else's ability to do what they want with their power plant."
It's really, really unfortunate that this debate was triggered for what are at their base partisan political reasons. Because this is a debate we should have had with cooler heads, about what these services actually represent for human society and how government should interact with this technology. Instead, everyone is drawing a line in the sand based on their politics (not saying you are doing this, but others clearly are).
And look, yeah, I get it. "Electricity" is not "speech". But when you need electricity and you need computers to transmit speech in the modern era ... well I guess I just see it as six of one and a half dozen of the other.
I'm also viewing it through a public utility lens. But Amazon's computers and Twilio's computers are not public utilities. The network (internet) is a public utility. I would say DNS and ICANN is a public utility also. Electrical power lines are a public utility. Roads are a public utility. But those are the components that are not feasible to duplicate, servers and data centers are.
The highway is the one thing they do not own. They own exits on the highway. But no one is stopping anyone from sending emails. Or setting up their own website and messaging service. It is easier and cheaper today to to connect with others and express yourself without the need for private companies than it has ever been in the history of mankind.