And if a phone company doesn't want to carry your calls, or a bank give you an account?

Or if the largest ink and paper manufacturers collude to deny your newspaper the resources needed for printing? If the delivery unions refuse to deliver your newspaper?

You're right, it's not the being digital that's special about this.

Banks absolutely decline to give people accounts. If they find out you’re a sex worker, your account will immediately go poof. Hell, quite a few will kick you out the door if they see cryptocurrency transactions. Bounce a couple checks? You’ll wind up on an industry-wide blacklist via ChexSystems.

That they do it doesn't make it right, or not dangerous to free societies.

Isn't forcing a business to do business with someone dangerous to a free society? I've had toxic clients in the past; I shouldn't have been allowed to discontinue the relationship?

It depends on the position of the business. If you get put on an industry-wide blacklist and can't open a bank account forever, that's really going to damage your life prospects; nobody should be able to do that to you without due process of law. Especially, no single person should be able to do it.

As long as you understand the risks of marginalizing people who live in the same society, it's "fine".

Just have to accept that once in a while one of them will do something bad and the majority will vote to further restrict your and their own freedoms in hopes of better security, not realizing it wasn't a security issue in the first place.

> "Isn't forcing a business to do business with someone dangerous to a free society?"

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, and disability. Are you saying the FHA is "dangerous to a free society" as others in that era did to try to overturn it? I certainly hope not.

It's sad to see a new generation of people unwittingly repeating old, discredited arguments once made by bigots.

As with any scenario, there are exceptions or edge cases, and you've highlighted some, and you've also highlighted that we've addressed it (more than 50 years ago!) via legislative fixes.

I'm a fan of the FHA and its follow-ups. I'm also a fan of being able to decline to build a website for, say, the KKK.

Do they kick them out of a commercial account or a personal account or both?

I’m curious. I can see them not wanting to provide assistance to an illegal business, but what the reasoning behind denying a personal account?

Only tangentially related, but try getting a UK or US bank account as a gambling company. Doable, yes. Easy, no. Low-effort, not a chance. And you still risk getting kicked out for no reason at all.

Banks are terrified of gambling companies: they are one of the very few businesses where it is perfectly normal for a notable fraction of downstream customers to withdraw more money than they put in. Without ever having delivered any goods or billable services(!)

Is it any wonder online gambling has been such a magnet for money laundering?

There are plenty of legal businesses that banks and payment processors refuse to do business with. Take a look at the long lists of businesses Stripe won't process payments for[1].

[1] https://stripe.com/restricted-businesses

I feel like one of those three is a much more reasonable reason than the others

So do most people, but there's wide disagreement on which one.

> Or if the largest ink and paper manufacturers collude to deny your newspaper the resources needed for printing?

This actually happened here in Argentina; Papel Prensa is the only newsprint company, so if they don't want to sell you newsprint, you aren't going to print a newspaper.

Right but the one that did publish your letter wasn’t hounded by a indignant mob and advocating for the ink companies and the paper companies to not sell to them nor were the paperboys hounded as the scum of the earth.

Are you sure about that? :-))