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Comment by commandlinefan | Hacker News Reader

But there could be. And there should be.

Why? If I'm running a platform, I would run it with my personal values which might or might not be the same as what's considered moral or right by the eyes of law. As long as my values are not directly illegal, I won't compromise on the values nor let anyone else use my product or platform for that.

I think it should be allowed to take a moral stand, which is why your freedom of speech has nothing to do with social media and I'm glad about it as well.

Sorry but it's not so simple. If you follow that line of logic, should an owner of a restaurant be able to discriminate (race, sexual orientation, national origin, etc.) against customers, based on their "personal values"? This line of thought leads right back to the era of segregation.

You already cannot discriminate against a customer because of certain characteristics of who they are (race, orientation, etc). You can however kick someone out of your restaurant for what they say, how they act, or what they do, similar to being banned or fact checked on private social media platforms.

> "You already cannot discriminate against a customer because of certain characteristics of who they are (race, orientation, etc)."

Those laws are relatively recent. By your very own argument, doing all those things was perfectly A-OK before the laws that barred discrimination went into place. Oops.

Corporate monopolies over the discourse. Though it wouldn't be "the government", why would should the massive power of a $billion/trillion corporations have no check?

What recourse does the average citizen have to abuse from these entities? Think of all the ways Google or Facebook could screw you over or even shape the social/political narrative. This should be a free-for-all?

"Just build your own global social platform"... yea, not possible. In the mean time, they can abuse their power while you get up and running, or never do.

Think of it another way. If the government is constrained, but massive corporations (who pay off politicians) aren't, doesn't this clearly seem an end-around for "government" to encourage private companies to do the censorship they want, enact favorable policies for them in return, and the powerless individual, or small groups suffer similar consequences as if the government themselves censored them? It's an easy hack for the 1st amendment.

Why is it not possible? New platforms are started and grow all the time. For example, TikTok only came out in 2016 and is massive.

maybe the network effect on a billion-person scale? the fact that they are monopolies with billions at their disposal to acquire or crush any competition? I can keep going

Should you be allowed to publish whatever you want in NYTimes because it has broad reach?

IMO, if your platform grows past a certain scale, it should be treated as common carrier and you shouldn't be allowed to do that.

I wonder what happened to antitrust law enforcement in USA.

You could allow Nazis at your personal house party also.

It is legal, due to the first amendment, but it sure does say a lot about you as a person.

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