> The alternatives to twitter for people who are not of ill repute are places like Parler and Mastodon, and they're doing just fine and the tyrannical hand of the free market has not crushed them.
It is literally true that:
- alternative platforms do exist
- the free market has not crushed them
I can't help but notice that you didn't address this point:
>> And all of this does not take into consideration that visibility of speech largely varies per platform. No, you do not have a "right" to be on a platform, but that is orthogonal to the question of whether the broadcast of certain ideas is being forcefully limited by the employees or executives of large platforms (completely within their current rights).
Whether they are "doing fine" depends on the definition of that phrase - doing "fine" at what, precisely? At merely existing, in a binary sense? Yes, it is literally true they do continue to exist. Are they "doing fine" (comparable to Twitter, Facebook, etc) at disseminating the speech and ideas of individual members of society? Objectively, no they are not.
> They're relative failures in the marketplace, but the market doesn't owe them success simply because they have different/lower moderation standards.
It's interesting that you point this out despite me already explicitly acknowledging that fact, while simultaneously not addressing an important point where we actually disagree. I always wonder what's going on on the other end of the wire when these scenarios arise...is this selective attention conscious and intentional, or is it more like a kind of intuitive, reflexive behavior. Sadly, it seems Western culture is not yet at a point where such things can be discussed in polite company.