Platforms with their corporate overlords now decide what I can and cannot see, because I'm too stupid to think for myself.
This has always been a slippery slope and won't end well. Zuckerberg as it stands today got more power than the president of the united states. He can swing any election and push any level of propaganda. I really want to see some laws around what they can censor.
This where we have to ask whether we want Facebook to be a publisher or a platform. Is Facebook responsible for Steve Bannon's speech, or is Steve Bannon?
Facebook is not a public utility. It is not a dot gov. They can allow whatever content they want so long as it doesn't break the law.
If I run a service on an EC2 instance that uses Auth.0, they can shut it off until I agree to use Cognito?
Conversely, should every user of a platform get to dictate terms? No.
In both cases you and a provider enter into a mutually agreeable relation under some terms of service. And you both can terminate that relationship up to terms of service.
We also recognize there's a value in having a diverse set of opinions presented so people can decide on them based on their merits and the best ones can rise to the top. This does mean that sometimes bad opinions are presented, just like sometimes companies that turn out to be bad ideas get started. The solution is not place all authority in the hands of some central dictator who picks the winners and losers beforehand. There is no person or organization capable of reliably filling that role.
I suspect most people agree on this fwiw. But it'd only apply when antitrust laws are invoked successfully - the vast majority of companies and situations do not fall into that category, as viable alternatives exist. E.g. Amazon is most certainly not the only / impossibly-dominant storefront or CDN.
The same goes for OSX and iOS and Android. There are lots of things that can't be run. They're under no obligation to allow them, however much we might want them to.
No, no I don't, not as a "comments section," anyway.
To an extent, NYT is riding on users' past experiences with uncensored comment sections in other contexts. It's the violation of expectations (both of commenters and readers) that grinds.
Were NYT to put up a disclaimer to the effect that "This is our damn site and we'll delete whatever we want," I think they'd actually get some respect for it. The ire comes because they want it both ways---they want the engagement metrics, without the freedom that engagement requires.
What's needed is a rule of law, such that users can predict beforehand what the outcome of an action will be.
Do you think private companies should be able to provide weapons to the enemy in times of war?
Societies provide rules, regulations and protections around private property to harmonize private and public interests. Facebook is not NYTimes and there is no reason to treat them the same way. Laws and regulations should be pragmatic.
Yes, I know free speech. However, there's a responsibility here that needs to be filled when the information is so carefully crafted (actual facts be damned) towards people who haven't got the education to understand the manipulation that is happening.
The big platforms are falling well short.
Zuckerberg is a glorified newspaper salesman. He depends on soaking up negative narratives to appear powerful. Nobody is more powerful than the government, they can only impose costs on the gov, the government will resolve all conflicts.