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Comment by plasticxme | Hacker News Reader

Twitter is a private sector business in the US with terms that include reserving the right to remove any content for any reason. They have every right to.

If you don’t agree with it, for moral reasons or otherwise, you’re free to provide your own service.

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Section 230 was created when Twitter (and the likes) were much less important for public discourse.

I'm willing to bet that it's going to be amended, just like the EU version of it was.

Consider this precedent :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama

> The Court rejected that contention, noting that ownership "does not always mean absolute dominion." The court pointed out that the more an owner opens his property up to the public in general, the more his rights are circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who are invited in.

In its conclusion, the Court stated that it was essentially weighing the rights of property owners against the rights of citizens to enjoy freedom of press and religion. The Court noted that the rights of citizens under the Bill of Rights occupy a preferred position. Accordingly, the Court held that the property rights of a private entity are not sufficient to justify the restriction of a community of citizens' fundamental rights and liberties.

This case is completely different and not relevant.

Twitter has terms of service - that in and of itself is not equivalent to a sidewalk opened for all to use.

You can look at phone companies then, for a similar example.

It is illegal, due to common carrier laws, for a phone companies to engage in certain actions. They are actually forced to accept certain customers.

These existing laws that apply to phone companies could be expanded to apply to other forms of communication networks.

It's a bad example - phone conversations are relatively private and not meant for public consumption.

If this was P2P messaging I'd agree. But that's not the case here.

That’s a really interesting case and surprisingly relevant to today’s situation. I’ve never seen a good argument for being able to counter a companies ability to decide who to service under today’s laws before. People usually concentrate on the idea that new regulation is required.

Parler tried to start their own service and look what is happening to them.

Parler would be fine if its members didn't consistently incite violence.

Are there a larger percentage of violent comments on Parler than Facebook or Twitter? I haven't seen any evidence of that.

I think frequency will be hard to prove right now, but when you have things like this, they are completely justified. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck.:

"Parler, the "free speech" social network, reportedly removed a post by Lin Wood, in which the pro-Trump lawyer threatened violence against Vice President Mike Pence.

"Get the firing squads ready. Pence goes FIRST," wrote Wood, according to Mediate. "

https://news.yahoo.com/parler-removed-violent-mike-pence-170...

I agree frequency is hard to prove but I think its important. If Twitter has a similar or higher frequency then they would also be guilty of consistently inciting violence as well and any person who is consistent should be trying to get Twitter pull off app stores.

I can easily find tweets that are violent that stay up for weeks after being reported. It feels like Twitter is being held to a different standard than Parler and that is my issue.

They sure have the right to. But I also have the right to criticize their decision.

Twitter runs on public infrastructure. It's beholden to the community in the same way trucks are.

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