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Comment by mandelbrotwurst | Hacker News Reader

Private entities can and do engage in censorship.

The best analogy to help low-information people understand this is to just remind them that AT&T owns the hardware and can shut down people too. Do we want powerful companies to be allowed to censor Americans at their whim is the question. I say no.

So lobby the government to break up AT&T so they don't have monopoly power... (oh wait)

Does that mean an alternative solution would allow inciting violence?

Sure, but the parent poster seems to imply that banning people who incite violence on social media is somehow a new thing or "going nuclear" with censorship.

Trump got clapped not because of censorship, but because social media platforms decided to no longer exempt him from their TOS because of his position. Any normal person posting similar content would have been banned ages ago. Besides, he is the POTUS who can go on TV any time he wants. Thinking that he cannot get his message out there is ridiculous.

Trump never called for any violence. However there are lots of left wing people on Twitter calling for violence and the left-wing operated BigTech think that's just fine, while they will ban any right wing person at the drop of a hat for completely made-up reasons like saying something wrong about gender pronouns. Look the Joe Rogan podcast with Tim Pool and Jack Dorsey, and try to educate yourself.

>Trump never called for any violence

Alright, so finally after a few seemingly innocuous arguments you took your mask off. A person who believes storming the Capitol was not organized by Trump at this point would be able to find a justification to anything he says or does.

This is an example of black-and-white logic, tribalism, and an inability to comprehend nuance. I can state any number of the 100s of lies and hoaxes told about Trump and the only thing Democrats can hear is a "praise" of Trump, rather than a statement of fact.

Trump was also great advertising for Twitter, just like he was great for the news media. I'd argue that Big Media, Inc. is deeply complicit in the rise of Donald Trump. He was the goose that laid the golden egg. Additionally, the media mergers of the 80s and 90s gave us right-wing talk radio on the AM band, sewing the spores of hate from which the vile toadstool of Trumpism bloomed.

Big Tech, Inc., with its algorithms that promote radical right-wing content, also seems suspect.

To me the solution to all of these problems is to break up conglomerates and monopolies. Let's have more decentralization and more "small is beautiful" tech, like the chat system presented here. Let a million flowers blossom, smothering the aforementioned toadstool. (Wandering off to look at installing Cabal).

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