For the article in question, they are banning someone who blatantly committed criminal acts against the state. Literally an attempt by the president to overthrow the government. Treason is a crime that's enforceable with a death penalty.
One little warning from someone living in a real fascist state (Russia). It wasn't always a fascist state, but when it began to morph into one, censorship what what they started with. Of course, it was legal, because it was all private companies, rightfully executing their liberty to not show anyone they don't like...
The rich irony, of course, is that regular fascist masses that support government are brainwashed to think, they it is the marginalized opposition who are fascists.
And considering the ToS citations were I service of a potentially criminal act, fascism doesn't enter the picture: This is as much about these companies' own legal liability if they allow their platform to facilitate potential criminal activity even though it's against their own rules.
That's called regulation. We have a lot of it. Free speech isn't absolute and free markets aren't either.
I think your making my point. Your freedom of speech doesn't entitle you to use it on the stage built by someone else.
Free markets aren't either
Again, that doesn't contradict me. It would take a fundamental adjustment to the legal framework surrounding either user licensing agreements or the definition of public utilities in order to say these companies aren't allowed to enforce their current ToS.
If you want to argue that laws should change, that's fine, but then we're talking about a slider between the definition & right to own private property on the one hand, and freedom of speech using 3rd party's property on the other hand. If you want to slide it more towards the later, you are taking away from the former, and vice versa. I don't know any formula for where that line should be drawn, only that in this particular example I believe the line drawn was acceptable.
Public utilities and antitrust are not new concepts, nor is this really a private property issue. It's about power and control over our private lives (which should come first before corporations). The internet has changed everything in less than 2 decades and laws from a century ago are no longer sufficient.
When governments start asking for social media accounts at border crossings, and Twitter claims to be a public square, and even it's CEO says that social media is a human right; we need to address the new digital equivalence of our existing protections.
Here, I fixed it for you:
Violate them, and if you are not someone whose political views we support, you can take your business elsewhere.
And they aren’t even banning people for solely the latter! Representatives who continue to support the president have had no issues.
For the record I hate Trump and am a European Social Democrat.
Facebook is a US company with a lot more eyes on US activity than in Burma. They're going to see, understand, and react to events in the US much more easily than anywhere else in the world.
That isn't me condoning Facebook's activity here: they need to do a better job elsewhere in the world. What I'm saying is that their failure may be just that: a failure, not selective enforcement.
The issue here is that the platforms were used in service of activity that was arguably illegal. These platforms' failure to enforce their rules consistently doesn't mean they shouldn't have enforced them in this case, it means they should have been doing a better job all along. If you want to pass laws regarding platforms like this and free speech, it should be regulations that encourage more consistency, not less moderation of content.
They already do this in many places.
The most common example would be common carrier laws. Those aren't particularly controversial.
Do you believe that common carrier laws are some huge infringement on company rights or something?
Do you believe that common carrier laws are "fascist"?
If not, then you must admit that your previous argument is pretty silly.
In particular though, common carrier laws tend to apply to services that have been given a special privilege to have for their own use some type of public resource or special privilege. Like broadcasting frequencies or the right-of-way granted to power companies and other utilities. That isn't the case for these platforms.
You're absolutely correct that in the US no one may be punished by the state without due process. But Stripe isn't a government and refusing to do business with someone doesn't require a criminal trial.
Or are you claiming that Stripe cannot choose its customers unless a court has convicted that customer of a crime?