EDIT: That does not mean I don't have sympathy for the thought that we do need a debate over what level of freedom sufficiently dominant social media platforms should have to ban people. At the same time it's noteworthy just how much we hear from the people who insist they're being censored - most of them have platforms far in excess of most people even after these bans. What they're complaining about is being stripped of a level of amplification that previously didn't exist.
You seem to be saying no online platform can have any sort of moderation of posted messages unless it's backed up by a court order, which seems crazy.
Somehow we've managed to survive with that system for hundreds of years, why is it any different for online posts?
Edit: here is Russ Allbery's legendary rant from 22 years ago on the subject. He is effectively arguing with himself in the preface, saying he doesn't want anyone banned from USENET, but I agree with the ranting Russ in the body.
Private companies must follow what is in the law. If hate speech doesn't exist in the law people should lobby their elected representatives to enact laws governing hate speech which is then enforced by private companies. If private companies start making their own rules and regulations that go against freedom of speech (again don't bring in the first amendment as it applies only to US Citizens. Free speech in my country is not the same as Free speech as defined in first amendment) then it becomes problematic. Who is the final arbiter of free speech? It is the Government, the Court or the private company? If private companies start deciding what is illegal and what is not illegal then why the heck should I elect a Government? Just let private companies handle everything and let's dissolve the Government.
At the end of the day it should be the law of the land which decides what/which content is illegal and which is not. It should never be in the hands of private companies to decide. They have Section 230 precisely for that reason. They aren't liable for anything that happens on their platform except for what is defined as illegal in the Constitution. If there is something that is unsavoury and there isn't a law for it yet, the companies aren't held liable for it. When a law is passed deeming that unsavoury thing illegal then and only then will private companies be liable if they do not censor it. You get what I am trying to say? Laws should be implemented by the legislature. Period. Private companies can decide whatever rules they want to set for their employees. I am a user of the public platform they provide. Not their employee. They cannot regulate my speech unless it is required by law to censor anything illegal I say.
Who decides what these terms mean? At present its a small group of left-leaning corporate executives.
At the moment it just seems like people doing their own interpretation of what someone's inner motives are, because I really can't see a clear cut example of incitement of violence from any of this. This to me is a perfect example of the term "thought police" - we are guessing what your thinking.
E.g. Steve Bannon putting "heads on pikes" is clearly a common figure of speech and simply an emotive expression of anger. I'm sure you can find many politicians expressing similar things..."let's punch nazis" etc. Sounds like it can't cause harm...but what if you are called a Nazi and you are not? Every single atrocity in history comes from a group of people being portrayed as something they are not and then dehumanized because of it.
"Trump supporters" are incredibly dehumanized at present. They are nazis, racists, etc. It's okay to mistreat them because they are really bad people.
70mm people voted for Trump, and would probably disagree with the interpretations of the free speech violations. Do we actually believe a democratic process would result in a decision to permanently censor? No way.
All you have to do is imagine the reverse situation by swapping the two sides and imagining how you would feel.
Would you ever be okay having your speech taken away from you from a side that you disagree with? You might say "but I would never incite hatred", but what if they say you do?
I think that's key because that really sends the message that the FAANG have power over governments and that they can and will decide which politicians/governments to let communicate, which obviously raises many questions.
Unless we want to start seeing things like Facebook and AWS as accountable public utilities.
If ICANN started blocking domains, then this would be a free speech issue.
This fails to acknowledge that Twitter and Facebook are not just private services, they are de-facto global standards of communication, included for governments.
This is great for Twitter and Facebook as long as they keep a neutral stance. When they stop being neutral then governments start to reflect on their power and indeed whether they should be regulated as utilities or ditched (hence e.g. the market's reaction as seen on Twitter's stock price).
This is not a free-speech issue but a de-platforming issue, it's subtle difference that seems to be lost to many people.
TOS written by Twitter and enforced by Twitter exactly the way Twitter decides, including against governments and heads of state? Right, exactly the point of my previous comment.
I think this is a watershed moment because "de-platforming" Trump while he is still President will be seen as a step too far that will have consequences for these platforms. Not least because they are already very much on the radar of governments.
I dont think that has happened yet, but I am sure it is just a matter of time, I see no logical or legal reason they would not face the same public pressure that AWS did for hosting Parlar as an example, what is stopping Verisign from delisting Parlar.com from the global .com registar