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Comment by jbnorth | Hacker News Reader

I would say that's an easy question. No, it's not important. Who should decide? Whoever at the company is given the authority to ban people from their website. How? Following whatever protocols they come up with? Want to have their own pseudo-court system? Go for it. Want to have a ban lottery so people may just randomly be banned for no reason? Go for it, it's your website do what you want with it.

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This is a company that built itself under the premis that it was the public square and now it is arbitrating who can speak and who cannot? I'd say they've violated the original social contract, and that of the open source web, and are now subject to regulation – by entities they helped put in place in government.

This whole thing is becoming a dystopian nightmare.

Edit: Image if AT&T started shutting off Democrat's cell phones.

What does the “premise of a public square” mean?

What social contract did they enter into?

What legal obligation do they have to their users?

It's in their ToS. That's a contract, right?

What’s in their TOS? That they’re a public square? That access to the platform and expressive freedom of the users trumps facebook’s moderation rights?

I don’t think so.

I think the right term for what they're referring to is "privatization of the public square".

While I really dislike the fact that Facebook and Twitter have so much say in who gets a platform, the fact remains that they are private businesses that are not subject to any regulation on who they allow on their platforms.

Remember that government regulations can also be used by "the other side" when in power.

> This is a company that built itself under the premis that it was the public square and now it is arbitrating who can speak and who cannot?

'now'?

May I submit this news article from 12 years ago into evidence? :) https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/dec/30/facebook-breas...

This idea of Facebook as some sort of haven for free speech seems to be a new invention; it's always been pretty censorious.

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