Comment by sigmaprimus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sigmaprimus | Hacker News Reader

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The bakery argument is kind of a right wing "red herring", the problem with it is "Mr. Baker" would have a reasonable argument if the customers were preforming the morally or religiously objectable behavior accoring to Mr. Bakers personal beliefs within the walls of his bakery but that is not the case.

The argument of users of social media platforms having an ownership stake in them because they supported their growth through the sharing of privately owned media might be a bit better but still smells of socialism to me. The users being banned and censored are preforming their actions within the walls albeit virual walls of said social media company.

The best argument the post makes is that there are no other options for the social media user to effectively share their media and therfore they are being discriminated against, but that needs to be tied with the fact goverments are also supporting the social media company by sharing publicly funded media or services on said platform.

If you attack somebody, then yes, it's an action within virtual walls. But if you simply share a thought with your followers that the platform owner doesn't agree with - your argument falls apart.

Can You provide an example of a shared thought that does not attack someone or group of people that has resulted in censorsip or banning? Otherwise your argument falls apart too.

Edit*

Your argument is actually a reasonable one but because of that it pretty much proves the Baker that refuses services is just as bad as the social media companies that descrimatly ban and censor users.

It is with that in mind that I made my argument, I think both of us and most others would agree that there have been unfair, arbitrary decisions made by tech companies and they should not get a free pass to discriminate or control the narrative.

Rather than a race to the bottom by allowing everyone the right to act in this manner (Including Mr. Baker) is it not more reasonable to hold our elected governments accountable for their willingness to transact buisness with said bad actors and insist on policy changes which prevent the collusion of government with private corporations forming some kind of techno-fascist authority like we currently have?

No, by "attacking" I mean interfering. Simply offending somebody is not an attack. If I say something to my followers - it's not an attack. If you don't like what I am saying, don't follow me.

If you, on the other hand, start actively replying to my tweets, and tweets of my followers, trying to disrupt our conversation - that's an attack.

I am not arguing about allowing everybody to do and say absolutely whatever they want. I am arguing that platforms must follow some sort of a mandatory democratic process that lets _their_users_ decide how to govern themselves.

And the role of the federal government is to enforce that democratic process on each platform, not to regulate speech directly.

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