We’ve gone down the path of good intentions that leads to hell.
Does this not interfere with self determination? Is there one true north now? Have Facebook found all truth?
This is getting ridiculous.
It's not like a head of state doesn't have plenty of power to send messages through other means. Since when are private actors obligated to let them speak on private platforms?
Don't like that they ban too many left-wingers/right-wingers? Feel free to get mad about it, just don't get thinking that this is somehow illegal, or should be.
You say this like it's some weird, bizarre thing. Who else should be judge and jury by default on a private platform? Should there be some government committee any time a new social media company starts up?
In any case, to answer your question: if the issue is that they've become too powerful, and there's a reasonable case to make there, then I'd say the answer is to either break them up or support alternatives, not have the government barge in and micromanage how they run the particulars of their business. I don't think there's some obvious right answer for "how tightly should a social networking company restrict what people say", so the best possible answer from a societal level is to help choices flourish and let consumers choose.
Every platform has some 'censorship' -- even Parler banned porn, and got rid of left wing 'trolls'. The only real way around it is to not have a platform so much as a protocol, like email.
From where does the idea of “private” come? Is it to distinguish its controllers from that which is government controlled?
Is this a serious suggestion? The courts are already overwhelmed, packed full of cases. And you want to throw potentially millions of minor cases where someone's mad about getting banned for flaming some other user onto their docket?
>Since when are private actors obligated to let them speak on private platforms?
This is the same argument slave owners used to defend their "private property", and that business owners used to ban black people from their private property.
So, judging by the history of human rights, it's a perfectly valid question
The difference is that slavery is inherently wrong, whereas deciding on your own internal membership policies for some club, or internet forum, or what have you, is not inherently wrong.
This is pretty obvious, because nobody's mad about the small private actors doing the same kind of thing. 99.9999% of the companies or private groups around, nobody gives a shit that they get to decide to ban whoever they like. They're just mad at Facebook and Twitter because they're big. Whereas "small time slaveowners" are still disgusting criminals.
And I get that, these companies being more powerful, their decisions have wider knock-on effects. But the right solution is still alternatives, not the government micromanaging and second guessing every single decision they make. At most, you could mandate some kind of 'nutrition facts' policy, where policies must at least be up front and transparent.
Agreed! Perhaps a publicly funded (not advertising funded) digital public square which protects lawful speech could be a potential solution?
>The difference is that slavery is inherently wrong, whereas deciding on your own internal membership policies for some club, or internet forum, or what have you, is not inherently wrong.
What is and is not "inherently wrong" is subjective and always changing.
Anyone who pretends that they do not believe in things which will be considered "inherently wrong" 10, 50, or 100 years from now has a god complex and is deeply ignorant of human psychology and history.
That is an American pow, that is not shared in Europe or China.