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Comment by dannyw | Hacker News Reader

Did you literally not see a former president effectively get silenced in the public sphere by 3 corporations?

How can you seriously believe that these corporations (who are not subject to the first amendment, and cannot be challenged in court) won't extend and abuse this technology to tackle "domestic extremism" but broadly covering political views?

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> a former president effectively get silenced in the public sphere

It's laughable that a man who can call a press conference at a moment's notice and get news coverage for anything he says can be "silenced" because private companies no longer choose to promote his garbage.

He's been completely silenced. If you don't believe me, you can hear it from him next week when he's on the largest news network talking about being silenced.

Yes, because we all trust him at this point /s

You don’t have to believe him; it’s clear on the face of it. Trump often spoke directly to the voters on Twitter and Youtube. That’s gone now.

Trump can still speak directly to the voters who are interested. It turns out not very many are interested. E.g.: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/02/trump-blog-page-shuts-down-f...

Even Fox has stopped running his events: https://deadline.com/2021/06/donald-trump-rally-networks-ski...

The largest pro-Trump network has seen major declines in ratings: https://www.thewrap.com/newsmax-fox-news-six-months-ratings/

It’s much harder now because he’s been effectively banned from every relevant “public square”.

That is a fascinating nationalization of private space that did not exist 15 years ago. Was every politician prior to Twitter's ascendance effectively banned from communicating with the public?

I'm pretty sure the person you are replying to was being sarcastic, "he's so silenced that he can tell you about it".

This is akin to saying rich people have lots of money, so why not steal from them.

Well, I prefer to think of this as redistribution rather than theft. When the government pass laws to tax rich people more I think that’s good!

Those companies can definitely be challenged in courts. But they also have rights, including things like freedom of speech and freedom of association, which is why they win when challenged on this. Why do you think a former president and claimed billionaire should have special rights to their property?

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