There's a serious computer and internet literacy problem when the general public believes otherwise.
Hell, doesn't SomethingAwful let users ban others for a fee?
Internet forums have existed for a long time, and for an equivalent period their moderation policies sufficed. If you disagreed with one forum, there were plenty others to take its place.
However, we've now approached a reality in which these forums have dwindled or become centralized. A much larger audience participates, and these forums have now expanded to be parts of multimedia service conglomerate megacorporations. There are no other choices, and these organizations are spread into aspects of life that would cause being banned to be quite inconvenient.
For example, getting your Google account banned could in theory result in loss of access to most of everything here: https://about.google/intl/ALL_us/products/. It gets worse when you consider that google could be your internet provider. And of course google insists everything be forced through their accounts. Loss of access to your account could mean loss of access to the internet. Hell, you'd lose access to your god damn Nest thermostat.
If you own a Nest Thermostat you probably own your residence or rent relative luxury and therefore should have your life together enough to not be a dick on the internet or have an anonymous profile for your rage/hate projection.
I guess it's a problem if your ISP is truly policing you directly and you can't just vpn/proxy for whatever reason, poverty/security
Likewise, a small niche forum with an insular community can police itself pretty much however it likes. A global communication network that has become telecom infrastructure for all intents and purpose has do a little more justification before it cuts someone off from what is becoming a vital service.
Until the Facebooks and Twitters of the world become legally classified as such, you're making the same mistake of expecting as much from what is legally absolutely no different from the SomethingAwfuls of the world.
Facebook is not a vital service. Popularity doesn't determine what is and is-not vital, nor does it remove the rights of a private business.
Interestingly, it will surely be what you dislike so what is your point?
If facebook becomes public utility I want to be able to regulate speech on it with my tax money. If it's private, I dont care if it tries to regulate harmful speech the way it wants as long as it doesnt impact where my tax money is going (so I dont want to pay for girls empowerement to have facebook massively undermining it by letting sheikhs explain the youth how to beat their unruly wives)
What makes you think you should be able to do that? Do you get to cut off someone's water utility if they say something you don't like?
Coming soon to a Hell on Earth near you.
It's not as cut and dry as you're making it out to be.
This is pretty cut and dry. Dom't build your business on top of another business, for which you have no contract.
There are plenty of alternatives, from Shopify to Etsy. None of which require a FB presence.
I don't use facebook myself, but it's pretty hard to deny that they hold a vital position in the market. You can avoid them out of principle, but you're not setting yourself up for an easy start.
WhatsApp is. Everyone in my country uses it. Not even a judge can get away with blocking WhatsApp as punishment for encrypting messages because the consequences are too great.
Then, pray tell, what does? It is the assumption that these services are used that turns them into important infrastructure.
Everyone just assumes you have a bank account or a telephone, and that makes both bank accounts and telephones desirable, we wouldn't invest ungodly amounts of money in infrastructure on roads, traffic lights etc if automobiles weren't popular and they surely wouldn't be if we didn't have the infrastructure.
Social media is huge and centralized. Government officials post in there. Not having an account can cost people their jobs. It causes people to be isolated from friends and family.
At some point, the social media platform's freedom must be reduced lest they perpetrate far worse injustices upon individuals.
that's kinda brilliant
I couldn’t find anything that said that. You could buy your way out of a ban[1].
You might be thinking of “Another brilliant monetization not mentioned in the article: you could pay to customize your own user image and title. For twice the price, another user could pay to anonymously choose their own title/image for you, usually to insult. Want to change your appearance back? Pay again.” as per philipkglass https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14122169
[1] “When Rich put the paywall in effect, it kept idiots out to an enormous degree. It was probably the smartest decision he ever made in regards to the website. You have to put in a little investment if you want to participate and if you're a real shithead you're going to end up paying Rich like $150 because you keep buying accounts, which is good for the site and it's also kind of funny to watch really, really bad people shell out a lot of money.” - https://www.vice.com/en/article/nzg4yw/fuck-you-and-die-an-o...
Yes, surely we have always been at war with right-wing disinformation. But hey, it is what it is.