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Comment by whitepaint | Hacker News Reader

How come this is not a widely held opinion? This view should be a norm. Do not ban a president of a country on social media. Period. When a private company decides to do so, it should be profusely condemned by everyone. Should Putin's twitter be banned as well?

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Yes.

I still view Twitter (back when I was on it) as a private business. Like a pub. Chat rubbish, cause trouble, get thrown out.

At the time of the elections, do you remember all the memes about how Twitter was just a tiny portion of voters and that the vast majority were not even on Twitter?

Twitter is not a town square or a centre of free speech. It's a small dive bar in the corner of the city.

Cause trouble, get ditched in the gutter.

Ban everyone you disagree with. Yeah, that will lead to great things.

That's how successful clubs are run.

Because that's exactly what I just said...

Good grief...

Politicians don't have the right to be on a private website. They already have official channels to communicate.

Twitter has every right to ban Putin, or Trump, or Duterte, etc.

Where did I say that politicians have the right to stay on a private website? Yes, Twitter has the right to ban people. As do restaurants not serve certain people. But if a restaurant decides to not serve Jews let's say, I will obviously condemn them.

If you believe in free speech you should have absolutely condemned Twitter when they banned the president.

I find this comparison strange. Yes, a restaurant should not be allowed to not serve Jews. But they should be allowed to not serve _a_ Jew, if the Jew in question breaks their rule of conduct. Like the case with Trump and Twitter.

The point I was trying to make is that just because a company has a right to do something it doesn't mean it cannot be condemned by people.

> if a restaurant decides to not serve Jews I will obviously condemn them.

They'll have serious legal problems pretty quickly for doing something so illegal.

> If you believe in free speech you should have absolutely condemned Twitter when they banned the president.

I believe in free speech and property rights. Which means if Twitter decides someone can't be on Twitter anymore due to their actions then that's their right. And if Twitter's new ownership makes some different decisions on who's allowed to be on Twitter, that's also their right.

Once again... Where did I say that Twitter doesn't have that right?

> If you believe in free speech you should have absolutely condemned Twitter

You advocated condemning Twitter for exercising their free speech rights.

But you're right I missed the first part of your comment where you acknowledged Twitter had the right to ban anyone based on their speech.

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