Why do people always use the term "private company"? Twitter is a publicly owned corporation. If the Musk deal goes through, it'll be private. But I'm not sure what work the word "private" is supposed to be doing.
What's the point in saying "private company" if 99.99+% of companies are private?
Different rules, laws, regulations, etc. apply to private sector vs public sector.
Specifically in this case, OP is implying that a theoretical public sector social network wouldn't be allowed to block linking to mastodon because of the second (EDIT: no, wait, first amendment!) amendment, but that Twitter is well within its rights since they are in the private sector. Whether that's true or not, I dunno.
I don't know how I feel about a well regulated Militia overthrowing the government to protect free software and open standards...
I dispute that the OP was implying or even thinking anything about a theoretical public sector social network.
Like I said, I don't know how far the first amendment would or wouldn't apply in this situation. In any case, it would likely have to be tested in court.
Is it?
Actually, no argument has been given why a government owned company couldn't block links to whatever the government wanted.
“There are two commonly understood ways in which a company is considered public: first, the company’s securities trade on public markets; and second, the company discloses certain business and financial information regularly to the public.
In general, we use the term to refer to a company that has public reporting obligations.”
They’re talking about $TWTR, not Amtrak.
The government actually controls companies. In fact they wouldn't exist as legal entities without the government.
I feel there is a common misconception that "private companies can do whatever they want", belied by the existence of government regulation, but nonetheless a misconception regularly employed to dismiss antitrust concerns, for example.
They're aware of the concept of law but frequently unaware of specific laws. ;-)
Is that statement sufficient to stop further nitpicking?
Almost every use of "private company" is in contrast to a publicly traded company. Except when people start talking about "rights", and then they're apparently using it in a different way, which I find very odd and ideological.
When I ask, Why do people always use the term "private company", this is somewhat of a rhetorical question. I'm not asking for an explanation of what "private company" means, as if I were an ignorant simpleton. That's the uncharitable reading of my comment. Rather, I'm asking for the justification of the use of "private company" as a rhetorical term in the defense of the actions of corporations. I see this rhetorical usage constantly.
Everyone knows that Twitter is a company. That Apple is a company. That Google is a company, etc. And everyone knows that these companies are not run by the government. None of this ever needs to be explained in an argument. So the question is, what rhetorical force do people think the term "private company" gives them in defense of corporate actions? Or maybe the question is, what's the psychology behind the use of this form of rhetoric?
There are various government regulations that do or could be applied to these companies. Antitrust is very relevant for the tech giants. Communications Decency Act. Whether these regulations actually will be applied to these companies is another question, but it's a legitimate debate that can't be simply dismissed by "private company, anything goes".
It's a publicly traded company. Not a publicly owned company. The owners of twitter are primarily private citizens/corporations, not public/government.
> But I'm not sure what work the word "private" is supposed to be doing.
Public = government. Private = not government.
But as other comments have already mentioned, you are confusing two different meaning of private/public.
No, I'm not not confused. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31609113