I think you’re right that people have been banned from things as long as the internet has been around. However more tools exist today to censor, things like AI generating and reading subtitles for YT demonetization and algorithm deranking.

If someone makes a threat on a person or groups life online, or doing something illegal, then I agree it shouldn’t be allowed. But censorship today goes far beyond that.

The purpose of the platform matters. MSN chats (group chats?) and sub-reddits are smaller places presumably set up by another user for a specific purpose. I have no problem with people being banned/censored for whatever reason from these smaller forums.

I have an issue with censorship when the platform is generic, not dedicated to a particular topic or group, like Twitter, YouTube, or Reddit as a whole. When one or more dominant third party platforms censor the same people, it has an effect similar to that of government censorship.

I also think the censorship will backfire, because by being shut down, it gives power to the ideas being censored. “There must be a reason they are shutting down discussion. They have no real answer to it!”

I agree that online harassment is ugly, but I still believe in absolute free speech on these generic platforms. The best solution to all of this would be to have block lists that people could opt-in or out of. Don’t want to see something? Subscribe to the block list.