> because say the CEO of a company is friendly to the President.
"Engaging in political censorship of their platform in favour of the President" is a little more than being "friendly".
Free Speech in the US is dying. Ignore it at your own peril.
"Engaging in political censorship of their platform in favour of the President" is a little more than being "friendly".
Free Speech in the US is dying. Ignore it at your own peril.
It will be years before these people realize how much the media was controlled from 2020-2024 specifically in favor of one political party. For a lot of people this was the first time it was extremely obvious and going back to Bush and Obama social media and the internet in general weren't considered "serious" political campaign locations. I certainly dont remember either Bush's or Obama's election being so insanely partisan to the point of calling one party Nazis. Of course there was vitriol but it was so tame compared to today.
Do you mean the party who just used the inauguration to have a senior government member throw nazi salutes? The party whose presidents first actions included pardoning dozens of members of fascist groups?
You can't really be choosing this moment to complain about calling these people nazis??
And that paragraph would not be objectionable to many people in that political grouping.
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/01/16/rogan-misses-the-mark-ho...
Regardless, no private platform is forced to provide you a voice. You can set up your own site and set up your own servers if need be. People have been getting their ideas out there before social media and even when the mainstream media wouldn’t cover them.
That’s how the civil rights movement came to prominence.
That was a reasonable stance historically. Only the government had real power to control speech.
Now a tiny number of platforms have a huge amount of power. They should have an obligation not to censor, because between them they can virtually block all practically available channels of communication.
You use personal outreach and then you build up from there. There are church networks, civil groups, advocacy groups etc
Which are now largely dependent on social media and the like to reach people.
Church's somewhat less so because they do have services that people physically go to. Most campaign and advocacy groups work online, and for some social media is their main focus. They have to go where people are.
Absolute bullshit. It has never been easier in history to publish your own thoughts for the consumption of anyone who is interested in reading them. You can make your own website and put just about whatever you want on it. You can write and publish pamphlets or books with print on demand services. You can record audio or video with your phone and put it on your website or just send it directly to people. You can walk down to the town square and say pretty much whatever you want.
You absolutely don't need to be on Facebook or Twitter or ANY social networks to exercise your free speech. None of these companies has power over any means of communication other than their own platforms. You don't have to use their platforms.
Yes, but you can reach far fewer people if you do not.
This is well on the way to arguing that you are free to say what you want in a sealed room.
Your argument seems to be that the New York Times has no choice but to publish my op-ed, because otherwise how will anyone find it?
The NYT is a publication, social media are platforms.
You have to put in the work. Major changes happen by people getting thier voice out before social media
But they did not have to compete with social media. There are more third spaces (as is often discussed on HN) and local ways to get started.
So long as you do it in a sound proofed room.
> While users who type "#Democrat" or "#Democrats" see no results, the hashtag "Republican" returns 3.3 million posts on the social media platform.
> By manually searching Instagram for "Democrats", rather than clicking on a hashtag, users are greeted by a screen reading "we've hidden these results".
> "Results for the term you searched for may contain sensitive content," it says.