Comment by LightHugger
2 months ago
The general idea is that social media platforms especially at the scale of twitter and facebook are not private parties but public squares, in which free speech must be protected. I think this is obviously true, but there is of course the question of how exactly to draw the line between a large public square and a small private platform. There are many good possible answers.
It could be delimited by user count, by moderation style, by liability accepted (section 230 is frequently brought up as an option). In any case, if you think a billion user platform is a private party, you are plainly wrong.
It's a bit telling that you think a a 6 panel comic is "covering it in detail". If you want an even more simplified version of how this can go, free speech is a human right, and given that you're against free speech we can limit yours and make everyone happy. I'm more than happy to let people play by their own rules in this case.
That is a line pushed by the owners of these privately owned platforms.
But they really are not public squares. They are not publicly owned or managed in the best interests of the users. They are corporate money-making machines. Don't be fooled.
I agree that they are not publicly owned or managed decently, but regardless these are the large publicly available communications platforms that people use these days, in massive numbers. Therefore repressing speech here causes a violation of free speech. That is what's important. "But they are run like shit and against the user's interests" Doesn't somehow justify even more repression.
In a sense, what these companies invested into is capturing the public square, capturing speech, because controlling it allows profitable advert injection, manipulation and generic power. But their awful motives don't mean they were unsuccessful. They were, they have the public square now.
I don't dispute they are massively used and important communication tools. The analogy to a public square is deeply flawed though.
A public space is not a broadcast medium. If I don't want to hear the crazy person shouting, I just have to walk a short distance away. The people who are presented to me are not chosen by some algorithm under the control of the space's owner. I can largely control my interaction with others. If someone is being threatening to others in a public space, then the police will arrest them, and nobody would call that censorship.