I'm not going to focus on the free speech part of this, or even the purpose of art. It's gotten to the point that watching well-funded companies go down this ro

I'm not going to focus on the free speech part of this, or even the purpose of art. It's gotten to the point that watching well-funded companies go down this road is just painful. All of that money and education. Such idiots. I'm embarrassed to be part of the same tech community with them. Go buy a copy of On Liberty and take a time-out until you grok it. (Rawls can wait until later) Instead, I'm curious as to a few other things. 1. This looks prima facia like fraud. You say one thing, the TOS says one thing, you do another -- and you take money while acting that way. If that's not fraud, I don't understand the term. 2. As I noted in a recent essay, the way that software generalizes communication, combined with a system/platform that has massive adoption, always leads to a bad place even when this has nothing to do with politics or content. Even if we get past the speech and fraud part of the problem, we still have a huge problem. http://tiny-giant-books.com/1.html?EntryId=recEUbufzhAvph8K1 http://tiny-giant-books.com/1.html?EntryId=recEUbufzhAvph8K1 3. Are we a bulletin board or a publisher? I understand these companies want to take both stances simultaneously, and that the law allows this, but heck if it makes any sense to me how it's going to work out well. Yes, it's legal, but that doesn't make it any more tenable. Algorithms don't amount to magic sauce, no matter how much you wave your hands around. 4. We are in need of anti-trust legislation when it comes to the marketplace of ideas. On the net, either there is no such thing as a public square or some legislative intervention is required. I don't think arguing that there's no such thing as a public square works for rational observers of the marketplace. Sounded pretty cool ten years ago, sure. And perhaps most of the public might still buy it. But its days are numbered. Interesting place we have ended up. I note that "interesting" can have terrible connotations.