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Because first amendment is to limit government power. Private companies are not obliged to give you right to free speech. In theory private companies compete ag
by fspeech 6y ago
Because first amendment is to limit government power. Private companies are not obliged to give you right to free speech. In theory private companies compete against each other but government has a monopoly on legalized violence.
- Natsu 6y agoYes, that's the legal claim. What's the moral claim?
- TheMblabla 6y agoTikTok takes down content it doesn't like on a regular basis. It's pretty well known if you use tiktok. Not saying they shouldn't be able to do that, its part of how they got their For You page so popular. Whether a website wants to display tiktok or not is the same thing - it'll do whatever it thinks will get more users.
- fspeech 6y agoThe last point I made is the moral argument "in theory private companies compete against each other but government has a monopoly on legalized violence." Government must be constrained because you can't get away from it. Now it is true commercial monopolies can also exert coercion on their customers, so we have antimonopoly laws. These laws likely need updates to deal with natural monopolies coming from the strong network effect in the internet era. And the interaction with free speech right in social networks will be an extremely challenging issue.
- Natsu 6y agoIt seems to me that you agree that morally, companies shouldn't be exerting monopoly power in this area, otherwise we wouldn't need updates to the law, so I won't quibble.
- valuearb 6y agoThe moral claim is private companies maintain private property for the benefit of their customers.