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> even though they are, of course, perfectly able to post elsewhere on the internet My biggest concern is that the "they're private companies, they can do what

> even though they are, of course, perfectly able to post elsewhere on the internet My biggest concern is that the "they're private companies, they can do whatever they want" argument applies to ISP's, too - they're private companies as well. We've already seen Epik being "deplatformed" by PayPal (also a private company) for allowing controversial content to pass through their infrastructure. I'm not sure I agree that Twitter should be forced to reinstate the New York Post, but I'm having trouble disagreeing that they should carry more liability for what they do allow if they refuse to.

nullc 6y ago
It's also a lot harder to move away when they actively suppress any discussion of or links to alternatives and even collude to do so. Or when they punt toxic users over but not the toxic yet profitable ones (such as the president...).
nostromo 6y ago
The hypocrisy on both sides of this debate shows how disgustingly Machiavellian American Politics has become. The ends always justify the means now; no consistency of ideology is required. A party that hates regulating business suddenly sees the light when powerful businesses start removing them from the public square. A party that pretends to be for free speech and free journalism suddenly has a change of heart when it benefits them going into an election. A party that purports to stand up to big business suddenly supports the largest megacorps in the history of man because their interests are temporarily aligned. A party that thought Citizens United was terrible because it gave the rights of citizens to corporations suddenly cares very deeply about Twitter/Facebook/Google/Apple's freedom of expression when used to eliminate critical voices on their platforms. A party gets rid of the filibuster for judge nominations and then gets mad that they can't filibuster the other party's judge nominations -- or a party deciding it's suddenly ok to seat judges during an election. Both parties are about power. Neither party has any remaining principles.
- zo1 6y ago
  Very good point! I'd like to add that potentially the reason why these institutions (parties) act that way is because, we as people that form part of them, also don't have or adhere to any strict principles. Edit: Grammar.
- exolymph 6y ago
  Twas ever thus. People believe whatever is most advantageous for them to believe.
- watwut 6y ago
  Both parties are comprised of huge amount of people with much different opinions. If you want ideological consistency, you will have to destroy two party system first. I am not saying it would be bad thing. Also, I don't think ideological consistency the way you define it would even be good thing. Standing up to corporations does not mean corporation is wrong in each case. One also need to severly mischaracterize objections to citizen united in order to make it incompatible with twitters right to censor.
ravi-delia 6y ago
I guess it just comes down to a matter of degree. An ISP is way harder to move away from than Twitter. Switching away from Twitter was both free and an enormous benefit to my mental health; switching from Comcast to Verizon was less so. It's a harder argument to make when it comes to the paypal case, but I think that again we see that Twitter and Facebook aren't really utilities at all. If Twitter bans you, there are plenty of places to go even as a business or public figure.
- WClayFerguson 6y ago
  Sorry that's just wrong. If Twitter bans you there's no were like Twitter you can go. Twitter has become the communications platform for public persons to reach their audience. It you think it's on par with other platforms you're just uneducated.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    About 80% of the US adult population doesn't use Twitter. I agree that there's no direct alternative to Twitter, and that does matter, but the idea that you have no choice but to be on Twitter just seems empirically untrue.
    - username90 6y ago
      Close to every single journalist uses Twitter though. Most companies requires them to do it. So if you want to reach journalist you use Twitter. Twitter banning you thus greatly limits your ability to talk to the press.
      - root_axis 6y ago
        > Close to every single journalist uses Twitter though This isn't true, that's just your impression from within the twitter bubble. Even if it were true, you can easily contact journalists through many avenues, being easy to reach is part of the job description. Getting banned from twitter is a totally unimportant internet triviality.
KorematsuFred 6y ago
You are being intellectually honest to admit that we can not have one set of rules of ISPs and another set of rules for Twitter. I think both of them should have the discretion to do whatever they want while the government should constantly work hard to ensure there is always more competition. It is the government which has made it impossible to create credible alternatives to Google, Facebook or Twitter. Firstly, US government will try to kill any foreign competitor in the name of national security or some other straw-man. Domestic level the regulation is darn too complex for anyone to succeed with reasonable capital.
- mattnewton 6y ago
  I disagree- I can trivially move between social networks and in fact have done so recently. As a renter I have exactly one hardwired ISP available to me; AT&T cellular based service is not comparable where I live. It’s the same way we have different rules for your electric bill and Amazon.
  - WClayFerguson 6y ago
    If some news network moves from Twitter (from being censored, or banned) to a Mastodon, for example, their 'reach' would drop by a factor of millions. Six orders of magnitude. That makes them basically invisible. Do you really want nose-ring kids in Silicon Valley who're still mad at their parents having the power to shut down Presidents, Heads of State, and Media organizations? Come on man.
    - mattnewton 6y ago
      I don’t follow your example. Heads of state and media weren’t dependent on “nose-ring kids” working on social media before and they certainly aren’t now just because Trump has shown a proclivity to communicate via Tweet. It’d be ridiculous to ossify twitter as a government communication platform through regulation, instead of continuing to invest in existing government-owned communication channels. Re: the change in reach that happens, I don’t see how this is different from a television network canceling a host.
mr_toad 6y ago
> they should carry more liability for what they do allow if they refuse to. The result would be opening up any and all moderated forums to a tsunami of lawsuits. Twitter would survive, they have armies of lawyers. HN would be shut down.
- blackflame7000 6y ago
  So maybe the law should be rewritten to target the entities that are large enough that they don't fear repercussions from their actions even though it could be proved in a court of law that they resulted in harm?
joshuamorton 6y ago
> My biggest concern is that the "they're private companies, they can do whatever they want" argument applies to ISP's, too - they're private companies as well. We've already seen Epik being "deplatformed" by PayPal (also a private company) for allowing controversial content to pass through their infrastructure. This isn't new or unique to paypal. The Credit Card companies and banks that underly pretty much every fancy modern method of money transfer have and do "deplatform" people. And they've done it for ages. Porn companies can't use conventional credit card processors, and there's a long history of banks and credit cards refusing to do business with certain companies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deplatforming#Financial_services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deplatforming#Financial_servic...). Whatever your overall opinion of deplatforming, the idea isn't anything new or unique to twitter. ISPs were singled out (they aren't anymore, net neutrality was rolled back, now your argument only applies to phone companies).
ProfessorLayton 6y ago
The issue with your ISP example is that all of them depend on public resources to function both directly and indirectly: They lease public land and right of way on utility poles, often with government-sanctioned monopolies. The same is true for cellular providers: They lease spectrum that is owned by the public.

nullc 6y ago

It's also a lot harder to move away when they actively suppress any discussion of or links to alternatives and even collude to do so. Or when they punt toxic users over but not the toxic yet profitable ones (such as the president...).

nostromo 6y ago

The hypocrisy on both sides of this debate shows how disgustingly Machiavellian American Politics has become. The ends always justify the means now; no consistency of ideology is required. A party that hates regulating business suddenly sees the light when powerful businesses start removing them from the public square. A party that pretends to be for free speech and free journalism suddenly has a change of heart when it benefits them going into an election. A party that purports to stand up to big business suddenly supports the largest megacorps in the history of man because their interests are temporarily aligned. A party that thought Citizens United was terrible because it gave the rights of citizens to corporations suddenly cares very deeply about Twitter/Facebook/Google/Apple's freedom of expression when used to eliminate critical voices on their platforms. A party gets rid of the filibuster for judge nominations and then gets mad that they can't filibuster the other party's judge nominations -- or a party deciding it's suddenly ok to seat judges during an election. Both parties are about power. Neither party has any remaining principles.

zo1 6y ago
Very good point! I'd like to add that potentially the reason why these institutions (parties) act that way is because, we as people that form part of them, also don't have or adhere to any strict principles. Edit: Grammar.
exolymph 6y ago
Twas ever thus. People believe whatever is most advantageous for them to believe.
watwut 6y ago
Both parties are comprised of huge amount of people with much different opinions. If you want ideological consistency, you will have to destroy two party system first. I am not saying it would be bad thing. Also, I don't think ideological consistency the way you define it would even be good thing. Standing up to corporations does not mean corporation is wrong in each case. One also need to severly mischaracterize objections to citizen united in order to make it incompatible with twitters right to censor.

ravi-delia 6y ago

I guess it just comes down to a matter of degree. An ISP is way harder to move away from than Twitter. Switching away from Twitter was both free and an enormous benefit to my mental health; switching from Comcast to Verizon was less so. It's a harder argument to make when it comes to the paypal case, but I think that again we see that Twitter and Facebook aren't really utilities at all. If Twitter bans you, there are plenty of places to go even as a business or public figure.

WClayFerguson 6y ago
Sorry that's just wrong. If Twitter bans you there's no were like Twitter you can go. Twitter has become the communications platform for public persons to reach their audience. It you think it's on par with other platforms you're just uneducated.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  About 80% of the US adult population doesn't use Twitter. I agree that there's no direct alternative to Twitter, and that does matter, but the idea that you have no choice but to be on Twitter just seems empirically untrue.
  - username90 6y ago
    Close to every single journalist uses Twitter though. Most companies requires them to do it. So if you want to reach journalist you use Twitter. Twitter banning you thus greatly limits your ability to talk to the press.
    - root_axis 6y ago
      > Close to every single journalist uses Twitter though This isn't true, that's just your impression from within the twitter bubble. Even if it were true, you can easily contact journalists through many avenues, being easy to reach is part of the job description. Getting banned from twitter is a totally unimportant internet triviality.

KorematsuFred 6y ago

You are being intellectually honest to admit that we can not have one set of rules of ISPs and another set of rules for Twitter. I think both of them should have the discretion to do whatever they want while the government should constantly work hard to ensure there is always more competition. It is the government which has made it impossible to create credible alternatives to Google, Facebook or Twitter. Firstly, US government will try to kill any foreign competitor in the name of national security or some other straw-man. Domestic level the regulation is darn too complex for anyone to succeed with reasonable capital.

mattnewton 6y ago
I disagree- I can trivially move between social networks and in fact have done so recently. As a renter I have exactly one hardwired ISP available to me; AT&T cellular based service is not comparable where I live. It’s the same way we have different rules for your electric bill and Amazon.
- WClayFerguson 6y ago
  If some news network moves from Twitter (from being censored, or banned) to a Mastodon, for example, their 'reach' would drop by a factor of millions. Six orders of magnitude. That makes them basically invisible. Do you really want nose-ring kids in Silicon Valley who're still mad at their parents having the power to shut down Presidents, Heads of State, and Media organizations? Come on man.
  - mattnewton 6y ago
    I don’t follow your example. Heads of state and media weren’t dependent on “nose-ring kids” working on social media before and they certainly aren’t now just because Trump has shown a proclivity to communicate via Tweet. It’d be ridiculous to ossify twitter as a government communication platform through regulation, instead of continuing to invest in existing government-owned communication channels. Re: the change in reach that happens, I don’t see how this is different from a television network canceling a host.

mr_toad 6y ago

> they should carry more liability for what they do allow if they refuse to. The result would be opening up any and all moderated forums to a tsunami of lawsuits. Twitter would survive, they have armies of lawyers. HN would be shut down.

blackflame7000 6y ago
So maybe the law should be rewritten to target the entities that are large enough that they don't fear repercussions from their actions even though it could be proved in a court of law that they resulted in harm?

joshuamorton 6y ago

> My biggest concern is that the "they're private companies, they can do whatever they want" argument applies to ISP's, too - they're private companies as well. We've already seen Epik being "deplatformed" by PayPal (also a private company) for allowing controversial content to pass through their infrastructure. This isn't new or unique to paypal. The Credit Card companies and banks that underly pretty much every fancy modern method of money transfer have and do "deplatform" people. And they've done it for ages. Porn companies can't use conventional credit card processors, and there's a long history of banks and credit cards refusing to do business with certain companies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deplatforming#Financial_services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deplatforming#Financial_servic...). Whatever your overall opinion of deplatforming, the idea isn't anything new or unique to twitter. ISPs were singled out (they aren't anymore, net neutrality was rolled back, now your argument only applies to phone companies).

ProfessorLayton 6y ago

The issue with your ISP example is that all of them depend on public resources to function both directly and indirectly: They lease public land and right of way on utility poles, often with government-sanctioned monopolies. The same is true for cellular providers: They lease spectrum that is owned by the public.