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People can speak their mind, it's just that nobody else is obligated to host you speaking your mind. The issue isn't Donald Trump being silenced, the issue is

People can speak their mind, it's just that nobody else is obligated to host you speaking your mind. The issue isn't Donald Trump being silenced, the issue is wannabe tinpot dictators like him trying to coerce private business into doing his bidding. That's the actual free speech issue if there is one. Nobody should be compelled to host anyone else's speech. Social media sites are not 'de facto public squares' in any way. It's trivial technically to create an alternative site to the incumbents, that's why there's already like half a dozen alternatives spawning around Trump's political ecosystem. It's just that the content on those sites is so godawful within days of them going online that everyone runs for the hills who has a few brain-cells left. It is so ridiculous to paint people like Trump, literal oligarchs, as victims of private business lol.

AuryGlenz 5y ago
It’s in no way trivial to create an alternative site. What makes those social media platforms what they are is the network of people. That’s like saying if Ma Bell decided to kick someone off the telephone system in the 70s that they could just create an alternative network. That’s without even talking about stuff like being kicked off app stores, AWS, other hosting, or even their domain name.
- tadfisher 5y ago
  So in essence: Don't get too popular, because if you do, the government will restrict your ability to moderate the content you host.
- thrill 5y ago
  It's not at all like ATT kicking everyone off the telephone system. If the ISPs providing the bandwidth kicked people off simply because they don't like what they say, then it would be similar, but these are software as a service organizations, and you are free to use that still available bandwidth to use a different service, or even make your own. The gold is in the size of the audience, and that's what these companies have built, and done so by setting guidelines and providing incentives to bring the users. There's absolutely no right for you or anyone else to have a guaranteed audience, though plenty of politicians try to make it so by using taxpayer money to let you know they stole some money from one taxpayer and gave it to a larger voting bloc friendly to them. So, yeah, it's a few days of work to build a twitter replacement, but if you want that audience, you have to put in the sweat to build it, not just jump up and down and demand that you have a right to one that someone else built.
- gregmac 5y ago
  Yep, that's why Instragram will never work, no one will ever steal user share from ICQ, and Myspace will be around forever.
ds206 5y ago
If a quarter of the people on planet Earth using Facebook isn't enough, is there a threshold in which you WOULD call it a public square? Just curious.
- nklop 5y ago
  I think that facebook etc are now public spaces. Weren't they granted some liability exemption? So they wouldn't get sued or something for a comment they only host on their platform? Edit: I appreciate the downvotes. This means that asking for clarification or even a basic opinion is seen as wrong. I won't repeat this mistake. Thanks for the feedback HN.
  - thrill 5y ago
    All such companies, large and small, were granted freedom to not be responsible for their users comments per US law. That doesn't mean they have to leave them there if they don't want to.
    - nklop 5y ago
      I've been downvoted to punish my comment. Stating an opinion is deemed offensive on HN. I'm out.b
  - kstrauser 5y ago
    I didn't downvote you. You were probably downvoted because I've seen this question posed a thousand times by people who weren't asking in good faith attempts to learn new things.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  No there is no threshold because Facebook is in no conceivable sense comparable to public land. The reason the public square is public is because it's not fungible, there's only one center of the town. You can be on a dozen social networks, or on none, and hitting enter and going somewhere on the internet takes (almost) the same time regardless of where you go,in other words Facebook is trivially replaceable the same way it replaced MySpace, regardless of how large it is. The question is whether Facebook exercises market power, not whether it is large, which is the exact same flawed argument that people use in regards to Google. What actually has public character is the physical infrastructure of the net, maybe the ISP level, but not digital products, at least none I have seen yet.
nklop 5y ago
Can you provide some examples of his dictatorship mode of operation?
- nklop 5y ago
  Apparently asking for information means downvotes. Which are the weaker versions of cancel culture. So I'll just assume there are no examples of dictatorship. Thanks for the feedback.
- orwin 5y ago
  Xi Xinping's treatment of Jack Ma? Modhi's treatment of twitter? Honestly, i don't care if big government want to influence their tech sector, issue fines and revoke license, it's the government prerogative. But it is a power you don't want to abuse (I'll personnally give a break to Modhi because i think it is the first time he does something like that, but i'm more into big gov than 99% of HN users i think)

AuryGlenz 5y ago

It’s in no way trivial to create an alternative site. What makes those social media platforms what they are is the network of people. That’s like saying if Ma Bell decided to kick someone off the telephone system in the 70s that they could just create an alternative network. That’s without even talking about stuff like being kicked off app stores, AWS, other hosting, or even their domain name.

tadfisher 5y ago
So in essence: Don't get too popular, because if you do, the government will restrict your ability to moderate the content you host.
thrill 5y ago
It's not at all like ATT kicking everyone off the telephone system. If the ISPs providing the bandwidth kicked people off simply because they don't like what they say, then it would be similar, but these are software as a service organizations, and you are free to use that still available bandwidth to use a different service, or even make your own. The gold is in the size of the audience, and that's what these companies have built, and done so by setting guidelines and providing incentives to bring the users. There's absolutely no right for you or anyone else to have a guaranteed audience, though plenty of politicians try to make it so by using taxpayer money to let you know they stole some money from one taxpayer and gave it to a larger voting bloc friendly to them. So, yeah, it's a few days of work to build a twitter replacement, but if you want that audience, you have to put in the sweat to build it, not just jump up and down and demand that you have a right to one that someone else built.
gregmac 5y ago
Yep, that's why Instragram will never work, no one will ever steal user share from ICQ, and Myspace will be around forever.

ds206 5y ago

If a quarter of the people on planet Earth using Facebook isn't enough, is there a threshold in which you WOULD call it a public square? Just curious.

nklop 5y ago
I think that facebook etc are now public spaces. Weren't they granted some liability exemption? So they wouldn't get sued or something for a comment they only host on their platform? Edit: I appreciate the downvotes. This means that asking for clarification or even a basic opinion is seen as wrong. I won't repeat this mistake. Thanks for the feedback HN.
- thrill 5y ago
  All such companies, large and small, were granted freedom to not be responsible for their users comments per US law. That doesn't mean they have to leave them there if they don't want to.
  - nklop 5y ago
    I've been downvoted to punish my comment. Stating an opinion is deemed offensive on HN. I'm out.b
- kstrauser 5y ago
  I didn't downvote you. You were probably downvoted because I've seen this question posed a thousand times by people who weren't asking in good faith attempts to learn new things.
Barrin92 5y ago
No there is no threshold because Facebook is in no conceivable sense comparable to public land. The reason the public square is public is because it's not fungible, there's only one center of the town. You can be on a dozen social networks, or on none, and hitting enter and going somewhere on the internet takes (almost) the same time regardless of where you go,in other words Facebook is trivially replaceable the same way it replaced MySpace, regardless of how large it is. The question is whether Facebook exercises market power, not whether it is large, which is the exact same flawed argument that people use in regards to Google. What actually has public character is the physical infrastructure of the net, maybe the ISP level, but not digital products, at least none I have seen yet.

nklop 5y ago

Can you provide some examples of his dictatorship mode of operation?

nklop 5y ago
Apparently asking for information means downvotes. Which are the weaker versions of cancel culture. So I'll just assume there are no examples of dictatorship. Thanks for the feedback.
orwin 5y ago
Xi Xinping's treatment of Jack Ma? Modhi's treatment of twitter? Honestly, i don't care if big government want to influence their tech sector, issue fines and revoke license, it's the government prerogative. But it is a power you don't want to abuse (I'll personnally give a break to Modhi because i think it is the first time he does something like that, but i'm more into big gov than 99% of HN users i think)