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I disagree, in that I think any privately-owned platform that people voluntarily use, have easy alternatives to, and can leave without consequence has the right

by OzyM 5y ago

I disagree, in that I think any privately-owned platform that people voluntarily use, have easy alternatives to, and can leave without consequence has the right to moderate the content on their platform as they see fit. That being said, after having a political/ideological group I really liked removed off a major platform (that it followed the ToS of) without analogous opposite-side groups being removed, I'm at least very sympathetic to your position. I thing we both agree that harmless differences of opinion shouldn't be removed, but I'll agree to disagree on whether the law should be involved.

solveit 5y ago
> have easy alternatives to Well that's always the million-dollar question, isn't it? Take Twitter for instance. Whether there's an easy alternative to Twitter depends entirely on your reference class. The social aspect makes this so much harder as people are unique. It's completely reasonable for someone to need to be on the same platform as some other particular person. Say, Elon Musk. Or pre-ban Trump if you want the least convenient example from a civics perspective. How do you justify kicking someone off a platform for having the wrong views if that's where their elected representatives spend most of their time? But this perspective completely defangs your position in all but principle. Any privately-owned platform with important[1] people using it is basically any platform that has any reasonable amount of success. Even if you restrict to public officials, well, there's a lot of public officials. [1] Note important is in the eye of the user, and people will generally self-select into platforms that have users that are important to themselves.
- OzyM 5y ago
  I don't need a Twitter account to read people's tweets, and I contact my representatives through phone/mail. If they decide to spend time in a private platform not everyone will be able to message them on (or spend a lot of time in a restricted physical location that only lets people with "correct" opinions in), that's fine. If a politician wants a consistent way for everyone to be able to read their writing and contact them, there's nothing stopping them from just... Using their own website for that. Just because some "famous" person uses a platform shouldn't mean the platform has to fall over itself to make sure their every word is hear and everyone can contact them.
  - solveit 5y ago
    In principle, sure. But in practice for many politicians, sending a letter will receive a copy-pasted reply while replying on twitter might get you a personal response. Similarly, getting kicked off Instagram will cause many businesses to die, despite there being another dozen sites where you can upload pictures. Social networks have an inherent tendency to monopolise niches, even if those niches are hard to articulate.

by OzyM 5y ago

solveit 5y ago

> have easy alternatives to Well that's always the million-dollar question, isn't it? Take Twitter for instance. Whether there's an easy alternative to Twitter depends entirely on your reference class. The social aspect makes this so much harder as people are unique. It's completely reasonable for someone to need to be on the same platform as some other particular person. Say, Elon Musk. Or pre-ban Trump if you want the least convenient example from a civics perspective. How do you justify kicking someone off a platform for having the wrong views if that's where their elected representatives spend most of their time? But this perspective completely defangs your position in all but principle. Any privately-owned platform with important[1] people using it is basically any platform that has any reasonable amount of success. Even if you restrict to public officials, well, there's a lot of public officials. [1] Note important is in the eye of the user, and people will generally self-select into platforms that have users that are important to themselves.

OzyM 5y ago
I don't need a Twitter account to read people's tweets, and I contact my representatives through phone/mail. If they decide to spend time in a private platform not everyone will be able to message them on (or spend a lot of time in a restricted physical location that only lets people with "correct" opinions in), that's fine. If a politician wants a consistent way for everyone to be able to read their writing and contact them, there's nothing stopping them from just... Using their own website for that. Just because some "famous" person uses a platform shouldn't mean the platform has to fall over itself to make sure their every word is hear and everyone can contact them.
- solveit 5y ago
  In principle, sure. But in practice for many politicians, sending a letter will receive a copy-pasted reply while replying on twitter might get you a personal response. Similarly, getting kicked off Instagram will cause many businesses to die, despite there being another dozen sites where you can upload pictures. Social networks have an inherent tendency to monopolise niches, even if those niches are hard to articulate.