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Trump's social media site/thing won't be able to take off properly because if they allow the level of 'freedom of speech' on there that they say they want to al

Trump's social media site/thing won't be able to take off properly because if they allow the level of 'freedom of speech' on there that they say they want to allow, neither Apple's nor Google's app stores will host the Truth Social app. At least that's what I've seen people say, and it sounds quite plausible. So in that regard there is some way that the web gets policed in the US.

freedomben 5y ago
sounds quite plausible to me. USA as a whole is definitely a lot more tolerant of speech than many other countries, but we're definitely moving in a direction where only speech that is within the accepted norms of society is permitted. (At least in virtual space. You can still spout off stupid opinions in person)
- cguess 5y ago
  Private companies are making that decision, not the government. That's a big difference.
  - freedomben 5y ago
    of course, I never said otherwise. But even still, in the US the federal government is keeping lists of people who they feel should be banned across all social media, and sending them to Facebook (and surely others). When private sector and government work that closely, the line blurs quite a bit as to whether it's government or private sector, and whether that's become a distinction rather than a difference.
  - skissane 5y ago
    > Private companies are making that decision, not the government. That's a big difference. There is an ideological dispute about how big a difference that is. Many years ago, I identified as an anarchist (not anymore). While I was an anarchist, I followed intently the debates between anarcho-socialists (left anarchists) and anarcho-capitalists (right anarchists). A major part of the debate was whether it made a difference whether someone doing something was the government or a private entity. From the anarcho-capitalist viewpoint, the public-private distinction has a fundamental philosophical, ideological, political and moral significance – governments and private corporations are radically different kinds of entities, whose actions ought to be judged by very different standards. From the anarcho-socialist viewpoint, the public-private distinction is largely artificial, arbitrary, irrelevant – governments and private corporations are just two slightly different flavours of the same soup. Although few people involved in these debates over the possibility of "censorship by private corporations" would identify as anarchists (of either variety), I think the same distinction is at play here; but, unlike those anarchist debates, the parties in the "censorship by private corporations" debate seem less aware of the role that fundamental difference may have in motivating their respective positions.
    - shaky-carrousel 5y ago
      The difference between a private company and the government is that the government has a monopoly on the use of force. A government can imprison you for life. A company can't.
      - skissane 5y ago
        Suppose the anarcho-capitalists somehow gain political power, and get to actually implement their ideas. They privatise the police, the prisons, and the court system, setting up a free market of competing privately-owned police corporations, prison corporations, and court corporations. They also re-legalise imprisonment for debt, because freedom of contract is a holy and sacred thing ("you aren't really free if you aren't free to contract away your freedom"). Finding yourself on hard times in the new order, your borrow some money from a privately-owned bank; the bank has put an imprisonment-for-debt clause in its loan contract, which you don't like, but you can't find any other lender willing to lend to you without one, and you really need the money. Unsurprisingly, you soon find yourself unable to make the repayments. The privately-owned bank goes to a privately-owned court, and successfully applies for an order for your imprisonment; the bank sends the court order to a privately-owned police force, who arrest you and take you to a privately-owned prison. The court costs, police costs, and imprisonment costs have all been added to your debt. The privately-owned prison sends you to work in a privately-owned slave labour factory. In theory, you can get out at any time if you just repay your ever-growing debt; in practice, you know you'll never be able to repay it, so you'll be here for the rest of your life. But, it ain't too bad – no government did this to you, no monopoly of force was used against you. There are other court companies and police companies, and if only you could have afforded their services, they would have defended you against all this. That all makes it okay, doesn't it now?
        shaky-carrousel 5y ago
        This may sound weird, but the world you described sounds awful yet interesting.
- GameOfFrowns 5y ago
  >only speech that is within the accepted norms of society is permitted By "society", do you mean a loud minority of blue checkmarks on Twitter?
  - Lascaille 5y ago
    And the media, who echo the statements of those blue checkmarks as though they were the authoritative words of god himself.

freedomben 5y ago

sounds quite plausible to me. USA as a whole is definitely a lot more tolerant of speech than many other countries, but we're definitely moving in a direction where only speech that is within the accepted norms of society is permitted. (At least in virtual space. You can still spout off stupid opinions in person)

cguess 5y ago
Private companies are making that decision, not the government. That's a big difference.
- freedomben 5y ago
  of course, I never said otherwise. But even still, in the US the federal government is keeping lists of people who they feel should be banned across all social media, and sending them to Facebook (and surely others). When private sector and government work that closely, the line blurs quite a bit as to whether it's government or private sector, and whether that's become a distinction rather than a difference.
- skissane 5y ago
  > Private companies are making that decision, not the government. That's a big difference. There is an ideological dispute about how big a difference that is. Many years ago, I identified as an anarchist (not anymore). While I was an anarchist, I followed intently the debates between anarcho-socialists (left anarchists) and anarcho-capitalists (right anarchists). A major part of the debate was whether it made a difference whether someone doing something was the government or a private entity. From the anarcho-capitalist viewpoint, the public-private distinction has a fundamental philosophical, ideological, political and moral significance – governments and private corporations are radically different kinds of entities, whose actions ought to be judged by very different standards. From the anarcho-socialist viewpoint, the public-private distinction is largely artificial, arbitrary, irrelevant – governments and private corporations are just two slightly different flavours of the same soup. Although few people involved in these debates over the possibility of "censorship by private corporations" would identify as anarchists (of either variety), I think the same distinction is at play here; but, unlike those anarchist debates, the parties in the "censorship by private corporations" debate seem less aware of the role that fundamental difference may have in motivating their respective positions.
  - shaky-carrousel 5y ago
    The difference between a private company and the government is that the government has a monopoly on the use of force. A government can imprison you for life. A company can't.
    - skissane 5y ago
      Suppose the anarcho-capitalists somehow gain political power, and get to actually implement their ideas. They privatise the police, the prisons, and the court system, setting up a free market of competing privately-owned police corporations, prison corporations, and court corporations. They also re-legalise imprisonment for debt, because freedom of contract is a holy and sacred thing ("you aren't really free if you aren't free to contract away your freedom"). Finding yourself on hard times in the new order, your borrow some money from a privately-owned bank; the bank has put an imprisonment-for-debt clause in its loan contract, which you don't like, but you can't find any other lender willing to lend to you without one, and you really need the money. Unsurprisingly, you soon find yourself unable to make the repayments. The privately-owned bank goes to a privately-owned court, and successfully applies for an order for your imprisonment; the bank sends the court order to a privately-owned police force, who arrest you and take you to a privately-owned prison. The court costs, police costs, and imprisonment costs have all been added to your debt. The privately-owned prison sends you to work in a privately-owned slave labour factory. In theory, you can get out at any time if you just repay your ever-growing debt; in practice, you know you'll never be able to repay it, so you'll be here for the rest of your life. But, it ain't too bad – no government did this to you, no monopoly of force was used against you. There are other court companies and police companies, and if only you could have afforded their services, they would have defended you against all this. That all makes it okay, doesn't it now?
      - shaky-carrousel 5y ago
        This may sound weird, but the world you described sounds awful yet interesting.
GameOfFrowns 5y ago
>only speech that is within the accepted norms of society is permitted By "society", do you mean a loud minority of blue checkmarks on Twitter?
- Lascaille 5y ago
  And the media, who echo the statements of those blue checkmarks as though they were the authoritative words of god himself.