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> It wasn't that "no one" wanted to hear them, but that the people that controlled the platform didn't want others to be able to hear them. This is an importan

> It wasn't that "no one" wanted to hear them, but that the people that controlled the platform didn't want others to be able to hear them. This is an important point. Free speech is really as much about the rights of the listener as the rights of the speaker, if not more so. I think this is a good way of framing the censorship debate, because while it may be easy for some to dismiss the rights of a few dozen famous people that they hate, it's way harder to argue that the millions of people who follow those celebrities shouldn't be allowed to hear what they have to say, even if they want to. (To be clear, I'm making a generalized moral argument here, not a legal one, so let's skip the whole "but it's a private platform" debate this time.)

rchaud 4y ago
If the rights of the listener have been infringed, why wouldn't the listener simply go to where they can continue listening? Nobody's holding a gun to their head.
acdha 4y ago
> it's way harder to argue that the millions of people who follow those celebrities shouldn't be allowed to hear what they have to say, even if they want to. Nobody is making that argument. The actual argument is that a private company should not be compelled to provide free hosting for them. They can and have used other hosting services but many of their followers apparently prefer not to use those alternatives.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > Nobody is making that argument. This is untrue. Not only are people making that argument explicitly, but there have been any number of orchestrated attacks on private companies in order to force them to remove content. And if they refuse, attacks on their vendors and distributors (such as app stores), including by the federal government and congresspeople openly demanding that they be banned, surrounded with completely unveiled threats of investigation and new legislation. > They can and have used other hosting services but many of their followers apparently prefer not to use those alternatives. Those alternatives are under constant attack by people making that argument that "nobody is making." The ones that have secured revenue or financing that is difficult to attack (i.e. Substack, Rumble) are thriving.
  - acdha 4y ago
    If you read more carefully, consider the distinction between a mainstream platform being asked to remove people who violated their terms of service and saying that those people should not be allowed to use platforms which cater to extremists. The former is what actually happens for otherwise legal content — and the reason is obvious once you think about it: private companies can’t be forced to provide services for anything other than legally protected categories, but they are sensitive to what advertisers want and what will attract the type of users they’re looking for. Twitter was previously trying to be more mainstream, which is why extremists trying to recruit wanted to be there instead of alternatives like Parler or Truth Social which only had people who were already converted.

rchaud 4y ago

If the rights of the listener have been infringed, why wouldn't the listener simply go to where they can continue listening? Nobody's holding a gun to their head.

acdha 4y ago

> it's way harder to argue that the millions of people who follow those celebrities shouldn't be allowed to hear what they have to say, even if they want to. Nobody is making that argument. The actual argument is that a private company should not be compelled to provide free hosting for them. They can and have used other hosting services but many of their followers apparently prefer not to use those alternatives.

pessimizer 4y ago
> Nobody is making that argument. This is untrue. Not only are people making that argument explicitly, but there have been any number of orchestrated attacks on private companies in order to force them to remove content. And if they refuse, attacks on their vendors and distributors (such as app stores), including by the federal government and congresspeople openly demanding that they be banned, surrounded with completely unveiled threats of investigation and new legislation. > They can and have used other hosting services but many of their followers apparently prefer not to use those alternatives. Those alternatives are under constant attack by people making that argument that "nobody is making." The ones that have secured revenue or financing that is difficult to attack (i.e. Substack, Rumble) are thriving.
- acdha 4y ago
  If you read more carefully, consider the distinction between a mainstream platform being asked to remove people who violated their terms of service and saying that those people should not be allowed to use platforms which cater to extremists. The former is what actually happens for otherwise legal content — and the reason is obvious once you think about it: private companies can’t be forced to provide services for anything other than legally protected categories, but they are sensitive to what advertisers want and what will attract the type of users they’re looking for. Twitter was previously trying to be more mainstream, which is why extremists trying to recruit wanted to be there instead of alternatives like Parler or Truth Social which only had people who were already converted.