4 ms·

I don’t think it’s fair to equate private action with state action. The latter is much more dangerous to freedom

• morkalork 1y ago
  I am not equating the two, I am pointing out the flaw in the logic of viewing each in isolation and rationalizing. Excusing state-level book bans in libraries with "you can just buy it yourself with your money instead" clearly ignores what has been happening in the private sector.
• AlexandrB 1y ago
  The latter often leverages the former to work around having to legislate things that are unpopular or unconstitutional. A great example is government agencies buying data from data brokers or the Twitter files where the government leaned on Twitter to downrank "wrong" ideas. With the proliferation of powerful near-monopolies - especially in tech - "the market" has little way to work around these kinds of problems, especially in the short term. I guess my point is that both are dangerous to freedom, and ideally the government would do something to curtail corporate censorship instead of encouraging it. That's the whole idea of a "common carrier"[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier
• TimorousBestie 1y ago
  “X is worse than Y” is not on its own an argument against “not Y.”
• Chris2048 1y ago
  Gov inaction is just as important, especially when it comes to regulating monopolies. Net Neutrality is a similar issue.