Quote:
Originally Posted by ET2SN
Posting on Twitter isn't a right. 
They are a privately held company who make their own rules. They are not affiliated with the US government. |
So, where we are nowadays, I'd argue that social media of all types aren't exactly private in the sense that what they provide is the modern public square.
They are vastly different than, say, Subsim.com, which is narrowly focused and actively moderated. If you go to av website or join a discord channel focused on a video game, you expect the topics to be focused on that subject.
Years ago, no one was sending the public works employees who clean the public square to jail or knocking down the public square itself because someone spouted off something the local community decided they didn't like. You engaged a kook blathering in the public square at your own peril - it was no one's job to protect you from something you didn't like hearing.
Social media enjoys the protection of Section 230 in the US - the issue is that many people have pointed out that social media companies have not applied whatever standards exist on their platforms uniformly to all who are using their platforms. Instead of addressing those concerns, the social media companies continue to marginalize a portion of the users. Doesn't matter which social media company or on which side of the political spectrum. It just so happens to most social media happens to lean to the left.
In the case of Amazon shutting off the servers that hosted Parler, it's closer to the company that sold you a bookshelf coming in and taking it away because they don't like the books sitting in your shelf.
Let's be clear - no one trusts anyone else on the opposite sides of the political spectrum and the refusal of *any* media to allow opposing viewpoints, to engage people with those viewpoints with other than ridicule, or to accurately report the facts rather than presenting opinion as fact is just going to further fragment the populace.