first of all, that’s not true. At least not in America.
second of all, you’re just going around in circles. They’re private companies, that’s all that matters. If people aren’t happy with the way they operate, they can stop using them.
You could make the argument then that Zuckerberg violated free speech the moment they switched the news feed from chronological to the Facebook news algorithm. Technically, you could see that as a form of censorship: your voice is hidden based on a relevancy algorithm.
The Whigs needed a counter to The Squad. The Death Squad has a nice ring to it.
It's a matter of business ethics more so than the first amendment. Banning certain conservatives from the platform goes directly against their mission statement, which is partly why it's unethical. Just like not serving someone because they're gay or black.
It's business. Meaning fook ethics ... it's probably more about liability and lawsuits. Whether from the pullout of advertisers who inspire their Board of Directors to act ... or legal liabilities so they can CYA of being sued the moment someone with a dead loved one lawyers up against them.
It bothers me that some conservatives are far more likely to be banned from platforms like this. But it also makes me look beyond the convenient tropes of "liberal media bias" on this and ask questions of, "Is there something uniquely conservative-leaning in what triggers these objections?"
There are certainly threats of murder and mayhem from the left. But for some reason it's disproportionately either not being called out for bans (probably partially true but not entirely) and/or not proportionately not coming out of the mouths of legislators and pundits like it is from their conservative counterparts. Is that because we tend to notice the platforms of more conservative counterparts as they have a much greater following than their liberal equivalents? Ilhan Omar draws plenty of controversy for example, but she's not known for calling for violence per se.
Or maybe more because conservatives are less likely than liberals to call for the ban of speech? There's probably a little truth to that.
But then where do you draw that line? I think with many conservatives all that "storm the Capitol" talk was fun and games until sh*t got real and people were killed -- exploiting that offside rule line between puffed-up hyperbole on a keyboard and life-and-death seriousness with guns. And to the extent you believe in individual accountability at the expense of the collective, it's not surprising that many see no culpability between inciting a riot and participating in one. But some do now.
There are crazy people out there who do not know the line between war talk and war. It's been a long time since we've had big stories about religious or military cults, but make no mistake: there is a really big cult out there right now. With an infallible leader who can do no wrong in their eyes while exploiting them for personal selfish gain. And the rabid belief in falsehoods and conspiracies. Without this, without QAnon, you might argue that Trump could have been re-elected.
If we don't start addressing this as a cult situation, more people are going to die needlessly and at the hands of each other. And one of the ways you sanely have to deal with a cult is to try to find separation between a cult leader and his followers. That and we need more testimonials from former cult members and we need to give lifelines to cult members to find ways to climb back into reality.
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