remoteLily

Should privately owned sites be allowed to control what content they display or should they be forced to accept whatever their users post? And we're talking about endpoints, not the carriers represented by ISPs and phone companies.

It's funny to me when conservatives talk about the sanctity of private property, and then want to force the owners and publishers of certain sites to have zero control over their own property. You can't have it both ways.

Also funny to me that conservatives censor like mad in their own properties. Parler, /r/conservative, RedState, and too many others to count, would delete posts from people like me on sight. Do you consider that censorship too, or is that acceptable?

The two situations are apples and oranges. Trump violated many rules in his years on Twitter. Twitter let him go on for things that would have resulted in a banhammer for anyone else. Same goes for the alt-right. They were allowed to go on for a very long time. Despite the hate and harassment they generated. Are you arguing Trump should have received special treatment forever? That sites can't moderate as they see fit?

On the other hand, these WSB bans seem to be related to external pressure from some very wealthy people. Not really the same situation. And not something that's new to the Internet. Digg's blocking of the HD-DVD key comes to mind. Or sites that removed content under threat of a lawsuit.

This is free speech in action. Sites should be able to moderate as they see fit. In return, their users are free to protest the removal of some speech, or protest the tolerance of some speech. And then companies respond to those protests. The government doesn't get involved.

It's messy, but there's no way around the mess without forcing companies to host content they don't want to host. Freedom of association is as important as freedom of speech.