it can simultaneously be true that Alex Jones deserves what he got but it is deeply problematic that Facebook / Google / Apple / Twitter can give it. let’s not suddenly go all glibertarian about what private businesses with immense power can do.
pretty sure its not censorship if private companies do it, and therefore anything goes
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that’s a definitional question of what “censorship” is. if courts agree that it is not public action (they might not, US courts have sometimes found “private property” to become public for 1st amendment purposes), then it’s not a violation of the first amendment and is legal.
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But what is legal does not define what comprises censorship in an ethical or marketplace-of-ideas sense. Again, I have no sympathy for Jones, good riddance. But I don’t like a world where a council of four decide what speech can sustain widespread exposure.
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Im not so interested in narrow legal definitions, either. I imagine that if the same logic were applied to someone on the basis of their, for eg, communist politics or feminist activism, few would accept as justification the mere fact that Twitter or FB are private enterprises.
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Right. Which is why it’s shortsighted for those who might be sympathetic to, say, feminist or socialist ideas, to justify the Jones banishment on a “private property” basis. Celebrate the banishment, by all means. But worry about the process.
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but what if they're doing it not because persuaded it's a good idea by discussion/markets... but because the govt is warming up various kinds of retaliations if they don't? that's what some recent FB/Google/Apple activity looks like to me: state censorship, laundered
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(i think your point is broadly true, that social media platforms are running scared from traditional Silicon Valley laissez-faire bromides in order to get ahead of the threat of regulation. but i don’t think this administration would have insisted on Alex Jones. they’ve arguably
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increased the threat that this US administration will meddle with them for being “biased against conservative viewpoints”.)
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sure, but separate from "this administration", there's a "permanent establishment", with high overlap with "the state". it's often at war with any particular "administration" – & it's that establishment's threat of state actions that's driving a bunch of this 'private' censorship
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I think that’s a fair interpretation (although it means these firms have a strong view of which establishment remains permanent).
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yesterday the CA Fashion Valley case popped into my head and I began to wonder whether & how it could apply in this instance. Different facts except that we're dealing with a platform that serves a public function kind of like a mall.https://ballotpedia.org/Fashion_Valley_Mall_v._National_Labor_Relations_Board …
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