> Private company tells other private company which speech they should be censoring
Welcome to the new era of information folks. You thought private companies were too powerful before, well, guess what? You've now given them the power to control almost all forms of communication.
"But, but, private companies should be able to decide who they want on their platform! What about the free market?"
Wake the hell up. Read up on monopoly. And then read about the network effect. And then go and try starting your own social network that believes in freedom of speech, and convince 1 billion people to join. Then come back and tell me that the private communication industry is a free market.
Whichever opinion is currently being frowned on by society, will always be more prominent in the fringes. The left will talk about how right-wing conservatism is the current populist trend until they're blue in the face, but the reality is that the only people being censured by the media, universities, private companies, etc. are people with right-leaning views. I don't agree with all of them, but I can't remember the last time I read an article about a professor being let go for being an "extreme leftist". Being extreme-left is seen as being brave, pushing the envelope, exploring new ideas, fresh, edgy but interesting etc. Being extreme right is seen as dangerous, fringe, unacceptable, backwards, and so on. And so what happens, is that one side begins to feel cheated by the system, left out of popular discourse, and will then turn to alternative platforms to discuss their ideas. And hence you get the less mainstream, more free speech loving platforms being right dominated.
This is why I firmly believe that all sides should be allowed to share views. The best way for bad ideas to be shown for what they are, is for them to be debated publicly. Unfortunately, that is not what we are seeing happen. And that also means that anybody who isn't censured, thinks they're onto something good. It gives them an inflated sense of worth. See: Twitter checkmarks.
"Verizon" isn't the one making the decision here. Probably their marketing people are, and I'm gonna take a wild guess that their marketing department is staffed by stereotypically latté drinking art graduate types - the sort of people who believe academics are always right, and who get conspicuously upset about racism and sexism whilst loudly hating white men. All corporations have ended up with people like that, and even when CEOs disagree with them they prefer not to pick that fight because letting them set up diversity committees or whatever seems cheap relative to cracking down.
Now this stuff is moving beyond hosting seminars on white fragility, I wonder when or if the decision making classes will rediscover their own moral backbones and push back on it. There's really no moral virtue to be found in actions like this.
What, exactly, is your alternative here? The government forces me to fund speech I hate? Facebook is not allowed to ban literal NAZIs? A mandated minimum ad spend for all TV programs?
I can’t understand the supposed end-game for this idea that no one is allowed to moderate speech on private property.
The solution doesn't lie in either extreme. The solution is not 'companies can't censor anyone' nor is it 'companies can censor whomever they want'.
The issue is that a functioning society needs a public forum to have discussions. Access to that public forum thus is important. Reasons to deny access to that forum should be weighed against the effect on the public discussion.
Where that balance lies affects society a lot, so society should have a big say. At the same time, we can't just take over a private company's control over the public forum wholesale. Instead, we need regulations made by government to inform how to weigh those decisions. We need a decent enough appeals process to fix mistakes.
If a company cannot handle that process, then that company shouldn't have that much control over public discussion. The fact that they didn't intend to have that control doesn't matter. At some point, the needs of society come before the needs of private companies.
You already do it anyway with many other platforms. "Nazis" are still entitled to cellphones and mailing addresses. And you help subsidize them. And that is a good thing.
However progressive you think you are, I'm certain that there are people out there that would call you a Nazi and want you to be banned from everything.
> I can’t understand the supposed end-game for this idea that no one is allowed to moderate speech on private property.
A company like T-Mobile is not "private property". It is a good thing that T-Mobile is forbidden from terminating your account at a whim because they don't like your politics.
And Facebook is bigger and has a lot more power over the public than T-Mobile. But Facebook should play by the rules of some small Silicon Valley startup? Facebook is well into the domain of telecom giants.
Now, I don't think that Facebook should be forbidden from protecting some of their customers from other customers, or facilitating harassment. But I think they should be held to an even higher standard than the phone companies, because they provide so many features that people have come to rely on.
Not quite as ironic as a President complaining about his right to free speech in a private forum (not a violation of the 1st amendment) even as he is threatening threatening to use the military to suppress peaceful protests (an actual violation of the 1st amendment).
There have been thousands of protestors out on the streets for nearly a month now. If there were burning buildings and having gunfights in the streets this whole time, there wouldn't be any cities left.
Don't live in Seattle so not personally. I do have a people I trust who live there who have been to the center of the "CHAZ" area he it's fine. They haven't even burned down the Police station which would be target number 1 if they were out-of-control.
A private company is deciding that it doesn’t want its brand to be associated with certain subjects. What do you propose? A law saying that Verizon can’t choose where to spend its ad dollars?
You have the right to say what you want. You don’t have the right to get a platform to publish it. People were getting their voices heard nationwide before the internet existed. During the Civil Rights Movement, leaders went to churches.
We can see in the last presidential election how little Trump spent on traditional media to get his voice out there.
Actually, a case might be made that Facebook be required to carry political advertisements. One thing that springs to mind is how the NYC Subway system was forced to carry Zionist ads.
By definition, a private corporation can’t be accused of illegally “censoring free speech”. The constitution says that the government can’t censor speech. The MTA is a government run organization.
For people defending Verizon censoring things, would you still defend Verizon so vigorously if they were bowing to Conservative groups and blocking text messages related to women's health? Because they actually did that. [1]
It's really amazing how attitudes have changed. This is what the ACLU had to say about Verizon back then:
> Verizon and AT&T, among others, are spending millions of dollars lobbying Congress for the right to discriminate against content on the Internet it deems controversial, unsavory, or even just contrary to its own business interests.
I think now, the ACLU is pressuring Congress and Verizon to crack down more on content.
Of course, the idea that Facebook, a $70 billion dollar company that dwarfs any phone company in customers, should somehow be less regulated than Verizon is ludicrous. Facebook should be required to consult congress before any major policy changes. Amtrak, The US Postal Service, and Verizon are all "private" companies, but they provide such an essential service that they are heavily regulated. So should Facebook.
For people defending Verizon censoring things, would you still defend Verizon so vigorously if they were bowing to Conservative groups and blocking text messages related to women's health? Because they actually did that. [1]
They didn’t want to let someone use a short code. They didn’t stop them from sending text messages. Would Verizon be out of line if they didn’t let the KKK have a short code of HangTheN$%%#^s? (Before I get downvoted to oblivion for being a racist - that’s just an example - the person I see when I look in the mirror everyday is Black).
There are forbidden custom license plates too. Almost every platform that lets you customize anything have standards.
Verizon in this case isn’t censoring anything. They have every right to choose what other companies to do business with.
Of course, the idea that Facebook, a $70 billion dollar company that dwarfs any phone company in customers, should somehow be less regulated than Verizon is ludicrous. Facebook should be required to consult congress before any major policy changes
I cannot for the life of me understand why people have this undying trust in the government. The same government where the President wants to “shut down Twitter” because he didn’t like one of their policies. This is also the same government that wants to outlaw e2e encryption and consistently tried to pass laws to make it harder for private citizens to record police misconduct.
Amtrak, The US Postal Service, and Verizon are all "private" companies, but they provide such an essential service that they are heavily regulated.
Amtrak is not a private corporation, it is a “quasi-public” corporation that is partially funded and subsidized by the government. The US Post Office is also not only a government run department, it’s actually mandated in the Constitution (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 7).
Welcome to the new era of information folks. You thought private companies were too powerful before, well, guess what? You've now given them the power to control almost all forms of communication.
"But, but, private companies should be able to decide who they want on their platform! What about the free market?"
Wake the hell up. Read up on monopoly. And then read about the network effect. And then go and try starting your own social network that believes in freedom of speech, and convince 1 billion people to join. Then come back and tell me that the private communication industry is a free market.