[judah]

>> You publish books by authors you like.

Right there your analogy breaks down; Twitter publishes content it doesn't like. It publishes all content that doesn't break the law or its rules.

But it's beside the point. Do we want Facebook, Google, and other social media companies deciding what we can and cannot say?

If we are consistent in our libertarianism, we must answer no.

[nhfoiwehf]

> It publishes all content that doesn't break its rules.

And some of those rules are about the content of what's posted (no nudity, no harassment). Therefore it's behaving like a publisher, with editorial discretion.

If you don't like the book publisher analogy, consider a newspaper that runs letters to the editor. They don't officially endorse the opinions in those letters, and anyone can write one. But the newspaper can still pick which letters get published.

> Do we want Facebook, Google, and other social media companies deciding what we can and cannot say?

They aren't telling us what we can / can't say. They are telling us what we can / can't publish on their websites.

But to you, it doesn't feel that way. And me neither. Why? Because Facebook and Google have a near Duopoly over communication on the internet. That's the real problem. We need to break them up. We need to acknowledge that network effects create natural monopolies, and perhaps regulate or force interoperability on some social networking sites.