[nmfisher]

The question is not “what legal power does Twitter have”. I’m not saying they legally can’t kick him off their platform.

The discussion is whether they should be able to kick someone off their platform who has been convicted of no crime, because of how integral they have become to the political process.

[Grimm1]

Yes, because you don't have to be convicted of a crime to have done something wrong and regardless it doesn't matter. Twitter can kick someone off for whatever reason they want. That's something currently protected in our law.

[kolinko]

On the other hand, there is a legal concept called Common Carriage - private companies that have monopoly are not allowed to refuse service to anyone unless mandated by courts.

If it was a power company shutting off electricity to Facebok, Twitter and AWS, because they disagree with their business practices, we would have an outrage right now about how undemocratic it is.

(And I say this with all my distaste for Trumpism)

[notadev]

Kind of unrelated to the point of your post -- what does it mean when any discussion about current events/politics requires every poster to affirm they do not support a particular political candidate. I don't have an answer myself, I'm just wondering if it's considered somethinf like self-censorship or if there's something else to it. Either way, it kinda feels weird to me.

[michaelt]

If someone believes in the principle of "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" they will naturally find themselves defending some pretty odious speech - and gaining the support of people who believe pretty odious things.

After all, a free speech advocate and a neo-nazi would both support the publication of Mein Kampf - but the former might well want to be clear they're not the latter. (and of course, to complicate the situation further, the latter may want to disguise themselves as the former)

As to why you see so many posters affirming they don't support Trump - that's because HN readers aren't Trump's target demographics: Trump only got 12% of the vote in San Francisco in 2020. IMHO it's believable that on HN, free speech advocates simply outnumber Trump supporters.

[enkid]

Twitter is not a monopoly. There are plenty of media companies, social or not, that he could use to carry his message. He has a freaking press office.

[Grimm1]

Maybe these are monopolies, and if they are we shouldn't be granting them special status to entrench them further. We should be looking to open them up and break them apart.

[zepto]

Perhaps they’ll become less integral to the process.

[asdff]

Integral for whom, though? Not a huge number of people are involved in political twitter:

https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/23/just-6-of-u-s-adults-on-tw...