[hn_throwaway_99]

I think you are, deliberately or not, leaving out important context (e.g. Twitter did remove the tweet from the Malaysian ex-prime minister), but regardless, even if I fully accept your point that Twitter and FB don't apply their rules fairly, you're still left with the fact that the only people who really need a "free speech" social media platform are folks that are mad that they can't demand the killings of millions or that they can't display fake severed heads. And literally every one of these "free speech" platforms (Parler, Gab, Voat) was immediately turned into a cesspool of conspiratorial rantings, hatred and racism.

Voat was probably my "favorite" of all. Literally the only reason it got any traffic were people were mad they could no longer post to r/fatpeoplehate.

[dc2k08]

twitter didn't remove it initially and must have done so only after backlash pointing out their hypocrisy. Opponents of Trump have had free reign the last four years to incite violence against him and his supporters. Once you label your opponents nazis you can say what you like as far as the tech giants are concerned.

[KozmoNau7]

Anarchists and socialists have been demonetized and banned in wide swathes for years. Crimeth!nc and others are banned from Facebook and Twitter etc.

You just don't see it, because it's outside of your bubble of interest.

[throwawayForMe2]

Crimethinc and many Antifa groups are active on Twitter

https://twitter.com/crimethinc

[simonh]

So are many far right groups, individual examples don't prove anything.

[xupybd]

There are some bans that do seem target at the right. https://www.newsweek.com/ron-paul-blocked-accessing-facebook...

[hn_throwaway_99]

Again, keeping with the theme of every single time I hear of some example of conservative censorship, I dig in and find it's 99% BS: https://reason.com/2021/01/11/ron-paul-says-hes-been-locked-... .

Ron Paul's page was never banned, blocked or censored in any way for people viewing his content. Admin rights on his page were mistakenly blocked, and reopened a few hours later. I in know way see that targeting the right, especially since I hear plenty of bitching from people on the left who also think it's some sort of conspiracy whenever they get blocked (e.g. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/04/24/facebook-whil... )

[sremani]

The coincidences keep happening to certain variety of people, especially those who do not belong to 'Corporate Left'.

[hn_throwaway_99]

It's kind of a truism these days that whenever people are blocked or banned on social media, they blame it on some underlying conspiracy to ban their version of political thought. Another commenter put it best: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25818108

"It only seems that way to you because you’re seeing only one side getting arbitrarily suspended."

[xupybd]

Good catch I should have looked into that a little deeper. It might be a case of confirmation bias.

There is one point that Tim Pool made that I think still stands. you have to moderate such that all content is within the Overton window. Only the left and right have different views on what does and does not fit inside this window. For example right wingers want to argue about the role of trans rights in womens sports. Much of the left and Twitter consider this to be outside of the Overton window.

[paul_f]

This could easily be established with some examples showing these "accidents" are spread equally across the political spectrum?

[hn_throwaway_99]

I literally posted just a few comments up a story about people on the left complaining they were banned on Facebook from discussing racism. But anecdotes are relatively useless, another commenter posted an actual study showing there is no anti-conservative bias.

But even the conspiratorial mindset that "Oh look, this accident must be deliberate!!" is really annoying because it completely ignores the consequences of the mistake. Ron Paul (or anyone) not being able to post for a few hours is some big abuse of power, when none of his existing posts were unreadable? I've had power outages in urban settings that lasted longer.

[sremani]

For organizations that donate 95% towards one political party, some how they have managed to be extra-ordinarily neutral. If that is your thesis - I disagree.