[pitspotter]

Indeed. Giant technology companies are effectively part of government now. They make and enforce the rules about public discourse.

The libertarian argument used to support censorship is that a private group or business is free to do what it wants. However this misses the increasingly apparent fact that an insufficiently politically correct business in this environment is quickly targeted and perhaps even 'cancelled'.

So we have a systemic problem. Private entities are not truly free just as the de facto government is not truly accountable.

[mancerayder]

That's a good point. Not to mention that mobile providers and tech companies can, and do, volunteer private data to police and authorities without a warrant. I believe Apple was one that pushed back on this.

It is time to declare the old argument, since it's a private company it can do what it wants, and free speech should not apply, dead and outmoded. Yes, the 1st Amendment. But it's time to rethink the entire moral fabric that has informed us before the Internet Age.

What I find positively shocking is that, myself as a lifelong progressive, am seeing Woke people using that free market argument, to promote censorship and what they call antiracism. I think it goes hand in hand with large megacorporations like Amazon and Bloomberg promoting wokist ideology.

Bottom line, they want more, not less control over our minds. They know what's good. We must ask someone with a Ph.D. in __ Studies to tell us what our ethical path should be. It's positively insane.