| > It is not a restriction on private companies banning individuals from their platforms, whether the reasons are ideological or not. So, Rosa Parks should have just started her own bus company too? Discriminating against people based on race was legal after all. Railroads, telecom, electricity and water companies should be able to refuse service too? Are you against the FDA, EPA, FCC, FEC, COPPA regulations, regulations of fire insurance rates etc? How about Net Neutrality? Private businesses should be able to charge whatever they want and for whatever content they want right? How about the government-forced lockdowns forcing private businesses to shut down and go bankrupt? And how about the baker who refused to bake cake for the gay couple for religious reasons? How about the current Administration banning menthol cigarettes, flavoured cigars? How about government banning incandescent light bulbs? How about Fauci's emails where he's emailing with Zuckerberg (some of which was also redacted). Fauci is the government and him working together with FB in building their "COVID dashboard" which censored many people, especially those talking about the lab leak theory as well as Ivermectin. Is that not government enforced censorship? Seems like the "it's a private business" crowd is totally okay with government enforced regulations and lockdowns for their political benefit but when it comes to political speech of their opposition, they suddenly discover the "private" business. > yet another story to vilify people who dampen his authoritarianism I love how people who are taking away people's freedom of speech, taking away their guns, taking away state rights, force masks and lockdowns, taking away freedoms from businesses to operate, spying on political candidates using falsified evidence, political persecution, violate castle doctrine, unreasonable prison sentencing & excessive bail call their political opponents "authoritarianism". Sweet irony. Also based on Justice Clarence Thomas' opinion last month, you are wrong: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27768761 |
Trump (and others) were banned for specific causes, not for something they were born with and can't control.
It's ludicrous to suggest that ideas should be protected classes in commerce just like race is. No one is born a liberal or conservative, and those labels can change over time. You can also just... not say anything, and no one will know which one of those you are.
Rosa Parks could not hide that she was Black.
> Railroads, telecom, electricity and water companies should be able to refuse service too?
No, they have contracts from the government to use limited public resources (land, for example).
The rest of your examples are nonsensical, too, but I don't have time to rebut each one.
> Also based on Justice Clarence Thomas' opinion last month, you are wrong
Clarence Thomas's opinion is based on the premise that social media companies are the same as utilities like electric companies, which is nonsense. You can start a social media company tomorrow and everyone could switch to it. TikTok started not that long ago. There is a free market of social media.
The same is not true of any utilities in the US. Some are even impossible to compete with (e.g. broadcast networks) because they use limited public resources (e.g. spectrum) granted by the government.