[BitwiseFool]

I am more concerned with censorship than I am with these monopolies (or near monopolies) in question. Censorship is not reliant on having a monopolistic position and even disparate companies that don't compete can effectively come together and deplatform people. I know "begging the question" is a logical fallacy, but I can't help but ask the following: What happens when 'the market' decides your personal liberties are problematic?

"I'd also argue that a lot of people care about this "technicality". Businesses are not the government, end of story. The 1st amendment is quite succinct, and there's little room for misinterpreting it."

What is gained from focusing so intensely on this fact?

I feel frustrated because I believe that tyranny and infringements on the rights of man can come from both the public and private sector. I fully accept the 1st Amendment says "Congress shall pass no law...". But to me, the actual preservation of civil liberties depends on both domains. You can't have one without the other.

[fullstop]

> What happens when 'the market' decides your personal liberties are problematic?

That's capitalism. Sorry?

> What is gained from focusing so intensely on this fact?

Because people (US citizens) complain that their free speech rights are being violated.

They're not, unless the US Government itself is restricting what they can say.

As it is right now, Twitter can do whatever the hell it wants with its platform and you're free to start your own if you feel so compelled.

>I feel frustrated because I believe that tyranny and infringements on the rights of man can come from both the public and private sector.

I think that there's some misunderstanding of what the "rights of man" are, and where they are set. Do you really want the government involved in your private interactions with a private company?

Who or what gives you these rights? As far as I can tell, it's only granted by the constitution and amendments.

The 9th amendment is somewhat of a grey area, I suppose. Even so, I don't think that "I deserve to tweet whatever I want without being banned" is an enumerable right. If you want to go further, an amendment would be needed.

[BitwiseFool]

>"I think that there's some misunderstanding of what the "rights of man" are, and where they are set." and "Who or what gives you these rights? As far as I can tell, it's only granted by the constitution and amendments."

I'm talking about the concept of Human Rights. You can say that we are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights", if you'd like. There's also the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" passed by the UN.

>"Do you really want the government involved in your private interactions with a private company?"

Yes. The government already does this and it's not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, this sort of thing is ubiquitous and quite tolerable.

>"What happens when 'the market' decides your personal liberties are problematic?" >"That's capitalism. Sorry?"

I know we aren't going to agree on this, but I dread the idea of my human and civil rights being dependent on Capitalism. And I'm a supporter of Capitalism! The exercise of civil liberties should not be dependent on their profitability.

Edit: We've been going back and forth for a while now and I think it's been a good and respectful discourse. I understand if you want to drop the subject and move on.

[fullstop]

> Yes. The government already does this and it's not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, this sort of thing is ubiquitous and quite tolerable.

I'm glad to see this, a lot of the anti-censorship people are, surprisingly, anti-regulation. I'm not quite sure how they balance the two.

> I know we aren't going to agree on this, but I dread the idea of my human and civil rights being dependent on Capitalism. And I'm a supporter of Capitalism! The exercise of civil liberties should not be dependent on their profitability.

We actually agree here, and it sounds like you may be a bit less capitalist than you think you are. I'm definitely capitalist, but abhor things like price gouging, scalping, and predatory loans. They exist because there is a market for them, gained through what I would consider a lack of morals.

The free market is great, until it isn't.

As for censorship, it needs to exist in some form or fashion. The reason why platforms such as Parler failed was because they were unable to moderate their platform. If you have a bunch of people posting child porn, planning attacks, etc (edit: and you, as a platform, do nothing about it), you will become toxic and nobody's going to want to work with you. I think that the disagreement that you and I have is where that line should be drawn.

[BitwiseFool]

>"I think that the disagreement that you and I have is where that line should be drawn."

Agreed. And, I think another source of us not quite seeing eye-to-eye is the fact that I as an individual tend to lean a lot more on "I know it when I see it" kind of thinking when it comes to applying rules to the real world. Plenty of other people are a lot more "by the book" than I am.

Along those lines, I'm not an absolutist and there are plenty of cases where Twitter removed content and it was perfectly reasonable for them to do so. But I'm increasingly worried about them removing content that is merely controversial, or unorthodox, rather than truly wrong. You could say I'm more worried about "innocent men going to jail" than I am about "guilty men going free".