[LewisVerstappen]

> TL;DR free speech is between you and the government, not between you and someone else or some other company.

Yes, everyone knows that.

It's a bit different though when you have massive social media platforms that have monopolies over public discourse.

[acallan]

Imagine a scenario where Twitter and Facebook lose their ability to unconditionally moderate the content of their platforms. Presumably they would need to check with government censors first? Again, I understand how annoying moderation can be! I just don't understand the alternative and I do not see how this alternative is not a huge violation of the First Amendment — this would precisely be the government telling private companies what they can and cannot publish.

[LewisVerstappen]

> I just don't understand the alternative

Well, one alternative would be that they have to decouple their front-end and back-end and provide open APIs to their backend (posts/tweets, friends lists, etc.).

Facebook/Twitter can moderate/censor whatever they want on their own front-ends, but they can't remove anything from the backend.

People/companies can build alternative front-end apps that access the fb/twitter graphs and censor in a different way - so that users have an alternative.

[pjc50]

See above: _not allowed_ to remove porn, spam, doxxing, or death threats without a court order (of what jurisdiction?) => immediate chaos

(Note that FOSTA/SESTA already imposes a proactive legal obligation to censor within the US, and overrides s230)

[root_axis]

They don't have a monopoly over public discourse though, not even remotely close.

[ascendantlogic]

> It's a bit different though

No, it's not. If you want corporations to be beholden to the first amendment then pass laws saying that private companies can no longer moderate their platforms, full stop.