[majormajor]

These companies have less power than a small amount of media companies had in the past, if anything. Where were you going to go for TV news in 1950 outside of the major networks? And unless Chrome/Safari/etc build content-based blocking "allowed to see" is an ENORMOUS stretch. "A small number of publishers have large reach and exercise certain controls over their media" is more accurate.

As for whether or not their should be legal restrictions on what publishers can publish... take your best shot at suggesting some legal rules. I think there would be holes that you could drive a truck through that would upset you regardless of your own views.

Not everyone needs a global megaphone. And nobody intrinisicly deserves one.

[mbreese]

Go back even further and you’d have real media power — the newspapers of the 1890s. The time of Hearst vs Pulitzer was quite a time for newspapers and showed the power of publishers.

[Ajedi32]

> "allowed to see" is an ENORMOUS stretch

That may have been poorly phrased on my part. My intent was to put the focus on the listener rather than the speaker, since Google search (for example) doesn't control what people say, but it can control what people see. Censorship at that level is just as much of an issue as it is at the level of social media. "Freedom of speech" and "freedom to listen" are really the same thing. I prefer the term "the free exchange of ideas" since that includes both speech and listening, is agnostic to the medium (listening, reading etc.), and conveniently excludes things like CSAM and spam, since those aren't ideas.

I'd also argue you can't "just go somewhere else" to find content you aren't even aware exists in the first place, so I think the phrasing "allowed to see" makes more sense than you give it credit for once you consider the chilling effect of widespread censorship.

[majormajor]

That last sentence startles me. Are you proposing some people or companies have a legal obligation to make you aware of the existence of content you aren't aware of?

That sounds like a big jump even beyond "they shouldn't be able to control what they publish." Are we now going to require Twitter actively promote everything too?

How many obligations would you impose on everyone else in service of this hypothetical listener who demands to be spoon fed all points of view in the world without effort? Is a library allowed to have a collection if they don't fully advertise it's breadth? Is a bookstore allowed to choose what to and to not put on their shelves? Am I allowed to tell you what I think without telling you how many possible other views there are? Any of those are just as "chilling" as "twitter.com" not having all the content that "elonsjet.com" or "jacobin.com" or "foxnews.com" would...

Twitter/FB/etc are HARDLY important enough, and way less powerful than past media, to start telling people they have to amplify what other people say.