People seems to be fine with corporate censorship, but government censorship is somehow a no-no. I don’t get it. Corporate censorship is still censorship, but it’s now worse. Because you have now given up democratic control of what to censor, and let the tech billionaires have free reign over it. Twitter could ban Trump today, and promote fascism tomorrow and you’d have no say. (oh waiiit, that actually happened?!?!). If you think twitter banning Trump in 2021 is a good thing, why won’t you want the power to vote to ban Trump?
I could be wrong, I am open to change my mind, but please give me a good counter-argument.
FauxLiving@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
To the people that don’t get it. Censorship is when the government oppresses or modifies speech.
What the user above is talking about is when social media companies like Twitter banned Donald Trump and neo-nazi accounts.
Social media companies are private entities that you have a contract with where they provide you with service and you agree to abide by specific terms of that service. Hate speech and promotion of violence are things that you have agreed to not do on their services. If you do those things, then you agreed that your account could be terminated. That is what happened to Trump and the neo-nazi accounts (but I repeat myself).
I can agree that social media companies have too much power over public interaction and media consumption but I also agree that a person or organization should not be forced to host and broadcast messages that they disagree with.
Ironically, this standing legal interpretation is due to a right-wing lawsuit widely celebrated on the religious right about a cake baker who didn’t want to make wedding cakes for a gay wedding. The ruling is what affirmed the ability of private entities to regulate speech on their platforms.
Complaining about being banned from a public platform and also celebrating the victory of the cake baker is a situation where their side wants to have their cake and eat it too.