Quote:
Originally Posted by finnbow
That's not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying that social media platforms, for all of their vacuousness and malignancy, are still private companies. Accordingly, the tenets of the First Amendment do not and cannot apply to them. They have chosen to have terms of service (like all software products and even your Dear Leader's Truth Social platform) and are free to enforce them as they see fit.
The rub is that in an effort to police their content to remove indecent, damaging, and threatening posts that diminish their users' experience, they piss off liars, charlatans and fabulists who abuse their platforms with malicious intent and these liars, charlatans and fabulists are predominately "conservatives" who help bring people to the GOP base. (Refer to Trump's ~30K lies during his tenure as president (many of them on Twitter) and Bannon's unethical use of Cambridge Analytica to sway Facebook users).
That's why the GOP is constantly whining about free speech and First Amendment concerns that, in reality, simply don't apply to these private companies. The GOP's business model relies heavily upon dangerous lies and myths to rile up their base while it damages the user experience of platform users and the civic health of the nation at large. Were it the case that the Democrats relied as heavily on dangerous lies and conspiracy theories, they would be the ones whining about Twitter and Facebook censorship. But they don't.
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Finn, I trust you are basically explaining to the lurkers, and have no expectation that the person addressed will do anything with your message, except to examine it for hooks on which to hang some criticism.
09-23-2022, 02:57 PM
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