Newspapers are a red herring because they have limited space and don't solicit opinion pieces from random people. It is censorship to obstruct someone from posting on some social media site because their post is bad/wrong/dangerous. What else could it be?
Under some conditions censorship is acceptable. The law, for example, sets those conditions at "incitement to imminent lawless action". Private companies need to set their own conditions for censorhip. My argument is that the bar should be high, much higher that it is on most sites, and that free speech culture is extremely valuable.
My historical argument is simply that, in the US, there was a period of openness followed by a period of consolidation. This was the result of the media that existed (nationally prominent papers and tv channels are necessarily centralized). We're heading back to openness due to the internet. Enjoy the ride.
> Newspapers are a red herring because they have limited space and don't solicit opinion pieces from random people.
As I said, Newspapers haven't been constrained by space for 20 years. More than half of their subscribers are digital only.
Anyone is free to submit a letter to the editor or an oped. They don't inherently solicit them. They just actually curate, moderate and only publish the ones they deem worth publishing.
>It is censorship to obstruct someone from posting on some social media site because their post is bad/wrong/dangerous.
Why? If it's my social media site, and I don't like what you're saying, how am I censoring you by saying you can't do it on _my_ platform?
>What else could it be?
Me exerting my rights on my property (my social media platform). Same way I don't have to let you scream whatever you want from my front lawn.
>Under some conditions censorship is acceptable. The law, for example, sets those conditions at "incitement to imminent lawless action". Private companies need to set their own conditions for censorhip. My argument is that the bar should be high, much higher that it is on most sites, and that free speech culture is extremely valuable.
The bar seems very high already for most social media platforms, honestly. Do you believe it is censorship to choose not to allow things to be platformed/printed that are clearly lies?
Is it OK to print lies if no one is harmed (i.e. you're selling crystals to make your sleep better)? What if you're selling crystals that cure cancer and someone buys that instead of actually going to a cancer doctor?
>My historical argument is simply that, in the US, there was a period of openness followed by a period of consolidation. This was the result of the media that existed (nationally prominent papers and tv channels are necessarily centralized). We're heading back to openness due to the internet. Enjoy the ride.
That's just the cycle of things - everything bounces between the extremes. We go too hard one direction, then overcorrect in the other.
The social media age is probably an over correction to openness, with no one fact checking anything, spreading lies rampantly. This was analogous to the snake oil that was the plague of the early 1900s. Do you believe we should go back to that? We stamped that out through regulation and limiting the claims people can make. Is that censorship? Is it bad?
I'm not going to reply anymore, it was good discussing with you.
Under some conditions censorship is acceptable. The law, for example, sets those conditions at "incitement to imminent lawless action". Private companies need to set their own conditions for censorhip. My argument is that the bar should be high, much higher that it is on most sites, and that free speech culture is extremely valuable.
My historical argument is simply that, in the US, there was a period of openness followed by a period of consolidation. This was the result of the media that existed (nationally prominent papers and tv channels are necessarily centralized). We're heading back to openness due to the internet. Enjoy the ride.