Agreed that regulatory overreach is on the horizon. Hell, pretty sure it's going to happen (or at least be full steam ahead) in the first 100 days of Biden's presidency. While I don't agree with sweeping regulatory practices and would like to see a thoughtful plan of trying to increase competition instead, I can't blame the political class' position. I find it even fascinating how far reaching this event has been and how anti-Trump politicians and organizations NOW finally see how dangerous Silicon Valley has become. In essence, Twitter went to war with the Office of President of the USA (not just Trump, but the position of USA president itself), right or wrong (I'm ignoring the moral/ethics going on for the sake of this debate, though, Trump did overstep his bounds... putting it mildly). This fact shows they can and will do it again and to lesser politicians.
"We took Trump's voice away, we can do it to you too. We pushed anti-Trump rhetoric and silenced pro-Trump rhetoric... do I need to replace Trump with your name if you don't do as we say?" If there is no fallout for Twitter, how far can they push it? What if Biden decides to do some policies that Twitter isn't in favor of? Does he get shut out too? The EU can see very well that the same thing can happen to them easily as well. Shit, even the ACLU threw an objection and concern over this and they hate Trump just as must as any other democrat. The big problem is, and you have to be fair, Trump put up a hell of a PR fight the past 4 years and did rather well up until the very end. Most politicians have crumbled from less pressure than what he experienced. Not many others will be able to hold out as long as he did. This extra weapon of social media and Silicon Valley taking down the public voice of politicians is really fucking dangerous, no matter the political spectrum. They're a handful of billionaires or near to billionaires who have direct control of what a large portion of the human population sees as fact and truth... and they have no one to oversight them.
It is actually disturbing in that it seems by implication that many politicians are portraying what Trump was doing as legitimate speech - and in doing so they are effectively legitimising it. Whereas anybody I am sure in the big tech decision making on this was treating this as "shouting fire in a theater" exception to speech. I think it will be very harmful if the "legitimate speech" interpretation becomes the dominant view - in that case we are effectively setting a precedent here that inciting a riot to overturn your own government is legitimate free speech.
I didn't say I agree to regulations to free speech. I believe in full, unabridged, unbridled speech from all sides. I believe that full, equal speech from all view points squash the extreme stupid viewpoints by nature of evolution and competition. As a Polish-American with a good amount of my family being Jewish, yes, that means all sides of the argument must be heard equally and discussed equally. Even the sides I wish I could strangle. It's the willy-nilly censoring and suppression of certain viewpoints that amplifies that exact viewpoint's power to extreme levels. Historically, it's never worked to suppress speech. It has always backfired. Radical, violent viewpoints only gain strength and acceptance when they are suppressed. Let them air out their viewpoints and face an equal scrutiny in a public, fair battlefield of wit.
There's also a question of general ethics when it comes to the conversations in the public sphere. As an example, I believe we can all agree detention, concentration and reeducation camps are evil, anyone who promotes them in a position of power should be made publicly aware of and face the backlash. Let's take literally yesterday Michael Beller, a PBS attorney, was saying children of Republican supporters should be taken from their families and be put in reeducation camps. While PBS is distancing themselves and he resigned, major media is silent on the matter. Hell, Washington Post mentions it, but their super short article focused on the fact this was a supposed sting operation orchestrated by conservatives. It doesn't matter! The dude is videoed saying he's okay with abducting children, reeducation camps and having large swaths of Americans die from Covid because he doesn't agree with their politics. But because it's despicable actions against "the other tribe", it's okay. If a republican said the exact same thing about democrats, word for word, what kind of uproar would there be? Hate to say it, anyone who says that the media and big tech are suppressing their speech, you can't dismiss it at all. At this point, the cat is out of the bag and there is no turning back. To argue against extremism is now harder because of the childish games these companies have played.
In the end, I can appreciate the international political class' response. Their power is threatened. Who wouldn't freak out if they find their voice is easily undermined? Who wouldn't cry foul when their opinion is not equally heard in public discourse, when arbitrary rules are applied to them? Then the opposing opinion has free reign to say and do what they want, along with get artificial inflated publicity. It's just funny now because the politicians are more in line with the populace more than ever, all because the "do no evil" brainwashers of Silicon Valley are showing their true colors. Big tech wasn't the savior to humanity that we were all told the past 20 years. Time to give up that ghost.
In 2019 Court in NY in final instance denied Trump rights to ban twitter users(even the ones, that did not belong to US citizens) based on the The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is guaranteeing Free Speech.
I assume, that he was not allowed to ban people who were simply toxic and posted death threats - all the things that are considered norm in twitter(but other users are able to ban at least some of them to maintain healthy discussion). Also, it is not consistent with how just recently twitter allowed all those death wishes, when it was announced, that Trump had covid.
And I am even more curious about banning of other key Republican politicians - on what grounds? Were they also inciting violence?
"We took Trump's voice away, we can do it to you too. We pushed anti-Trump rhetoric and silenced pro-Trump rhetoric... do I need to replace Trump with your name if you don't do as we say?" If there is no fallout for Twitter, how far can they push it? What if Biden decides to do some policies that Twitter isn't in favor of? Does he get shut out too? The EU can see very well that the same thing can happen to them easily as well. Shit, even the ACLU threw an objection and concern over this and they hate Trump just as must as any other democrat. The big problem is, and you have to be fair, Trump put up a hell of a PR fight the past 4 years and did rather well up until the very end. Most politicians have crumbled from less pressure than what he experienced. Not many others will be able to hold out as long as he did. This extra weapon of social media and Silicon Valley taking down the public voice of politicians is really fucking dangerous, no matter the political spectrum. They're a handful of billionaires or near to billionaires who have direct control of what a large portion of the human population sees as fact and truth... and they have no one to oversight them.