> So to say that a power company should cut off access to people saying these things is tantamount to saying these people don't deserve to have basic living necessities. That's a lot different than "Hey, we don't want this text to be displayed on our website."
What's a basic necessity? Do you think they should have their phone service cut off, because the phone company doesn't want those words being transmitted over their wires? It's worth noting that not too long ago electricity wasn't considered a basic necessity.
I think there's an inflection point where a website's scale morphs it into a utility that needs to be governed by different rules than smaller websites. Where the line exactly is is not clear, but the large social networks are definitely on the "different rules" side of it. And personally, my preference is that social networks and internet services become a lot smaller and more diverse than stay large and be governed by some regulatory framework.
For the sake of this discussion all that really matters is that these sites are not basic necessities. Perhaps one day they will be, in which case I'd agree their moderation policies should be far more strictly regulated. But that's just not the case now.
FWIW these sites are already under-regulated as is and there are legitimate concerns - for example, under certain circumstances if you get banned from a Google based social media platform it can affect your ability to use Gmail... And if your whole life is on that Gmail account, I believe that strays into "basic necessity" territory. But that's not quite the same thing that's being discussed here.
What's a basic necessity? Do you think they should have their phone service cut off, because the phone company doesn't want those words being transmitted over their wires? It's worth noting that not too long ago electricity wasn't considered a basic necessity.
I think there's an inflection point where a website's scale morphs it into a utility that needs to be governed by different rules than smaller websites. Where the line exactly is is not clear, but the large social networks are definitely on the "different rules" side of it. And personally, my preference is that social networks and internet services become a lot smaller and more diverse than stay large and be governed by some regulatory framework.