Does this intersect with the net neutrality debate? The FCC's net neutrality rules were focused on ISPs. But is there really a fundamental difference between an ISP and a big internet portal with respect to the value of neutrality?
Net neutrality was designed to ensure that all data on the internet is treated equally by ISPs and governments, regardless of content, user, platform, application, or device. -- https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/net-neutrality.asp
Once it would have been considered easier to switch an ISP than a social network, and that justifies different treatment. But the network effect has often proven an insurmountable garden wall for social network users. It's not clear to me that it is logically or ethically consistent to regulate neutrality for one but not the other.
This strikes me as an odd take. Reddit is a platform that allows users to create and moderate forums. Reddit as a platform isn't blocking anything. Individual forum moderators have always had the ability to delete posts for any reason they like. People who don't like the moderation being done in /r/reallyreallycutecats always have the ability to create a new forum /r/reallyreallycutecatsontwitter.
> But is there really a fundamental difference between an ISP and a big internet portal with respect to the value of neutrality?
Everyone is responding that legally, yes, there is.
But you're asking about whether there's a logical difference.
Yes, there still is. Your ISP is the only data pipe into your house; if they don't let certain data in, you literally have no other way to get it. (Other than by using a hotspot on your phone, but that data is also provided by an ISP.
Whereas Reddit is just an aggregator. They collect links. You can get those links from elsewhere - other aggregators, or by directly going to the website, etc.
Saying that Reddit & subreddit mods shouldn't be allowed to block links to twitter is like saying that since the USPS can't refuse to deliver your mail, then the Washington Post should be required to print copies of the New York Times in the middle of their printed edition.
It sounds like you're implying that websites should be forced to host links they don't want to. I really don't think we want to be going down that path.
Even if you treat _reddit_ as like you'd treat, say, Comcast under net neutrality rules (this is kind of what the EU DMA rules do, to some extent, say, though those do not apply to reddit as it is too smol), it doesn't necessarily follow that you would treat /r/cooking or whatever like Comcast under net neutrality rules.
