> It was certainly weird to see all the "they're private businesses, they can do what they want!" takes from the internet when Trump and Parler were banned, after the same people have been yelling for years that these same corporations have too much power over the public narrative.
Why?
Its not inconsistent to argue, as many on the left have, both before and after the right-wingers started whining because they lost their excessively favorable treatment from Twitter, Facebook, et al.:
(1) Free speech means that private actors should have the right to control the messages their resources are used to relay.
(2) A subset of the tech companies right-wingers complain about to justify trying to impose state-backed mandates to carry right-wing content on internet providers generally are overly dominant monopolies and have excessive power over public communication because of that, which is a problem that is should be dealt with by dealing with the monopolies, not curtailing the freedom of speech of private actors.
> excessive power over public communication [...] should be dealt with by dealing with the monopolies, not curtailing the freedom of speech of private actors.
That sounds like a nice idea. However, I'm seeing it for the first time. While (1) and (2) aren't inconsistent, typically only (1) is brought up.
Take your average thread about how, say, Google is now beginning to censor X thing. It makes little sense to defend big tech censorship with point (1), leaving out (2), if you actually hold both opinions (1) and (2). The latter kind of implies that you agree big tech censorship is a problem. The former in isolation points toward the opposite. Therefore, I don't think most people who argue (1) actually believe in (2) as well.
This - the solution isn't to compell overly large websites or web hosts to carry speech that they don't want. It's to use antitrust law to break them up so more smaller websites can viably carry whatever they want.
Now there should also be a clear demarcation of what internet services need to be a common carrier vs not. Let's say bandwidth, colocation, ip address allocation, and domain registration services were required to take all comers. Then if you want to have your gay commie gun club forum, you could get a domain, buy your own hardware, put it up in a colo facility, get bandwidth and ip addresses, and then have an uncensored presence on the net.
Why?
Its not inconsistent to argue, as many on the left have, both before and after the right-wingers started whining because they lost their excessively favorable treatment from Twitter, Facebook, et al.: (1) Free speech means that private actors should have the right to control the messages their resources are used to relay. (2) A subset of the tech companies right-wingers complain about to justify trying to impose state-backed mandates to carry right-wing content on internet providers generally are overly dominant monopolies and have excessive power over public communication because of that, which is a problem that is should be dealt with by dealing with the monopolies, not curtailing the freedom of speech of private actors.