> Hm, guess I'd like to live in a sham democracy then, as blocking me from sending certain political thoughts in my chat messages is unacceptable to me.
No one's blocking you. Go put a sign up in your front yard, just don't complain your rights are being trampled when I don't let you put up a sign in my yard.
Other people have rights too, and that includes the right not to cooperate with you.
Yes, this is a good exemplification of the "freedom as non-interference" view that Pettit criticizes. This conception has become very popular in the 20th century, especially among libertarians.
The image of society given by your picture does not resemble real life. Facebook and I are not equal actors akin to neighbors disputing over what gets put in their front yard.
It is this recognition that we are not equal neighbors that is the reason we have labor protections, minimum wage laws, campaign finance laws, etc.
> The image of society given by your picture does not resemble real life. Facebook and I are not equal actors analogous to neighbors disputing over what gets put in their front yard.
You're never going to have a society that equal. Do you all the sudden have the right to put signs up at my house because it's bigger or on a busier street than yours? Should you be able to put chapters in the books I write because no one wants to read yours?
I think there are good arguments that Facebook is too big and should be broken up, but the NY Post Hunter Biden "story" isn't one of them. It was garbage, and filtering out garbage is an important function. I'm familiar enough with garbage to realize that.
> Do you all the sudden have the right to put signs up at my house because it's bigger or on a busier street than yours?
No, I have the right to put signs up at your house because you put up a bulletin board and actively invited anyone in the neighborhood to put signs on it.
It's either open to the general public or it's not, and if you pick "not", the onus is on you to at least refrain from actively and ubiquitously contradicting that.
The whole point is that this sign on yard analogy is just not relevant to real world circumstance. Facebook and Twitter have outsized control over how I socialize with others.
If every major cell phone provider chose to stop delivering any text with that article attached to it, would that be acceptable? What if they decided to unilaterally stop delivering any texts from the Trump campaign?
Clearly there is a line to be drawn, and falling back on "it's their private property and thus their right to filter it however they want" is not sufficient in the 21st century, in the age of platform companies and extreme corporate consolidation.
> It was garbage, and filtering out garbage is an important function
Garbage? It was new, previously unreported information. I voted for Joe Biden, and I still found it of interest - and it did appear to contradict some things Biden had said publicly.
> The whole point is that this sign on yard analogy is just not relevant to real world circumstance. Facebook and Twitter have outsized control over how I socialize with others.
So? They only have that kind of power over you because you chose to give it to them.
If I have cool friends, and you decided to organize your social life around visiting my house to see them, it's not my problem if you don't have a place to socialize if I sour on you and exclude you.
> Clearly there is a line to be drawn, and falling back on "it's their private property and thus their right to filter it however they want" is not sufficient in the 21st century, in the age of platform companies and extreme corporate consolidation.
My perspective is compelled speech or compelled cooperation with political speech is just as bad as censorship, so if that's your solution, you have to find a different one.
> Garbage? It was new, previously unreported information.
If the NY Post has a picture of Biden shitting on the toilet, that would also be "new, previously unreported information." It would also be garbage. Those categories aren't mutually exclusive.
No one's blocking you. Go put a sign up in your front yard, just don't complain your rights are being trampled when I don't let you put up a sign in my yard.
Other people have rights too, and that includes the right not to cooperate with you.