I'm super tired of people conflating civil rights + first amendment protections with the idea that speech anywhere, by anyone, on any platform, deserves to be protected.
The goal of the first amendment is to protect the citizens of America from laws created by congress / government in limiting speech. That is nowhere near what we are talking about when we're talking about _any_ speech conducted on a private platform.
In fact, it's interesting to me that the argument has recently been spun around such that some politicians are claiming that social platforms are violating their first amendment rights by blocking or banning. This has nothing to do with the intent or language of the first amendment.
In my mind, you can be the most fervent civil rights advocate and still believe that Twitter/Facebook/etc can ban anyone they want for any reason. Even more so if you believe in free enterprise and the rights of a business to act in the way that they best see fit.
I understand that platform bans have more implications and repercussions than I'm outlining here in simple terms but still the conflation is frustrating to me.
The goal of the first amendment is to protect the citizens of America from laws created by congress / government in limiting speech. That is nowhere near what we are talking about when we're talking about _any_ speech conducted on a private platform.
In fact, it's interesting to me that the argument has recently been spun around such that some politicians are claiming that social platforms are violating their first amendment rights by blocking or banning. This has nothing to do with the intent or language of the first amendment.
In my mind, you can be the most fervent civil rights advocate and still believe that Twitter/Facebook/etc can ban anyone they want for any reason. Even more so if you believe in free enterprise and the rights of a business to act in the way that they best see fit.
I understand that platform bans have more implications and repercussions than I'm outlining here in simple terms but still the conflation is frustrating to me.