If one forces a person to to talk freely in a backyard instead of of the main street, one is censoring him since no one can hear him any more. That is happening when Apple pushes Alex Jones out of iTunes.
There really is no alternative to the current crop of tech giants. They literally have a monopoly on social media and are all extremely left-leaning, and increasingly hostile to any legal dissent. There are three scenarios I see playing out.
1. The tech giants use their influence to get enough Democrats elected in 2018 to keep crushing any political dissent on their platforms that reaches any kind of popularity. They are ostensibly pursuing this course today, and it's a little frightening.
2. Republicans keep the house and/or Senate, and Regulation or Anti-Trust suits ramp up since half the country has no voice online anymore.
3. SV returns to the first amendment, does a 180 degree turn, and only purges illegal speech like libel, slander, threats, etc.
> There really is no alternative to the current crop of tech giants
This is a truth. The current laws haven't done a good job at modernising and adapting to the influence these tech giants have and how they operate.
> and are all extremely left-leaning
Here's the question worth considering: Are they extremely/abnormally left leaning, or is the world getting more left leaning? What makes them left leaning? Because they advocate for general social issues like treating humans as equals and with dignity and respect?
Banning Infowars isnt banning conservative views - its banning abhorrent hate speech. Calling Sandy Hook "completely fake" and "manufactured" and saying that the kids from Stoneman Douglas High School are crisis actors isn't "right wing" or conservative.
I'm not here to defend Jones, but I'd rather live in a world where people decide to avoid objectionable sources on their own, instead of some big brother or sister making that decision for me.
I see the world of information like an immune system. If your system is active and repelling threats, it gets stronger. If you are never allowed to see actual threats, your system atrophies and you become the intellectual equivalent of a native American when a European colonialist shows up at your door. Bad ideas from your own side will come some day, and if your big brother has been suppressing dissent enough, you'll accept those bad ideas like a lemming off a cliff.
I don't see this some "big brother" making decisions for you, but rather people at Apple, Youtube, etc making decisions about what objectionable content they want on their sites.
Having the basic right of internet access being treated as a public utility would help greatly with these issues, I agree. It would help with monopolies and issues with regulation.
Of course, I don't see such an opinion being particularly welcomed here.
A chunk of the basic infrastructure of the internet is free just out of sheer luck (good willed inventors and founders).
