Breaking: Facebook is violating your free speech rights!

Regardless, there is no right to post on FB.

 

I am breathless by your wisdom. (I am gagging in other words)

 

I'm curious as to why you keep ducking my questions. Surely you can proffer a factual argument?

 

What if your cell provider screened your text messages and only delivered those they approve of?

 

That's a good question, however... Moving the goalposts: text/email is a private comunication therefore not rationally-related to the topic.

That said, they have every right to do it if the user TOS stipulate to that effect. The only caveat is that the FCC could have oversight as we have allowed the state to claim it owns the "airwaves," and mobile communication is governed under that umbrella whereas websites are not.

 

It probably wouldn’t be illegal, but they would not stay in business for long.

 

I never claimed there was. I just want our representatives to clear up the supposed differences so we can get on with suing the hell out of each other

Next up is piercing the qualified immunity veil of our representatives speech

 

Not quite. You can send a mass SMS and all can be forwarded. There is nothing private about SMS. Of course, cell phones are considered a utility. It would be unacceptable to allow a utility to sensor our communications, right?

Based on volume, is it fair to say that communications through social media are at least equal to those through SMS?

 

Yep. They are not the government.

Now that being said normally the marketplace would deal with this type of situation. However they have become almost a utility. I recall recently one Dem spoke of breaking up Facebook so people had more options. The problem there is I have couple of hundred friends and families or long ago friends I communicate with, used to use it to book gigs and advertise gigs, selling a amp today I sold on the marketplace (and getting a new guitar with the proceeds tomorrow!!), groups I belong to etc etc. If it was split up I'd have to follow all those others sites in order to have that much outreach and notifications.

Of course then the problem of the censorship and bias by their "factcheckers" which probably themselves don't know a lot of facts by some of the censorship I have seen them engage.

So what is the solution?

 

Wow. The number of false allegations all contained in such a short para.... Um... so, your theory is to just break up facebook? Into what?

More importantly though, if you can demonstrate that FB is a monopoly, by all means, get that wart in court. Fast. Does it bother you that FB doesn't have enough power to push a narrative already?

 

So you want government to regulate FB so FB will censor more folks? Is that your goal? Cause it sure sounds like it.

 

No, I want Facebook to go out of business.

I do think there needs to be better regulation of Social Media in general, but I don’t care what you think about it, so I didn’t bother bringing that up.

 

All valid points -- though I disagree about FB being a utility. It is hardly essential.

This doesn't mean I agree with their practices:
Their covert manipulation of public opinion through the algorithm is abhorrent. Caveat emptor. I think that applies even more when something is "free."

My suggestion -- since you aksed -- is to err on the side of liberty: ALWAYS. And to reject statism and to reject compulsion to act under the threat of the state's monopoly on force. ALWAYS. There are always unintended consequences. ALWAYS.

The biggest consequence in my view is when people of good will abandon their principles in exchange for a little comfort. Eventually you end up with neither.

As the man far smarter than me likes to say: Careful what you wish for.

 

I would always err on the side of liberty. ALWAYS. And agaisnt the side of compulsion to act under the threat of the state's monopoly on force.

 

Facebook counts nearly half the world's population as its user base. It will be around long after we're worm food.

 

Not sure what your point is.

Facebook and most social media in its current form is bad for people’s mental health. It’s got nothing to do with politics.

 

That your wish to see it go out of business will be a pipe dream until they throw dirt in your face and lower you into the ground in a box.

What? Politics? Where did I mention politics in my reply to you???

 

No platform if required to publish your views for you either. All of them are free to have terms of service and to enforce them. The hatred that the far right has for private property rights and for actual 1st Amendment rights is complete nonsense.

 

Facebook can do what they want. Govt should of course revoke their protections as a 'public forum' since they are obviously in the business of censoring certain opinions, but as a private company, doing so is certainly their right. Just as it is my right to separate myself from their services, which I did years ago and highly recommend it.

 

ALMOST a utility, not that they are one now. The problem with your suggestion is they have no obligation to act accordingly, we are left with they will do as they please.

 

100%.

 

Why are they obliged to anyone but their shareholders?

 

Nothing about Facebook or its policies bothers me. I don't use it, it doesn't use me.

 

If your assertion is true, then there is nothing for rightwingers to be whining about, except the total lack of entrepreneurial initiative in fellow rightwingers.

 

Right, Left, 31.25deg off center, anyone can do it.