Maybe it is a human right for any social network or public forum on the internet to not take away the rights of particular private citizens to speak freely just because their opinions are not endorsed by the site owners or may be unpopular.
That's how I see it.
Then you must endorse government regulation of social media sights. And I can assure you that is fraught with danger. We once had it with television. Still do in fact. Broadcast television is bound by the equal time doctrine. That is why you see a democratic rebuttal to the State of the Union address. But what about Fox News or MSNBC. Both are highly partisan. They exist only because they are not regulated by the government and are deemed private property. Free speech means free to control content. It has to. Otherwise it is not free. Should I be required to allow someone to trash me on my own website? Or the people I love? Or the causes I embrace?
Should Mark Zuckerberg be required by law to allow people to essentially spend his money on things he dislikes or politically opposes?
The free market has made much on MSNBC more popular than Fox for the first time in a long time. Trump did it almost single-handedly.
Facebook is trying to avoid being regulated. They are not forwarding a political opinion. They can see the proverbial handwriting on the wall. They are going to be regulated as a utility and when that happens......bye profits. (Or rather bye huge profits and hello moderate controlled profits. And goodby innovation.) Or broken up as a monopoly.
I want either number one, or number two.
A mix of these two just results in the selective use of "free association" to discriminate against groups.
That is weaseling. You don't get it. I reject the pie shop analogy of course. It is a meaningless triviality. This is something else. Facebook and Twitter are for-profit entities. They sell advertising. Increasingly they sell information about individuals. Highly precise information.
Everyone ought to be very afraid. They aren't. Before they know it this information will be used in ways that are little short of Orwellian. Already job applications ask for social media sites. Your open political position is routinely used to determine whether or not you are hired. We have all become public people whether we intended it or not. I have chosen not to be associated with people because their views on Facebook are distasteful to me.
Here is the thing Verve. I have seen both of our views change dramatically on this forum. Though we are nominally anonymous here all of our posts now and back many years are permanently public. Do you wish to be associated with the things you said here 10 years ago? More to the point, do you think that an employer (or potential girlfriend for that matter) would carefully study the transition in your views and values? Nope. They will extract the outrageous and decide whether they want their brand associated with those views. As we used to say in the Army, you never hear the bullet that gets you.
So here is the deal. We have, as a world, largely chosen to be public people. But what if you chose to be more private? Well you can't and use the internet at all. Every click is quantified and associated with you. Just clicking on Pat Roberts or Bernie Sanders puts a vote in that column of your personal record. A record that is accessible (for money) and indelible. You can opt out of Facebook. My wife did. So her click preference is accrued to my Facebook account as she keeps tabs on our friends and acquaintances.
Should the world be allowed to search my name and find out that I got a ticket in 1975? It can now. Should it be allowed to see a list of my associates and everywhere I have ever lived for a single dollar? Should a company be allowed to give me a "reputation score" without allowing me to dispute it or correct the record? Or even delete it? All under the guise that it is "public record".
This problem goes far beyond the particularities of Facebook or Twitter. We are on the precipice. The EU already is doing something about it. The US, no longer being a real democracy as a practical matter, has not and we own the tech. You need to stand up Verve. No waffling. Pick a side.
@SolarCross Net neutrality is about censorship. Slow or give preference to search results or websites and you control content and in the most insidious way.