What if I’m enthusiastically against censorship and enthusiastically for deplatforming in cases like Trump? Which makes me strongly dislike the news in the post.
Deplatforming/cancelling is person C _asking_ person A not to communicate with person B, under threat of person C no longer communicating with person A.
Your statement is not true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship
"Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies."
> controlling bodies
My point still holds. Asking a company to deplatform someone under threat of boycott is not censorship; because no individual user is in control of the platform.
So, according to the wiki definition, it states multiple times, all over that article, that private companies can censor people, and it fits with in that definition.
> a company to deplatform
A private institution can absolutely censor people though.
So what you are describing is an individual advocating in favor of censorship.
Here is another quote from the article " It may be carried out by governments or by private organizations either at the behest of government or on their own initiative."
The company is choosing to narrow its market focus; it tried to facilitate person's B and C, but C is forcing them to choose.
That's curation, not censorship.
No it isn't. It is literally the definition that is on wikipedia. That is a very good authority on definitions for things.
> At that point "censorship" is diluted to have no meaning beyond curation.
Sure it does. The meaning is quite clear in the article, which is a relevant authority on the issue.
Private companies can censor people. That is the definition, and the relevant authorities on the matter agree that it is.
Most definitions that you find with agree with me that private companies can censor people. This is not controversial, and most definitions agree with me.
No actually. According to the wikipedia definition on censorship, there is no requirement to be a monopoly, in order for a private business to engage in censorship.
Instead, according to the actual definition of censorship, censorship is any sort of "suppression of speech, public communication, or other information", and private, non-monopolies can absolutely engage in censorship.
You are simply incorrect about what the definition of censorship is. The actual definitions, that are all over the place, do not require a monopoly.
Even your example of deplatforming is a very questionable practice, for instance it is often used by cults like Jehovah Witnesses to disallow followers talking with family members who leave the cult.
Cults and similar certainly do use their ability to sever association to control their membership, but making that step and severing those bonds frees those same members from the harm of the cult.
If we include social media service providers into "cancellation" wars the result will be too costly for the society, so we need better ways to fight against nationalists. Sacrificing freedom of speech to a group applying unknown rules, without a mechanism to appeal, will be harmful in the long run, even though this time it have produced a result we like.
We must provide social media services with protected freedoms, or we risk impinging upon the freedoms of its users. Users must be free to choose social media which allows them to _not_ associate or communicate with those they do not wish to. Nor should we compel them to support speech that they do not wish to, for similar reasons.
If your concern is whether certain legal speech may be effectively completely deplatformed, then may I suggest the solution is federated social networking and not to impugn the freedom of association.
it's a big hard to grasp, but just because you are for something doesn't mean you can't be against an individual participating in the thing you're for doing bad stuff.
Being intolerant of the representative of somewhere between 20% and 40% of the country (accounting for turnout) is not a sustainable strategy. Ignoring even 10% of a country is a recipe for great pain.
That said, I'm still conflicted about this. I think it's possible to believe both that 1) there is a material threat of violence from continuing to give the president the equivalent of a giant megaphone, and 2) giving private corporations unilateral decisions-making power over who gets a platform is probably not in the long-term best interests of democracy.
- Noam Chomsky