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Comment by ekianjo | Hacker News Reader

Funny, the Verge did not complain as much when Parler was taken down in concert in the matter of 2 days. So much for defending the "open internet".

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To be fair, the distinction here is about actions by a government, versus actions by private entities. Opposition to the government banning a website does not necessarily mean that you would oppose private companies refusing to provide service to a bad actor.

At the behest of the government, no doubt. The Twitter Files show that the real situation is a lot more messy.

Large internet "infrastructure" businesses are in partnership with government officials, so I have no reason to believe that the Parler takedown was anything but political censorship. Maybe not technically, but definitely in spirit and effect - and after all, that's all that really matters.

The internet is largely made up of private companies. If Comcast decides to not route traffic to you there is nothing you can do. Private companies are the ones who decide if the internet is open or closed. The government can influence these companies behaviour, but companies technically can do what they want.

When I was growing up behind the Iron Curtain, we had a joke: in communism, the companies are owned by the government. In capitalism, it is the other way around.

On this topic, the point is, that something is banned by someone with the appropriate means. It doesn't really matter whether it is government or private enterprise, because they meet in the backroom and coordinate their steps anyway. In the end, it doesn't matter who's initiative it was, who did the execution, but the purpose and result itself.

The distinction Verge used was that of "friend" and "enemy"

Parler was taken down because the companies that hosted their services no longer wished to because of the content on the platform. This is complete incomparable with a piece of legislation.

Follow the money.

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