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That may have been the original intent of social media back in the Myspace/Geocities era of the early 2000s, but it hasn't been that way for a long time now. It's where the majority of Americans go to get their news, where governments make official announcements (see articles about how some government agencies were scrambling for alternatives when it looked like Twitter might go under last week), etc. All of that predates COVID or even the 2016 election.
And I don't think that the government "compelled" Facebook or Twitter to do anything. They did ask that those companies take action to limit the spread of misinformation, but I don't recall any threats of consequences - ultimately, there's not a whole lot that the government can do to companies on that scale.
So you'd agree that big social media outlets have become quasi "state actors" then?
Which, by some past precedent established, means they have to play by a certain set of rules with regards to not being able to play favorites in certain realms that ties into a previous point I made.
If these social media companies are really serving those important public functions, then they shouldn't be able to specifically formulate Terms of Service that explicitly favor one political faction over another.
With regards to compelling companies to do something...not sure about you, but if I was the head of a company and got called up to get grilled by the Senate (one of the legislative bodies that can make their operations difficult in a variety of ways, from tax implications, to regulatory burdens that can make it miserable for them to operate), I would certainly see that as a "message" being sent.
The other problematic aspect was the fact that large entities were all aligned politically, and arguably colluded in some ways.
For instance, we heard "Twitter is a private company, if you don't like it, go make your own Twitter"
And when someone did (or tried to), they said "yeah, sorry, but our friends at apple and google are going to remove your app from their app stores, and our buddies at Amazon are going to take away your webhosting"
I just want a consistent set of rules to be followed.
If they're going to be a platform, and one that's used for certain "state actor" purposes (like ISPs and Phone companies), then they need to play by the rules associated with those two roles.
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