When the public square falls under the control of private enterprise, then the 1st applies and that is exactly what these platforms are nowadays: the public square.
When the public square falls under the control of private enterprise
These services are not the public square. Whoever sold you this nonsensical premise is not only incorrect, but completely blind to the reality of this situation.
The town square still exists. The problem is that some fools tried to replace it with a service that has abusive, tyrannical rules. Rules that all of the fools agreed to be governed by. And are now crying about. Despite being warned about this very thing by those in the know. For like a decade now.
And some of you are still ignoring the truth!
The town square never did this to you. The service did. You chose the service over the town square.
Now take you licks, and learn your lesson. Do not make this same mistake ever again.
Read the terms before agreeing. If you do not agree, then do not use the service. It can't be explained any more clearly than this.
The flip side of this coin is the fact that this "revelation" that I am telling you, which you should have known yourself if you were not so lazy as to have clicked agree to horribly abusive terms, is that no government regulations are needed at all here! All we need are consumers who stop following the herd off the cliff. We simply need smart consumers that make choices based on virtuous principles, instead of apathy and laziness.
What if only half of the service users had done even a single iota of research and critical thinking, and instead of following the herd, had looked into alt services? It would have helped those alt services grow, and would have signaled to the market that the users wanted something better. And alt services would have spring up to meet that demand.
Which is exactly what we are seeing now as mass exodus continues to bleed away users from big tech, and alt services pop up to fill the needs.
Instead we had mass delusion, sheep-droids following the herd into the abyss. If you feel anything other than shame for defending this debacle, you have some serious introspection ahead of you.
Except they are the public square, and there's precedent to call them as such.
All your ranting doesn't change this fact, the monopoly power big tech has over the 21st century version of the public square must be stopped and useful idiots such as yourself are only aiding their authoritarianism.
Demonstrably false. Whatever the "public square" equated to before the service existed, still exists now. The public square did not turn into a service. The service fooled people into using the service instead of the public square.
Read that over and over until you see the reality. If the "public square" was essentially your ability to go to a pub and talk to strangers and share ideas, then that never changed.
What some people did, is to elect a 3rd party, who had very abusive terms, to replace the public square. These people did this despite being warned about how foolish it was. They reveled in it, ignored constant examples of abuse, and even now still defend their abusers. Because they themselves are addicted to the service now.
The public square never did that to you, by the way.
You have it completely inverted. The only power these services have is the continual march of lemmings off the cliff. The perpetually lazy consumers who can't even read terms before they agree to them. The brainwashed masses who do anything, as long as it is popular, despite clear ethical and moral issues, even after major warnings from the likes of Snowden and countless others that told you this was all coming.
This all stops when the users wake up, and stop consuming the service. Any other solution is futile and perpetuates the problem.
You're the one who doesn't seem to understand.
When the public square falls under the control of private enterprise, then the 1st applies and that is exactly what these platforms are nowadays: the public square.
These services are not the public square. Whoever sold you this nonsensical premise is not only incorrect, but completely blind to the reality of this situation.
The town square still exists. The problem is that some fools tried to replace it with a service that has abusive, tyrannical rules. Rules that all of the fools agreed to be governed by. And are now crying about. Despite being warned about this very thing by those in the know. For like a decade now.
And some of you are still ignoring the truth!
The town square never did this to you. The service did. You chose the service over the town square.
Now take you licks, and learn your lesson. Do not make this same mistake ever again.
Read the terms before agreeing. If you do not agree, then do not use the service. It can't be explained any more clearly than this.
The flip side of this coin is the fact that this "revelation" that I am telling you, which you should have known yourself if you were not so lazy as to have clicked agree to horribly abusive terms, is that no government regulations are needed at all here! All we need are consumers who stop following the herd off the cliff. We simply need smart consumers that make choices based on virtuous principles, instead of apathy and laziness.
What if only half of the service users had done even a single iota of research and critical thinking, and instead of following the herd, had looked into alt services? It would have helped those alt services grow, and would have signaled to the market that the users wanted something better. And alt services would have spring up to meet that demand.
Which is exactly what we are seeing now as mass exodus continues to bleed away users from big tech, and alt services pop up to fill the needs.
Instead we had mass delusion, sheep-droids following the herd into the abyss. If you feel anything other than shame for defending this debacle, you have some serious introspection ahead of you.
Except they are the public square, and there's precedent to call them as such.
All your ranting doesn't change this fact, the monopoly power big tech has over the 21st century version of the public square must be stopped and useful idiots such as yourself are only aiding their authoritarianism.
Demonstrably false. Whatever the "public square" equated to before the service existed, still exists now. The public square did not turn into a service. The service fooled people into using the service instead of the public square.
Read that over and over until you see the reality. If the "public square" was essentially your ability to go to a pub and talk to strangers and share ideas, then that never changed.
What some people did, is to elect a 3rd party, who had very abusive terms, to replace the public square. These people did this despite being warned about how foolish it was. They reveled in it, ignored constant examples of abuse, and even now still defend their abusers. Because they themselves are addicted to the service now.
The public square never did that to you, by the way.
This all stops when the users wake up, and stop consuming the service. Any other solution is futile and perpetuates the problem.
Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501
Now take your ranting idiocy somewhere else