I don't understand this Twitter / "free speech" nonsense in the sense that Twitter is a privately-owned platform, it is not a public square. Long ago it was made clear that "public" areas owned by private companies like shopping malls are not places where free speech can be had. So uh why would restricting speech in a virtual privately-owned public area be any different?
@mairin I agree, but I think it got complicated when Twitter became a primary way citizens receive information from and convey free speech political opinions to their government representatives, without the government first securing the kinds of public interest rules that have long existed (imperfectly, but existed) for other forms of private media carrying public messages. So now we have a weird hybrid public/private thing that is very bad.
@mairin Yeah I mean strictly looking at the private citizen to private citizen stuff on Twitter, it's not a free speech issue to me -- you're writing on someone else's computer -- like the newspaper, you can go start your own site. *But* because there are high profile public official presences on Twitter, I think there may be free speech issues there. It really is similar to your shopping mall example, and the cases about protests at the military recruiting offices that are inside malls.
@johns Well that's *also* an issue in meatspace, and the way courts have gone is to enforce the private ownership of the physical space over the right to free speech / public protest citing the (say) shopping mall as not being a public space. So to me it's amusing to see the large private company wanting to be a privately owned public space when most private spaces fight to be considered non public.
@johns It's not good or right that public spaces are privately-owned thus limiting where free speech can be exercised - but - it's also the status quo
@mairin Yesterday's news made me think of this again, just a reminder to me that while it's fun and interesting to talk about the ethical / constitutional principles involved, it's not really what any of this is about -- the people touting free speech are trying to control others' speech too (and more, I think, and for selfish-er purposes), they are just less honest about it: https://www.engadget.com/twitter-suspends-journalists-who-cover-elon-musk-015038157.html?src=rss
@johns In a way though I hope the undeniable grossness of this whole thing provides some awareness that public spaces shouldn't be privately-owned??
@mairin Yeah I hope so too. We're seeing high profile journalists and press outlets posting officially from Mastodon now, good start.
@mairin and also I think there may be a need for enforced separation between the entity running the platform and the entity(ies) doing moderation.
@johns Is the newspaper / 4th estate another? Bc nor just anybody gets to "speak" in the newspaper. An editor has to allow it. There's the whole sense of journalistic integrity / practices. But Twitter is weird in that it occupies a similar purpose of informing like a newspaper but anyone can "contribute" a story and the RTs sort of show a collective editorial approval from other users (all manipulatable tho ofc) - so is journalism free speech or not?