So you won’t mind if your phone company or email provider monitors what you say and blocks anything that might offend the average Berkeley professor? They too are private companies, you know.
UPS and Fedex opening your mail and packages to make sure they approve the political implications of the contents? Any problem with that?
If you’re smart you’ll respond that all those companies have a measure of legal protection as common carriers, meaning they generally aren’t responsible for user content, and therefore they have no legal basis for censoring user content.
On the other hand, if a publisher puts out a book with illegal content such as classified information or kiddie porn, it’s presumed the publisher had pre-emptive editorial control over the content and is legally responsible.
If Facebook and Youtube and the others want to be publishers instead of common carriers, so be it, but that makes them responsible for every jot and tittle of the content on their platforms. May a horde of barracuda lawyers descend on them and strip their bones clean, for in their blind hate they have exposed an undefended flank.
If what I’m saying on the phone or in e-mail reflect in anyway on them it’s cause they screwed up. The companies that kicked Jones off what he was saying via their websites was reflecting on them. And they chose not to have that. In the end this is no different than a magazine not running a piece. Which we all know they have the right to do.
Facebook and youtube have ALWAYS been publishers. And yes they ARE responsible for every jot, that’s WHY they dumped Jones.