on social media bias

TL;DR: conservatives have strong reasons to believe social media platforms are biased against them, to the point where they believe their free speech rights are being restricted.  i assert that not only is their point moot, but their conclusions are incorrect due to the premise of their argument being flawed.  social media platforms are only enforcing the terms of service that users have agreed to, and whether or not they exhibit a bias is their right to do, and users are free to use another platform. contrary to what conservatives believe, modern social media platforms do not restrict their free speech, nor do they restrict access to complete and truthful information.

ok so now the conservatives are amping up their whining about how social media is biased, and silences conservative voices, and all that hogwash.

and i'm not saying it's "hogwash" because i don't think it's true.  it very well may be true.  

in a recent joe rogan podcast, jack dorsey himself admitted that, collectively, the staff who do Terms Enforcement work tend to personally bend a bit to the left.  doesn't mean twitter is biased against the right.  it could be that they are.  maybe they're not.  they probably are.

point is... that point is moot.

the social media giants, facebook and twitter for example, created their platforms, they own the hardware, software, and database.  they have Terms of Service, that people agree to when anyone chooses to use their FREE service.  most don't read them.  but just because you don't read them, doesn't mean they don't apply to you.  in fact, you're well within your rights to not read the Terms of Service, but then you can't go whining when your post gets blocked, or you're suspended or banned for breaking the Terms.

and what does it mean to break the Terms of Service?

well, it means whatever the platform says it means.  some violations are intuitively obvious to the casual observer.  some are a bit more arbitrary, depending on the mood of the person making the decision.  either way, it's mostly gray space and subjective.

let's get back to the point being moot...

the reason their bias against the right, even if it does exist (and good chance it does), is moot, is because as a platform they own, they can make the rules the way they want, they can enforce the rules the way they want, and, except for cases where they are actually breaking the law, they are well within their freedom to do so.

you will hear those on the right claiming that their 1A rights are being violated.

no.

the 1A prohibits the GOVERNMENT from restricting your speech.  just the government.  twitter and facebook are not restricting your right to free speech anyway, just free speech on their platform.

you will hear those on the right claiming that they are being censored.  

no.

if by censored, you mean editorial control, then yes, they are exerting editorial control according to Terms of Use they wrote, and all users agreed to.  all websites that allow community interaction do this.

you will hear your "facebook lawyer" friends telling you all about "section 230" and how it unfairly shields twitter from libel lawsuits, and once they mark or block any tweets, they become a "publisher", as responsible for the content as the author.

no.

social media sites have been given reasonable latitude to set and enforce terms of service, and can take action against content they feel is inappropriate.  so unless you want the entire internet to devolve into 8chan, we're all well-served to let platform operators do this kind of policing.  google has been doing this for years, for example, actively removing the most vile, inhumane, violent, and disgusting content from its image search results.  i'm guessing most people aren't even aware of how content has been removed from access from thousands of sites and platforms without them knowing, and being better off for it.

when someone commits libel that appears in a newspaper, it makes sense that the newspaper should be considered part of that liability, because every single word and image in a newspaper was directly and actively edited to be there.  on the other hand, the velocity of twitter content is about 8,000 tweets per second.  there is no practical way for some twitter editorial review board to actively edit in or edit out a tweet before it is posted.  

section 230 does NOT protect twitter against libel that they themselves commit, but if you believe someone has committed libel against you, posted to twitter, then sue the libeler.  sue the owner of the content.  sue the libeler, not the delivery mechanism, any more than you would sue the post office for a letter someone wrote you that hurt your feelings.

while it's true that new tech is an evolving part of the law, we need to mold it so that the law, as it grows, works for us.  and that doesn't mean that we should use the law to force a political angle that agrees with our feelings.  we cannot write laws for social media that use the old newspaper framework.  it's different.  it cannot be all-or-none.  it cannot be left with "the moment you mark or block one thing, that makes you responsible for everything".  that doesn't scale.  the best they can do is police reactively based on reports and on constantly improving algorithms. 

but like a newspaper, and like individual people, social media platforms are allowed to have free speech and a political bias and agenda.  if you don't agree with it, don't use it.  forcing political thoughts and actions onto people is anti-american.

you will hear those on the right claiming that twitter and facebook are monopolies and should be investigated by the government and broken up, sprinkling in words like "anti-trust" and "Sherman Act".

no.

it's very important to remember here, that twitter and facebook are FREE services, and that you are *not the customer* in this scenario.  you are in fact the product being sold.  if you don't like the bias, and you don't like your data being sold, you can close your account and go literally ANYWHERE else on the whole world wide web and have the same access to the internet.

as with any business, its loyalty is to the owner, stockholders, and anyone else with a stake in the business. 

it is in their best interest to also provide loyalty to its customers.  and by "customers", again, i don't mean YOU, i mean its advertisers.  the advertisers are the customers who are paying to gain access to the product.  and by "product", again, i mean YOU.

and because you are not the customer, you are the product being sold, and you're not paying a dime to use the service, and you can go anywhere else, or build your own platform, any crying or whining you do is as valuable as crying and whining is.  which as most conservative agree, crying and whining aren't worth anything.  kind of like "liberal tears".  ;-)

ok... my turn.

conservatives love the crushing and erasing of big government regulations.  businesses work best when they are left alone to do their business without government getting in the way.

i mean, right?

you can tell a lot about conservatives by paying attention to situations where they want big government regulation to be crushed, and when conservatives want big government regulation to crush *you*.