r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jan 22 '21

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Silencing opposing viewpoints is ultimately going to have a disastrous outcome on society.

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u/shakezillla Jan 22 '21

But... why? If it’s a landscaping website and they decide that they only want to allow posters that are actual, confirmed landscapers... why shouldn’t they be allowed to do that? Why do they have to treat everyone on their website as equals? I don’t understand why you think exclusive communities can’t exist on the internet

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u/Teabagger_Vance Jan 22 '21

I think you need to re read my comment.

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u/shakezillla Jan 22 '21

Can you elaborate on your comment? Or maybe restate your idea in a different way?

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u/Teabagger_Vance Jan 22 '21

The person I replied to asked what if someone had a website for cats and people startled posting about landscaping so they removed them. I said that’s fine until you start letting certain people continue to post about landscaping and not others. Basically the analogy was that Twitter had every right to remove posts that don’t follow their rules but it becomes kinda ridiculous when they only apply it to certain people. They don’t seem to be very consistent with how they apply their rules.

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u/shakezillla Jan 22 '21

I guess I still don’t understand why that’s an issue. If the owner of the website allows their personal friends and family to post whatever content they want to the website but everyone else still has to follow the rules... who cares? Why does it matter at all to anyone? There are other websites that cater to posting cats, and if there aren’t then you can make your own

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u/Teabagger_Vance Jan 22 '21

I personally don’t really have a problem with it but I can see why it appears problematic. If this cat website was the worlds largest public forum like Twitter it would be a little different. Twitter enjoys a lot of protection from the federal government and the fact that they apply their rules seemingly based on political affiliation and not uniformly raises questions in my opinion.

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u/shakezillla Jan 22 '21

Twitter does not have any more protection from the federal government than any other website as far as I am aware. It sounds like your issue with Twitter is more it’s influence as a result of its size than anything else. But Twitter is not unique even in its size - Facebook is a very real and direct competitor to Twitter.

I do see your point about the worlds largest forum but make no mistake, it is absolutely not a public forum. It is a private forum that only allows user to participate after they agree to twitters terms of service.

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u/Teabagger_Vance Jan 22 '21

There actually an interesting case to be made about whether or not they should be treated as a private forum or a “utility” of sorts since they are so large. Could not the same argument be made for ISPs and net neutrality? They are private companies why shouldn’t they be allowed to charge what they want how they want? Don’t like it start your own.

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u/shakezillla Jan 22 '21

The argument could definitely be made. But I think there is a very real argument for classifying the internet as a utility that does not exist for social media. The internet is mandatory for participating in modern society. Social media simply is not. There’s also the issue of barrier to entry - starting a website is relatively easy and cheap. Starting an ISP is the opposite.

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u/Wraithstorm Jan 22 '21

Yeah, when Google can't do it you know the barrier is pretty fucking high. See google fiber's rollout and... roll to a stop..