Posted on 05/03/2018 10:56:10 AM PDT by C19fan
The Heritage Foundation will defend Facebook’s legal right as a “private company” to censor content and will oppose attempts to regulate the tech giant, according to the think tank’s senior research fellow for technology, Klon Kitchen. In an interview with Breitbart News, Kitchen argued that as a private company, Facebook has the right to censor content at will, although he strongly cautioned the social network against a censorious approach.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Capitalism is not a suicide pact.
They should at least be required to announce their censorship routines to the public and to specifically declare the extent of their political censorship. Otherwise, they are engaging in fraud on their users. Users have a fight to know whether they are being discriminsted against politically.
Agreed. If a handful of private companies can control speech on the internet, the First Amendment is dead.
These idiots are going to get us hoisted on the petard of our own virtue, Alinsky-syle.
The Internet is a Common space, a company should be able to provide a place to congregate, but not Regulate what is said among those that gather. Kinda simple.
I don’t want Facebook regulated. I want them sued. A class action by non-members who’ve had their privacy violated without their consent.
Face Book, and the others, use publicly owned transmission venues.
They are not nearly so ‘private’ as they pretend to be.
They are a utility, and subject to regulation.
Example: A dinner provides a product and a place for people to meet and enjoy a meal, and the company of friends, it does not have the right to regulate the political views of its customers.
How about some enterprising conservative start his own version of Facebook? He could censor leftist loonies.
I’d sign on to that. They should have that stuck to them.
(I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve played one on TV.)
I’m old enough to remember BEFORE Heritage Foundation went Deep State Globalist.
IOW outlaw any competition to Facebook. Bad idea.
“Capitalism is not a suicide pact.
But you still have no right to engage in what is essentially the nationalization of a private entity either.
Facebook should be pressured to state their intentions up-front, and people that dont like what those are can start their own Facebook clone.
“They are a utility, and subject to regulation.”
Are you serious?
Then FR is a “utility” and can be regulated.
Utilities are subject to regulation because they are granted a monopoly by the government. I don't want the government to grant Facebook monopoly status and thereby limit any competition.
No.
Facebook is an online service. They are not the only online social network website. If you choose to use their services, you have to agree to their terms and conditions.
If you don’t want your private information exposed to the world, and sold to the highest paying company, sign up for some other social networking site that doesn’t invade your privacy.
Individuals are free to run their own companies as they see fit, including establishing membership rules of their services. Simply returning to a correct understanding and enforcement of the First Amendment would go a long way to restoring equality.
A baker is supposed to be able to set rules for his business. Why should a stupid business like Facebook be prohibited from operating under its own rules? These two matters are the same. Simple uniformity in these matters is the only workable solution.
There are alternatives. They don't work well with censorship however because it devolves into an echo chamber run by zealots. Better to have the members sort it out the way Freepers do here.
“The US gov’t should declare Facebook a common carrier and explicitly prohibit it from censorship. “
Facebook is a website, not a communication platform.
And where does the federal government derive the authority to do this anyway?
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