“Well, excuse me if I’m not too enthused about conservatives talking about bringing private businesses “to heel” by granting more power to the federal government.”
Correcting the censorship and bad behavior of the social media giants doesn’t require government handlers to running their businesses. All that needs to be done is to codify the rights of users and open legal avenues for victims of censorship or other abuses to seek restitution via lawsuits.
Also the government, via antitrust laws, can have Twitter broken up into four or more companies and stipulate that all of their user’s Tweets appear in the same digital commons - that their apps and websites must show the other companies’s Tweets. That way they would have to compete for users based on value and customer service. When the Feds broke up Ma Bell in the 1980s they made them all support each other’s calls seamlessly and we were all the better for it.
Don’t try to tell me that you liked Ma Bell, The breakup of AT&T was the best thing ever happened to phone service. How would you like it if your phone calls were censored for language and content and you could be booted off of your carrier for having views they don’t like or for calling ‘the wrong people’ or does that not compute?
“Correcting the censorship and bad behavior of the social media giants doesn’t require government handlers to running their businesses.”
Sorry, but the only censorship I really care much about is government censorship. So-called censorship by private businesses is a pretty standard part of private property rights, not some actionable abuse against the citizenry.
“Also the government, via antitrust laws, can have Twitter broken up into four or more companies...”
Yeah, I doubt that’s going to happen since nothing they have done really seems to violate antitrust laws. Maybe you’d have a case with google/youtube installing their own apps on Android phones as that is similar to what Microsoft got dinged for but even then, the courts didn’t break up Micosoft for that, and they probably wouldn’t break up google either.
“...or does that not compute?”
No, I just don’t think there is any real comparison between a company like Twitter and Ma Bell. Ma Bell would be more akin to an ISP, except there is plenty of competition among ISPs already. Twitter is just one more private business among thousands offering services over the internet that those ISPs (the carriers) give you access to. They don’t control your access to the network, they only control your access to their own proprietary service. If you get booted off Twitter, there are still thousands and thousands of other ways for you to communicate on the internet.