So, on the top of the acceptable so called "censorship" - it's basically platforms and media moderating content published there. It is better when they have their own criteria, more conservative than the legal framework, in order to keep content in line with their goals/agendas.
Under this fall, e. g., news portals moderating comments under their articles and hand-picking their staff and guest authors who are being published on it.
It also applies to fringe portals; Breitbart has a full authority to censor me if I go nuts and decide to comment there.
I will mention here free market for the first time. Free market provides and private media (unlike one owned by the state) are not expected to be unbiased. There are obviously issues with that too, but it's less of a problem than not having them like that.
So, you get it. You run a platform where you publish your content and you want to try and benefit from your consumers' engagement. Please, by all means, do moderate it. I don't care where you are on the political or social spectrum - moderate the hell out of it.
In the same category, on top of it together with media outlets, are *independent* forums or all kinds - whether independent web forums run by one soul in mother's basement or niche groups.
For example, I don't want to hang out on keyboard users forums if political topics there are not at least isolated, if not overall banned. I also don't need mechanical keyboards users discussing global warming or promoting anti-vaccine agendas there.
So, these need to moderate their content, for legal and reasons which are factoring in their ability to survive on the market. It's equivalent of you being able to decide what happens in your own living room.
Arguably in the same category, but on the slightly more slippery slope, are mashup advertising/media outlets which don't produce their content at all but rely on 3rd parties to generate it and engage around it. Those are all of your mainstream "social networks".
Quote marks there because there is little social about it. Widespread acceptance of Facebook and even Twitter made them in turn "social", but they are shops where you are the product. You need to always understand that. They own content. They own this rant of mine.
So, I've been wrong before, but I don't see an issue of them also moderating the content on their platform, in any direction. As we've seen in the last decade, they *will not* moderate content for your sake, but for the sake of their advertisers.
Advertisers, in turn, are more or less picky on where they advertise, based on the input from their own customers. It's kind of the "free market provides" thing. And while today you might agree with the direction of it, tomorrow you might not (or vice versa).
But it doesn't change the fact that they have absolute right to moderate their platforms. If you like that concept now, just remember to not cry "tomorrow" when it comes up to, as I've already said, bite you on your ass.
These platforms are not here for you, they are here to serve current market trends. Market trends were fuelling the political moderation last 4 years - it wasn't opportunistic to ban Trump and his terror org here until it finally made a full move.
Market didn't care if deplorables planned it here whole time. Twitter, Facebook and the rest of the gang did not start banning the actors of the terror org just because they crossed the final red line.
They banned them because they've shoot themselves in the leg and crossed lines acceptable to the - market.
You may not like their motivation, but you might like the outcome. I can tell you outright that if you're in that group - you need to rethink your position.
But overall, Twitter, Facebook, et. al., have the full right to ban Trump and his terror org. But also, tomorrow they have full right to ban you; or me or anyone else for that matter.
They are *still* only market entities and not essential service.
GOP-sphere is having a meltdown over terror org members being banned here, but Chinese and Iranian state and state sponsored players not. They are kinda right, but they don't understand - free market right now cares about eradicating the Trump terror org.
So to cut this short, although I could likely write a novel on why you need to follow the principles when you cheer or scream against moderation of the platforms - this category of outlets/platforms has full right to moderate their content.
If they overdo it, advertisers will leave. If they fail to do it, advertisers will leave. Both takes time to happen, but it does in the end happen.
And then we come to who should not moderate the content.
People smarter than me warned against Apple App Store ban on sexual content since the day 0 of App Store. And they are right.
Similarly, people complaining about Apple and Google banning Parler are equally right.
The thing is that right now mobile (and still less but also increasingly desktop) platforms are walled gardens.
You can (esp. on Android) side-load apps not available on app store, but you probably don't want to do it on the device on which you have, e.g., your personal banking app. You definitely don't want to jailbreak your main day-to-day device.
There is a reason why most of the companies will require you to not do those things on the devices they provide to you, and try to detect you doing so through mobile device management frameworks. You *should* treat your personal infosec like your employer does its own.
Platforms of this kind, of course, have right but also legal obligations to moderate what runs on their platforms. But their rules should *not* be more restrictive than local judiciaries.
To be precise: they should be able to ban apps failing to moderate on their own revenge porn. But there is no real reason why they would be expected to ban distribution of apps which are sexual in nature but moderate well and keep their users safe.
Of course, Apple can not be expected to be a judge whether some app with sexual content is a safe place for sex workers or rapists publish videos of abusing their victims there. They should, though, act when someone comes with court approved legal ban on something.
I do appreciate that banning sex on the app store seems like a no-brainer for many people, but you need to understand that unreasonable moderation on the levels where it should not happen starts there.
App stores should allow you to find official Pornhub app, if Pornhub decides to make one. They should not be gatekeepers of moral standards, because you should be able to run "immoral content" on *your device* without putting yourself to security risk.
I find it disturbing that app store will ban some apps, but then traces of absolutely inappropriate content will leak through ads in the "free" apps financed by commercials all over the place. It's a clear example of failure of a "big tech will keep us safe" model.
Specifically on Parler. I fuckin' hate that it exists, as a safe heaven for the members of the terror organisation. I want many people from there to be investigated, and if needed arrested and trialed for terrorism. TBH, I want to believe majority even there is not that.
Also, practically banning them from app stores is not *such* a big deal because in the end it's just a web app. You know, users can still use it from their mobile and desktop browsers.
But that's not the point.
The point is that until yesterday vast number of small apps which don't really function as plain web sites were facing obstacles or were even banned from app stores based on some imaginary way of reading their own rules (everybody here at least remembers Hey thing?).
And it will continue happening tomorrow.
Apps which don't distribute porn, which have not positioned themselves in any way as political radicals platform; apps which are simply in a way of app stores monopoly over platforms.
It's not about Parler. At best tomorrow an app you like will be banned simply because it can be banned. At worst, your job and income will be on the line because these platforms banned product/service you live off.
Parler should be handled by the state of law to be forced to either change to not be a safe heaven for terrorists or shut down. It should not be prior to that banned from the platforms.
As much as I hate it - they are only a platform which I think failed to moderate their content and they are innocent until proven guilty. And their guilt can't be judged by tech giants.
Courts also fuck up, but there are ways to mend that.
That was my rant for the last nothing less than interesting week.
