Are social media's recent bannings a freedom of expression issue?

[DemonTree]

Start with these two posts:

Are social media's recent bannings a freedom of expression issue?

A recent closed thread asked if it was a first Amendment violation. It is not. But one poster in the thread raised the issue of whether it might be an oligopoly issue. In a world in which a very few companies, and in fact a very few individual executives, control the soapboxes of the public square, should there be some consideration to that power by a very few, that it not be applied capriciously? Case made by Russian dissident and assassination attempt survivor Alexey Navalny. Neither is Me…

Are social media's recent bannings a freedom of expression issue?

From my perspective, as the creator of one of the threads that merged into this one, we are debating the degree of power over the debate in public square that a few CEOs now have, how they exert that power, and whether we as a society (expressed as users, product, consumers, customers, and citizens) decide if there is: a public interest in controlling disinformation and hate speech a public interest in having the square contain a wide diversity of opinions and ideas a need to have some system…