We hear about it all the time. Someone’s social media account got suspended, or they are in “Facebook Jail”, or even had their account cancelled and deleted from the service.
The social media giants are indeed censoring content and posts that they state violates their community standards. And it appears to be very politically biased. If a post favors Christianity, the Founding Fathers of the United States, the current conservative political movement. Chances are it could be censored. If a post speaks out against sin, the Leftist agenda, cultural progressive acceptances. It may be censored.
Yet not of these viewpoints are ever censored. Deviant sexual immorality, wrongs, lies, and evils of socialism, even advocating of violence against conservative members of society is allowed without exception.
Morally this is wicked. Ethically this is wrong.
But the social media giants are not true public forums. We want to believe and pretend that they are public forums with all the rights associated with a public forum. But we are deceiving ourselves when we think this way.
No the current social media giants are members only communities. And as a member we must abide by the community standards or we face the repercussions of ignoring them.
If someone was at a Republican function and started shouting Leftist propaganda. That person would be removed. Even in the case of a function that allows the public to attend. No one is going to stand up and say that the person has the right of free speech.
This is true for any of the current social media giants or any online virtual community, such as a forum, chatroom, or even a blog site. Even your homeowners association. There are rules of conduct and community standards of what is acceptable and what is not.
Yes we have free speech. But there are social limitations. You cannot come into your local church and preach the tenants of Satanism from the pews or pulpit without violating a community standard.
This is the reason why alternatives to Facebook and other social media giants exist. Some are niche sites the only are for Republicans where you can preach to the choir. Others have very loose codes of conduct which allow for a wider discussion. But there are still limits of acceptable topics and content. And if a Leftist managed to join one of these conservative sites. And started to post Leftist content, they too would find themselves censored.
Decades ago there was an uncensored and unmoderated internet discussion forum called USENET. Here there were different discussion boards for almost every conceivable topic. And anyone could post anything to any of them. No questions asked and nothing was ever censored.
The only community standard was a “gentleman’s agreement” not to post on an unrelated subject matter. But it was not enforced by anyone other than the users. And for several decades USENET flourished. A number of great ideas were born out of USENET.
But then the internet grew. And without moderation on the USENET, so did spam, cross postings of unrelated topics, and the arrival of files that could be exchanged. Most of it porn, warez, unauthorized copyrighted material and more.
Today that is all that is there on USENET. Access to USENET used to be through your ISP. Now you need a separate USENET provider and additional fees to access it.
If you don’t like the rules of the social media giants. You can either ignore them and run the risk of being censored. Or post someplace else.
