I often hear the argument that social media platforms and online services are private companies so they can do what they want and ban anyone they don’t like for any reason. Sure, not disputing that is how things are now. But is that how they should be? It doesn’t make any sense to me that the same people who don’t want the government to be able to decide who is and isn’t allowed to have a platform seem to be okay with corporations making that decision. Is there an alternative? I don’t think government takeover of social media is a good idea; that’s just trading one problem for another. But should big tech companies have so much power? Are social media platforms de facto public spaces?

Topics: politics, economics, economy, speech, freedom