When Twitter banned Donald Trump and numerous other conservative twitter accounts I immediately came out against the move and this is exactly why. Censorship is a dangerous thing to start engaging in and once the precedent is set no one is safe, we are all at the mercy of whatever powerful outlet is in control.
Conservatives have been banging the drum against big tech censorship lately and I sadly have to take their side on this issue, though not completely as they claim censorship is happening exclusively to the right which is clearly not the case. With the power and platform companies like twitter have, they can directly and effectively sway elections and public opinion. Numerous times they have been caught suppressing certain new stories and of course silencing groups of people and it needs to stop.
Besides obvious violations of things like violence and illegal content, everyone should be allowed to have a voice on these platforms. I get the argument that giving extremist and conspiracy theorist a platform is dangerous but it is our job to call it out and make sure we expose how ridiculous they are, Twitter should not have the right to just wipe them away.
To fight this issue I really think these companies should be forced into strict governmental regulations. That way we can have consistent rules enforced equally onto everyone in the platform and the owners can’t have free range to limit people however they please. Conservatives usually push back big time on solutions like this but if any situation will pursued them to see the benefits of government regulation it’s this one.
Green Buddhist 