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1. shadow+(OP)[view] [source] 2020-05-26 16:18:09
I think you implied an analogy between your phone carrier and Twitter / Wikipedia that doesn't hold water.

Your phone carrier is a service provider that is constrained by the FCC. Twitter is one of many broadcast sites one could go via a phone carrier. But the US, to my knowledge, has never recognized anything approximating a right to broadcast. Not even freedom of the press implies freedom to spew signal over the airwaves, for instance (because the radio spectrum is finite and shared).

Freedom of the press has never implied freedom to use someone else's press, and telecommunications hardware providers aren't in the same category. If your phone carrier cuts you off, nobody on the Internet can read your signal; if Twitter cuts you off, they've merely taken their megaphone out of your hands.

replies(1): >>free_r+59
2. free_r+59[view] [source] 2020-05-26 17:02:50
>>shadow+(OP)
Yeah, I used 'common carrier' in reference to when Ma Bell was a monopoly and wasn't allowed to just not do business with people.

We don't have jurisprudence saying so for websites, because this is new, but it could be argued that a number of websites have reached a sort of monopoly status. Facebook is probably closest, but Twitter and Wikipedia both occupy unique places in society to the point where it's not, just, "go start your own website".

As far as business freedom, remember the gay wedding cake guy? Where were all these "you're not entitled to Twitter's megaphone" people then? On the exact opposite side of the principle, mostly.

replies(1): >>shadow+1c
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3. shadow+1c[view] [source] [discussion] 2020-05-26 17:15:48
>>free_r+59
Production of tangible goods is in a different category from either being allowed to use Twitter or having a cell phone. Denial of production of tangible goods by a local provider conjures up the grim specter of Jim Crow laws in the United States. And discrimination regarding sexual orientation is an understood protected class in the US, where political opinion is not.

I think people having different attitudes regarding the three categories of service is reasonable.

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