Google is apparently taking down all/most Fediverse apps from the Play Store

Journalists and news media, bound by the respect and principles of their profession, fulfilled this function in the past. There seemed to be a time in the past where division between reporting and editorials were more separate. We've destroyed the institution of news media without a good replacement; now people are taking editorials (people's social media posts) as the equivalent of news.

> Is it even necessary for free speech to directly result in a happier humanity?

If not then what is it worth?

> What if it simply preserves the conditions that we need for progress

I'm simply not seeing how social media after a good 10 years of it is progressing anything other than the profits of its owners.

> How do you draw the distinction between a law, which you're arguing isn't speech, and political donations which are, at least under the law today, a form of speech.

No, it's not about censorship because it's not preventing speech, it's about ensuring equality. It's fundamentally different in the same way a law that gives a right is different than a law that prevents an action. There's a fundamental difference between reduction of something (or the increase of other things to match) and the elimination of something.

> discriminatory against individuals, which seems to be the bad thing we want to avoid (or maybe I'm wrong and you're okay with discriminating against individuals?).

Well, I did just say in the prior comment "We can agree it's not okay to censor based on an individual", so I'm not sure why it needs to be a question...

> However, censoring certain topics may be done without discriminating against individuals.

And censoring the types of cake you make may not affect individuals either, if it's over something like your dislike for dogs. Let's assume both cases affect individuals. If you think it fundamentally changes what the argument is to restrict the web services side to items that affect individuals, then that points towards some ambiguity in the phrasing of the things being compared on one or both sides. That's progress.

> for example if the discourse is full of demonization of Islam, perhaps banning discussion of Islam is a net-gain for individual Muslim people

I think we're on shakier ground if we're justifying specific actions based on perceived public opinion and actions, because that's extremely subjective. What one person views as fair and rational discourse on a topic another views as lies and slander (dog whistles are a thing, as is being accused of dog whistling when honestly requesting information).

> Obviously this requires, like, an actual fair moderator

That doesn't exist. By the nature of the items we're discussing, I think there's a good chance it might be impossible to exist. The fair moderator of today is the one seen as blatantly biased in the discussions of tomorrow. Social mores change.

> tl;dr: Removing people from discourse cannot be beneficial to those people. Removing concepts from discourse depends.

Does it? What's a concept that being removed from discourse is beneficial? I think this is a very subjective point, and can't be taken at face value. There are some people that believe no concept should be entirely taboo. Those people actually wrote our Bill of Rights.

While I agree that removing a subgroup of people from discourse is generally not beneficial to those people, I will note it's generally agreed that it's sometimes beneficial for society. That's what we do with criminals. It may be that it being okay for some groups and not others means the way you group (the attributes that make the protected classes) matters most here.

Edited to clarify: this was a description of the oppressive political rulers of China, not Apple or Chinese citizens in general.

You can't reasonably defend Apple's actions on the grounds that they were just following orders from the Communist Party of China.

Unfortunately this kind of rhetoric is frequently coded language meaning "Hey Nazis, we won't kick you off of our platform for threatening to shoot up a synagogue". I think people should still legally be able to create unmoderated platforms, but the majority of people won't participate in them because they quickly become cesspools of hatred and harassment. Gab is the newer, shinier tech startup version of this, but it's existed before in the forms of 4chan, 8chan, and probably other platforms that I'm not familiar with.