> Just because something is popular doesn't mean people should be entitled to it.
We have generally acknowledged that things that are important to everyone and are monopolized need to be regulated.
Social media is practically the only effective way to participate in the global community. The same is true, although with decreasing necessity, in more localized communities.
Facebook and Twitter have massively altered the way that people engage with other people, businesses, even the government. They took public discourse and monetized it. That's fine, but they now have to deal with the implications of being the keepers of public discourse, and I think a reasonable stipulation for allowing them to monetize that is that they cannot bar someone from participating without a very good justification that isn't "lol our ToS allows us to cut you off whenever we want, and take your first born child".
> speaking economically when these large platforms boot people off it actually increases competition and decreases their dominance because it creates a market opportunity for competitors, exactly like what happened with Parler. Suddenly, nobody seems to care that a conservative competitor to AWS is getting a huge account, shouldn't that be pereceived as a good thing?
Sure, and what happened to them? It's a little ironic to argue that booting people off of their platform increases competition and then mention their new competitor that was immediately wiped off the face of the internet.
I think Parler attracted a lot of extremists. That's partially their own fault with their poor moderation, but it's also a reflection that Twitter has so dominated the marketplace that your only customers as a new social media site are going to be nutjobs. It has strong anti-competitive effects. The community is a huge part of a social media site. Crazy users poison the community, ensuring that the brand is tainted and not a threat to Twitter.
> Why are the people who get banned so insistent on using services they claim are inherently unfair to them? Why not support companies that share your values?
Because you'd be better off writing it on bathroom stalls.
Because there is no meaningful competitor. Even Parler was tiny by social media standards, and it's probably dead now.
Because your friends and family want to use Twitter, and probably won't switch, so you have to use Twitter and Facebook.
Because Facebook and Twitter have spent so long maximizing engagement that people barely bother looking for other sources of news and information.
I'm not a huge fan of Parler or the way it was run. It does seem damning that the only app that threatened to take some of Twitter's market share was immediately scrubbed off the internet. I don't think ISIS material gets completely wiped off the face of the internet that fast.