As dis-heartening as this story is, compared to a couple of years ago, it is encouraging to see lots of comments from people beginning to wake up to what is going on with this craziness and not being modded here. Free speech is about protecting the right of the un-popular and views that some may find utterly repugnant. Why? because, as we are seeing with all of the woke craziness, when you don't stand up for everyone…
Freedom speech as defined in the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution states that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." What we are seeing here is a consequence of our capitalist society. It is now more profitable for eBay and other companies to pull or ban thi…
What we are seeing is not an inevitable consequence of capitalism and reducing it to a profit motive misses much of the picture. It may benefit eBay's bottom line, but there other other factors at play.
For example, the public expectations of private companies are changing, as more people want them to act as arbiters of morality. Similarly, corporations are increasingly adding social ideals to their objectives. While there is clearly a PR aspect at play, corporate leaders and shareholders can and do balance moral objectives against their bottom line.
I think what people are reacting to is the feeling that they are loosing control to corporations over the direction of social change. Just as individuals can feel disempowered in the face of corporate influence in political arena, individuals feel disempowered by corporate influence in field of morality and social change.