> I suppose there's an argument that twitter etc are effectively "common carriers" ... I'm not sure I buy it though.
On one side of the spectrum we have your private home. Obviously your having the ability to infringe on my freedom to speak in that very specific and limited venue doesn't seem to lead to any great societal ills.
On the other side of the spectrum we have a government owned public square. I think it's clear enough that any regulation of speech there including informal coercion not to speak is quite likely to lead to significant political and social problems. Limitations on government power mitigate a lot of this but certainly not all of it.
And then we have large corporate owned properties, both online and in the physical world, where the public is more or less permitted to gather but the regular protections don't apply. Presumably the problems caused by regulating speech are related to scale. So at what point should regulation apply?
The concept of a common carrier isn't new. Twitter hosts prominent politicians from multiple large countries. It seems obvious to me that they crossed that line some point even if I don't know precisely where it lies.
> It sounds like a bunch of folk > that are butthurt private venues don't want to listen to their racist, homophobic, or transphobic rhetoric.
Basically this.
Students Unions have the absolute right to refuse to platform people (and to oppose their platforming by the institution in which they operate), if those people being given a platform runs contrary to the wishes of the student body the Union represents.
Nobody has a right to anyone else's platform. Making people platform your views is coerced speech.
