If by thinking out of the box you and empowering marginalized ideas you are saying that the companies have a duty to provide the infrastructure and tools for planning violence and the disruption of democracy, then I suspect you will find that not many people in tech are too comfortable with playing an enabling role.
We have been presented with a slice of reality. The legislative branch of a superpower was stormed, normal democratic process was disrupted and people were killed. A mob was egged on by lies and conspiracy theories spread by a president who is effectively trying to set in motion a coup d'etat. It is likely that this isn't the last such event we will see in the coming years.
Why should companies be under any obligation to support groups who undermine democracy and incite violence? Is it not fair to allow companies to choose _not_ to support hate groups? Regardless of whether they have been successfully prosecuted in a cour of law or not.
Should we not have the freedom of choosing with whom we would like to associate?
Is it not hypocritical to expect companies to provide resources to hate groups on the grounds of "freedom of expression" when those same groups have shown, by their actions, that they themselves oppose freedom of expression and expel anyone who voices disagreement?
You appear to be confusing the government and private companies here. Government must follow a far more stringent set of rules in which certain determinations have to be done by courts. Private companies are under no such obligations when it comes to enabling speech.
You are arguing that one should be able to compel people to promote hate speech. May may not intend to argue that case, but by what is presumably thoughtlessness, that is what you appear to be doing.
> Should we not have the freedom of choosing with whom we would like to associate?
So, do you believe that a business should not be forced to serve racial minorities? How about the gay wedding cake situation, should a baker be forced to make a cake for a gay couple? Should I be able to refuse to hire trans people?
If you're not sure about those, then you don't believe in free association as a rule. I'm not saying anything about you personally, but most people only want to involve free association in the cases where it means they get to refuse people they don't like.
You seem to be arguing that those conspiring with criminal intent ought to receive protection from discrimination in the same way we wish to protect people from discrimination based on race, gender, age, religion, political affiliation etc.
I don't think that anyone on Hacker News is confusing between government and private entities by now. We have seen that exact argument hundreds of times.
My answer was to the question of how "society" should handle the situation. I fully understand that the companies are free to do what they want. And I believe that as capitalistic entities, they would not have cut off paying customer without pressure from a large segment of society. I just believe that segment was wrong in pressuring the companies to do so.
Again, I understand that it is also their (those who wants Parler to have no platform) rights to free speech. I just happen to think that it is the wrong way of approaching this situation.
Edit: if it was a single company removing the Parler community (similar to how Reddit was kicking off alot of subreddit a couple of years ago). I think I would be a lot more inclined with your line of reasoning. It's the coordinated action from too many sides that made me feel uncomfortable with how this happened.
So my freedom to choose with whom I would like to do business is not for me to decide, but is contingent on who else does not want to do business with them? Implying that if nobody wants to do business with them I am no longer free to make free choices?
So providing a platform for others to incite violence and ending democracy is a good choice?
I do hope you appreciate that this question stopped being a purely academic question four days ago and became the very real death of five people and the closest the US has come to a coup d’detat in a very, very long time?
The decisions to de-platform the United States president and the angry mob is not something any service provider wants or would do lightly. These are the hardest decisions many of these companies will make this decade.
Is it the best decision in this situation? We won’t know for years. Was it a good decision? Yes. And it was one that took courage.
I’m glad someone had the courage to make that decision.
After thinking it through a bit more, I will concede that there is a reasonbly high chance I was wrong with my insistence on absolutely keeping principles being more important than dealing with actual demonstrated bad actors.
As long as this doesn't lead to a slippery slope of more censorship (both by the state and private entities), and more power to non due-process witch hunt, I would be wrong. I don't think there are a way any of us can say for certain what will happen, so let's wait a couple of years and see how it turn out.
We have been presented with a slice of reality. The legislative branch of a superpower was stormed, normal democratic process was disrupted and people were killed. A mob was egged on by lies and conspiracy theories spread by a president who is effectively trying to set in motion a coup d'etat. It is likely that this isn't the last such event we will see in the coming years.
What do you think ought to be done?