Do you agree with Facebook's decision to ban Alex Jones, Louis Farrakhan, and other "dangerous" individuals?

Well. FB is a private company. So free speech isn’t a variable.

I don’t care one way or the other. They can do what they like as long as it’s legal.

But I wish, instead of justifying it by saying they are “dangerous”, they would have simply said “we don’t like them”, or “they don’t meet community standards”.

Anyway, Fluther bans people too. One of them I sort of liked.

@MrGrimm888 is correct that this isn’t a 1st amendment issue because it’s a private company. That said, I disagree with corporate censorship of opinions. I don’t think they can be trusted to do so in an objective manner, especially when they have to generate profits for their shareholders.

I don’t want to broaden the scope of the discussion too far here, but it is in the grey area also as to whether private utility companies can refuse service,

In my first apartment, which I’d already leased., the utility company at first denied me service, and then levied a heavy deposit of $250 before they;d connect me, because of my lack of credit. I was actually even paying for a new car. The company said I was high risk and my income vs living expenses was not sustainable.

In other words, I was supposed to have no electricity or water in my leased apartment.

Private companies that provide essential services should be restricted from discrimination, as long as a person can / is paying their bills.

@Yellowdog: What does a Facebook account have to do with an essential service?

@josie Well, I think they need to be seen doing something about the hate on their platforms. But that’s what I’m asking about: we can’t have it both ways. They either have the same rules as a public space subject to the first amendment (social media platforms are de facto public spaces) and thus allow all speech unless it’s illegal (death threats, calls for violence) or they start censoring speech based on what may only be vaguely defined principles. Right now they’re opting for the latter. I think they’ve realized the “free for all” model doesn’t work. But now they’re in the business of censorship. Either way, they don’t look good.

@jca2 If everybody uses social media to communicate (and the majority of people do), they have a right to that service.

Lets take the phone company for instance—at least as it was, say, in the 1980s. Could a person be denied phone service just because the telephone company is a private company?

Facebook and Twitter and the others are the same way.

No, they don’t have a “right” to that service @Yellowdog. Not unless they’re paying for it.
And yes. If a phone company is privately owned they can deny service to anyone they want.

FB is NOT an “essential service.”

It won’t make a difference. Farrakhan and Jones backers won’t care.

I already clearly said as long as they pay their bills. I said nothing about free. Why are you always misquoting me?

Telephone companies cannot deny service without justification. Not paying bills is the most obvious. A person making obscene phone calls to our house was eventually denied service—they were forced to stop in 1979 but in 1983 they started making obscene calls again (when the mother at the household was drunk, she tried to revive the excitement four years later) had her phone service cut off.

If that’s your only means of communication with the outside world, or emergency services, yeah, that’s a really big deal / problem.

But you cannot discriminate even if you are a private company. You can’t say we want a certain image in our store so no Aisians are allowed.

No one pays to use Facebook. Why are you always misunderstanding what we write?

@Demosthenes
The First Amendment dictates what Congress may not do.
It doesn’t say anything about FB

Right. It says the government can not suppress free speech (within reason.)
Isn’t preaching hatred an actual crime now?

I’m for it.

I’m torn. I think “private company” can be debated. Just like a restaurant open to the public, it is privately owned, but treated like a public company for the most part, they are not allowed to discriminate.

This reminds me of a comment thread a couple of years ago regarding an article in the Detroit Free Press online. I don’t remember what the article was about specifically, but below it was some of the most hateful antisemitic statements. My first reaction was the periodical should take those comments down. I thought if they leave those comments up, it is like “publishing” hate speech, since they are a newspaper. Then I thought about it more, and wondered if it’s fair to require the periodical to delete, after all this was a comment section, not a journalist employed by the paper.

For now, I come down on the side of removing comments like that, including on Facebook. I wouldn’t ban someone so fast, but if someone preaches hate I would warn them it’s a possibility.

I guess Facebook can scan for certain words and delete.

What makes you think it was “so fast,” @JLeslie?

Perhaps there could be a distinctive icon used.
That way nobody would be banned, but a particular icon affixed to the profile of certain objectional accounts would warn users that this account has some aspect which might not be acceptable to the general public. Perhaps then also by clicking this icon would display a list of their particular objectional aspects.

@Yellowdog: The public utilities (phone, power) are covered under rules and regulations as set forth by the Public Utilities Commissions. Facebook is nothing like that. Facebook is not a necessary entity in people’s lives. You can google Public Utilities Commissions and learn all about them and what they do.

“I think “private company” can be debated. Just like a restaurant open to the public, it is privately owned, but treated like a public company for the most part, they are not allowed to discriminate.”

They are and they do. A business may not discriminate against a handful of narrow qualifiers (race, religion, sex, age, disability), but pretty much anything else is fair game. If, for instance, you’re setting at your table chanting “Jews will not replace us” or “kill all whites” then absolutely the businesses is well within their rights to toss your ass from their establishment and ban you from ever setting foot in their again.

@Darth_Algar I’ll go along with that.