Platform, or Publisher?

Ace addresses the issue of big tech being a platform vs. publisher.

...note that these platforms are quick to ban groups like the Proud Boys even though the Proud Boys aren't hate groups routinely engaged in violence, and yet rarely ban Antifa groups, which are hate groups that routinely use these platforms to target people for violence, and to coordinate violence.

Why should Google and FaceBook and Twitter have the cover of section 230 when it's quite clear they are affirmatively bending their own rules to allow violent domestic terrorist groups to plot and scheme using their platform? They've demonstrated both the capability and desire to ban political groups for far less than what Antifa does; if they're permitting antifa to remain, why should they not be parties to a lawsuit that targets antifa for its violence? They have chosen to continue offering their services to known law-breakers, for purposes of law-breaking.

...If you have the time and personnel to ban Crowder, you have the time and personnel to ban Antifa. And if you choose not to -- then you are liable for their crimes.

...So a publisher has the right to not print people's speech if they don't like it, or find it objectionable, but they also have the responsibility of checking to see if all statements published by them are legal and true, and may face legal suit (or possibly even criminal prosecution) if they're not.

...This is just one of the incongruities that arises when a company is permitted to claim one status -- "We're speakers and you can't compel us to permit speech we disagree with!" -- for one set of circumstances but invoke an entirely contradictory status -- "We're not speakers at all!" -- for others.

It's time to resolve this.

These companies are in fact media companies -- the largest and most profitable in the world. Google makes NBC look like a corner shop.

And if they themselves are going to willingly, knowingly abandon their positions as "non-speakers" -- as bona fide neutral content platforms -- then they should join the rest of the media in being potential liable for defamation or conspiracies to commit violence that they permit their platforms to be used for.

Read more here.