The world is shifting all over, not only in America. But, Americans are seeing the shift at home. It doesn’t make headlines, but then again it is “trending”, which makes headlines: Facebook is in peril. Zuckerberg overreached. While user privacy is one important topic, so is politically biased censorship.
It’s legal to express one’s political ideals, but it’s also legal for Leftist-controlled companies to ban opposition views, citing “community” standards and guidelines as the excuse for censored speech. China does it and it’s wrong in the Western mind, but what if Facebook and Twitter do it? Well, that’s a different story, somehow.
Facebook and Twitter are publicly traded companies, thus regulated by the FTC. An argument could be made for publicly traded companies to be heavily fined—and the directors, executives, and operators fired—for censoring speech. But, this opens another debate. What about “hateful” religions that cultivate hate without actually crossing the line of “dangerous” hate speech?
The “giantness” of social media is a backlash against the “giant” media oldschool. But, social media giants are creating a backlash of their own. FTC-regulated free speech isn’t the solution to the implosion of social media giants. Instead, Facebook is doing a favor to its contenders. By being unfriendly, they are naturally encouraging their “customers” to shop elsewhere. This will have a far-reaching cascade effect and could make a swarm of new billionaires that eclipse Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos.