Privatisation of the public sphere

As I've talked about many times before, the private sector is not democratic. None of the, values of the enlightenment apply to the private sector. There's no guarantee of free speech on a privately owned social media platform. Platforms like TikTok and Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and so on. These are basically like big rooms inside of a corporate building, and the owners of that building decide what you are allowed to talk about, on their property.

It's our mistake to think that these rooms are public spaces, are the commons, just because people gather there. We've allowed ourselves to be corralled into these spaces because it's convenient and it gives you access to an easy audience easy access to an audience. We could all just host our content on our own websites, but no one would see it. When's the last time you actually visited somebody's website? These platforms gather people.

If you say something in those corporate conference rooms that we call social media platforms, people will hear you. But you are restricted in what you can say because you have to follow the rules of the venue just like any other venue, just like a physical venue. And if you wanna say whatever you want without those restrictions, without having followed those rules, you can still do that, but no one will hear you. We allowed this to happen. We allowed this to develop.

So we can't really complain when the private owners of these platforms enforce their rules. For a US based platform, say, if the values of the enlightenment, if the democratic liberal values apply to the private sector, then the community guidelines for a US based social media platform would be the American constitution and nothing more. If your if your speech is constitutionally protected, then it wouldn't be censored. But business is not subject to the constitution in that way. It's a parallel power system.

They have their own rules, and they implement them, in an authoritarian manner. Democracy doesn't apply.