Big Tech's Banny Stick

[Jake]

Good to see Amazon kicking Parler off AWS. Time for some libertarian to have a fit about private choices.

Don't come at me if you like other banny sticks in other contexts

 

[Rorschach]

Puts me in a quandary as a libertarian as I think private firms should be able to do what they like, but I am also a free speech fundamentalist. Can't reconcile my opinions on this.

 

[Jake]

Free speech is not a right to a platform, nor is it something which applies between private actors.

 

[Rorschach]

No I agree, but when big tech firms are increasingly holding a monopoly on the ability to form a platform, that worries me.

 

[Jake]

Setting themselves up on AWS was for the convenience, not through necessity, though.

 

[Rorschach]

Setting themselves up on AWS was for the convenience, not through necessity, though.

Indeed, that's why I said increasingly. We are not there yet, but we are getting closer as google and Amazon get more and more control.
We are starting to see Google flexing it's muscles as well, as seen in the cancellation of TalkRadio's youtube channel last week.

 

[Jake]

Same applies though, TalkRadio obviously has its own platform, it has no entitlement to ask YouTube to broadcast content it is not happy to be associated with..