I remember a joke about two women who are at a restaurant, where one of them says, “The food here is so terrible!” and the other one says, “Yes, and the portions are so small..”
The problem
Starting this morning, YouTube, Apple, Facebook, and other companies have all at the same time banned hosting content that has been created by Infowars.com, claiming it to be “hate speech,” which has caused almost universal condemnation of those companies by activists who are opposed to Establishment corruption.
What those companies have done has made a martyr out of Infowars. However, those companies will also increasingly censor smaller independent organizations that criticize corrupt Establishment agendas, such as media outlets that communicate about problems associated with Islam, for example. As evidenced with what they’ve done to Infowars, such companies will certainly ban anti-Establishment communication even if it’s not “hate speech”— it only needs to be information that the Establishment doesn’t want people to become informed about. I certainly agree that people should be screaming about how those companies are behaving.
What to do about it
As a result of what has been happening, Infowars has been essentially demanding that the government step in and start regulating who those companies serve, arguing that those companies are “public utilities” and “monopolies,” but I think in doing so Infowars is creating an impression that effective alternatives to those companies don’t exist.
In many ways, Infowars’ response has been anti-libertarian in nature and I think it almost serves to “deify” the companies that have banned it. For example I don’t understand the logic of demanding that the government starts intervening to enforce equal access to Facebook of all companies, since Facebook has always been a CIA front that exists for the purpose of spying on people!
In fact, all of those companies in question are essentially corrupt organizations that are aligned with the political Establishment. However, none of them are actually “monopolies” because online alternatives do exist for all of them. The definition of a “monopoly” is “exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action”— which is a definition that doesn’t really apply to any of those companies. All that anybody needs to do is to enter a URL of a preferable alternative company into their web browser, and no more “monopoly”!
I think people should instead be focusing on ramping up communicating about the serious issues associated with the companies in question and boycotting them while also endorsing preferable companies, rather than pushing to have the government enforce everyone having equal access to those companies.
But what about “net neutrality”?
I think internet “content hosting” companies such as Google and Facebook should in many ways technically have the right to do what they want to do as long as they don’t actually harm people, however I feel differently about companies that consist of the actual physical infrastructure of the internet itself. I believe broadband ISP companies definitely should be regulated as utilities via “net neutrality” legislation because they are a “finite” resource, unlike the content companies that merely exist on the internet which can be thought of as “infinite” resources.
I’ve explained more about issues with content hosting company censorship and net neutrality at this link, this link, and this link.