alt Hacker News> Only difference is who is doing the censoring.
It's a universe-sized difference though. If a platform owner is doing it you can somply go to another platform. If a democratically elected goverment is doing it you can change the government though it's much harder. Or at least you can soothe yourself that it's being done for the benefit if the people as "the people" sees it. And if an authoritarian government is doing it, you are screwed.
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Platforms naturally coalesce into near monopolies due to network effects. It's far easier to get rid of a government than it is to get rid of something like Youtube at this point.
“simply go to another platform” stopped working years ago when Apple took it upon themselves to decide which platforms you are allowed to install.
RIP Tumblr
"Democracy Just Werks^tm" is starting to look like "The Free Market will solve it" more and more with each passing day...
What if the democratically elected government is emailing their pals at the platform owners to do the censoring on their behalf?
"The family had a lot of buffers."
Because this was definitely happening during COVID.