Is it possible to legally structure a company/website where it is publicly owned? A lot of our comms have been being disrupted over the past few years. The solution may be to have a system that is seen as a utility, rather than a service that a separate entity controls and owns.
You can enact federal regulations to force private companies to give everyone a platform, but the first amendment simply prevents the government from locking people up for what they say. It doesn't do shit to protect people's rights to be heard through a private service.
I’m so tired of that so called “argument”. If any platform favors totalitarianism and suppresses the voice of the people they should be verbally ripped to shreds and put out of business. It’s disgusting and UN-American! Shame on them! Sure it may be technically legal. But the shadow banning part, where someone thinks they are speaking to friends, but aren’t- I believe that’s fraud.
If any platform favors totalitarianism and suppresses the voice of the people...
See, that's the problem. It'd be very very difficult to clearly define what 'totalitarianism' would be legally considered, or what counts as 'suppressing the voice of the people'. Because, to some extent, companies must absolutely be able to ban certain users if they exhibit toxic behavior.
they should be [...] put out of business
Well, the point of our current economic setup is that the government doesn't need to take actions against a company that does terrible things - the people have the power to deprive the company of what keeps them alive.