Alex Jones and Infowars gets 'disappeared' - are we headed in the right direction?

[Neo-Scholastic]

I'm of mixed feelings.  In some sense these social media platforms are a kind of commons, and on that theory denying access to a commons based on the unpopularity of their viewpoint is wrong.  The fact is these social media platforms are essentially monopolies.  You can't just walk down the street to another Facebook, or stick out your shingle and hope to compete.  I'm not sure there isn't a middle ground where, yes, they aren't required to provide services to people who violate their rules, but if they aren't actually violating the rules, I'm not sure I agree with arbitrarily excluding them from the arena.  And I don't personally buy their story that they had tolerated abuses in the past and just suddenly decided, all at once, to act on them.  That's just CYA.  To treat these mediums as the equivalent of social clubs that can choose to exclude based on conditions which they don't hold other members to abiding is, I think, misleading.  I think that's oversimplifying an issue that may be more complex than that.

I agree entirely. These companies have have been hiding from liability under the pretense that they are "merely" providing a venue. At the same time they appear more and more to be engaging in taking an editorial role. They need to decide which they are.