Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others
Every time this subject comes up, someone inevitably says something like &quot;Facebook is a private corporation, the first amendment only applies to the government, and if you want to use Facebook you have to play by their rules. No one is owed a platform.&quot;<p>Platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are basically monopolies. They are the only services in their class to take seriously if you&#x27;re looking to gain a following. If they didn&#x27;t exist, alternative services would spring up. But alternative services know they can&#x27;t compete with FB&#x2F;YouTube&#x2F;Twitter, so none exist. When people say &quot;if you don&#x27;t like FB&#x27;s rules, use another service&quot; it ignores that Facebook is the reason there isn&#x27;t another service and thus has some responsibility to uphold values we&#x27;ve collectively decided as a society are important.<p>The issue is not whether Facebook is breaking the law but whether philosophically the market leader in a category should get to decide who can use their product when their product category is fundamental to modern life. Saying &quot;no one is owed a platform&quot; brings us no closer to an answer.