You’re conflating business and government. Businesses have the right to do what they want with their property within the law.
Otherwise, I don’t know what you’re suggesting to be done. Do you want to expand the powers of the government to moderate these companies and their property?
If government comes to you and says “this should be taken down due to X reason” then it is government censoring. China does the same thing. I linked elsewhere in this thread examples of the government asking Facebook or Twitter to censor directly.
There’s an implied threat. The Supreme Court has already ruled on this previously. I expect in the next couple years as court cases about the censorship work through the courts, the same thing will happen again.
If the government was silent and the censorship occurred then MAYBE it’s legal. That of course depends on if it’s a common carrier or public space. Both arguably are true for social media, but again it takes time for the courts to figure it out. I would concede that point, but again government asked for the censorship here.
They were asked because the government has no legal grounds to force them. In this situation, Facebook and Twitter are not legally obligated to take action. If they took action, it is because they chose to. In China, companies are legally obligated to take action whether they want to or not. It’s not the same thing.
Ok, I’ll take a stab at feeding the troll tonight. The difference is that Facebook and Twitter and just turn around and tell the us gov to fuck off. In china, that’s not really an option.
Otherwise, I don’t know what you’re suggesting to be done. Do you want to expand the powers of the government to moderate these companies and their property?