I've seen this so many times now that I feel a need to comment. A lot of people are spending their time arguing about how YouTube, Twitter, Facebook etc. are censoring their material for various reasons. I''m really tired of seeing it and I'm going to tell you why and why YOU, if you don't like it should stop complaining and make your exit.
Twitter, etc are not the government. The government has legal restrictions on censorship that does not apply to private companies. Yes, I know some judge declared that Trump couldn't block people because he , at the time, was a government agent who had to be accessible by the public. But the point is that only the government is legally prohibited from censorship.
And that's a good thing.
Private companies are not under that rule and can censor whatever they like for whatever reason they like or no reason at all. Well, no, actually the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 prohibits certain reasons if the business is accessible to the public. But for the argument here it may as well be for any reason.
When it comes to social media companies, these companies offer you a free product because YOU are the product. Twitter is not the product. YOUR account and activity on Twitter is the product and it is sold to the people interested in said data. What happens when a product is not "up to snuff"? It is removed and replaced with a "better" product. "Better" being understood as one that sells. If Twitter or whoever feels that YOUR activity is not a saleable product, for whatever reason, it *SHOULD* remove YOU and YOUR ACTIVITY from the site.
The important thing being that for the vast majority of people the use of social media platforms are a totally voluntary activity. Nobody is forced to use any of them. Hence, if you don't like the experience YOU SHOULD LEAVE.
I left FB in 2012. I have no desire to return. There are social media platforms I AM on but I do not use them anywhere to the extent that I used Twitter and Facebook. There are two main reasons for this:
1) These sites are absolute time sinks. As you get older, and I'm talking to the young-uns out there, and you have less years ahead of you than you do behind you you realize that every hour you have is really precious. You will "soon" be gone. There are so many things you COULD be doing rather than looking at your screen.
2) These sites are generally bad for your mental health. These sites often cause anxiety issues as people looking for approval from their peers say and do dumb things. Also, you'll notice that people are now practically unable to carry on conversations and other social activities with the people they are with without their phones being involved. The ability to ignore someone on the phone often means they are unable to maintain a conversation in real life. Often when I am walking along a street I am the ONLY person without a phone in hand or even looking where I am going.
So understand that you are under no obligation to use any of these social media platforms and that these platforms depend upon your usage in order to sell your usage to advertisers and other interested parties.
This is why you don't catch me spending time complaining about whether or not I am censored. Sometimes people link into my work from social media. Most often they get to this site from a search (no this site is not about ghosts).
Of course, I am not paid for my content. I do not live off the monetization of my content. Those who DO should be the first people to jump ship and promote alternatives. Clearly, if YouTube, Twitter, etc, want to be dictators, then there is a business opportunity for a website that doesn't do that. If your content is THAT good then your fans will follow and your platform will grow again. Does that mean you have to abandon YouTube, etc.? Of course not. Make the money you can but look for means to get off the YouTube, Facebook and Twitter titty rather than complain about the sour milk.
I'll say the same thing here as I said about Target years ago. All you people have to do, if your serious is decide for about a week or so to not post any material on one site. Pick one. No traffic. No posts. No nothing. Activity on all other sites go on as usual. This will have the effect of letting the target company know that you [all] are not going to tolerate the behavior. Secondly, it lets the sites you DO continue to use know that they could be next.
Same thing about these airlines. People are "aghast" that these airlines are kicking people off because some baby won't wear a mask, but they are STILL purchasing tickets to fly. Well, all that means is that you are all talk and no action. Yeah, yeah, yeah, shut up, take your seat and put that mask on.
Seriously, It's tiring to watch this endless complaining about what some private entity you have no requirement to use is acting a fool. Now those banks and payment processors acting a fool? That's an entirely different issue.
