Personally, for sinister reasons I like what FB/Twitter and other high profile companies are doing right now. All this meddling with politics, openly taking sides and censoring based on arbitrary rules like a cesar pointing thumb up and down - I'm pretty convinced (and I hope!) that especially for "social media" giants this will sooner or later backfire and will be one of reasons of their demise, improvement or at least significant reduction of influence.

All of this serves as reminder that not necessarily full and true picture could be visible when looking through social media lens, at the same time it's sad because it increases doubts,distrust and divides society even more - certain and looking at votes count - pretty big one - part of society could feel that there is no common ground for discussion,they are not welcome, have to find or create their own platform (bubble).

I think that one of reasons why social media is that messy is the reach, it appears that it's the curse and the blessing at same time - it makes local issues global ones, it allows to form a mob, mass where individual voices and meaningful discussion is impossible. This is visible even here on HN, sometimes there are massive threads with thousands of comments and while plenty are insightful and valuable I have feeling that some threshold is crossed and it no longer make sense to read and comment there.

>>Once at the top, suddenly the arbiter of honesty and righteousness.

I'd say more like "covering their asses and protecting their profits"...But since when is that anything new? Companies only care about money. If we have issues with that, we should probably start by not letting them contribute to political campaigns.

I agree with @pxtail that these companies will hopefully get what's coming to them. But on another note, their flagrant behavior only highlights the immense power that old media had before the Internet became as big as it is today. Just as in the past, media companies hold massive sway over the opinions of regular folk, and in all this time the law has not evolved to challenge that power in any way.

The thing I dislike most about Trump's presidency is that it shone a spotlight so bright on DC that lawmakers and politicians that no one would have cared for otherwise have become celebrities, which doesn't bode well for the future, as any organization that controls the mediums these celebrities use to gain followers and boost their platform holds power over them.

It is Facebook that gets to decide whether or not you will even get a chance at getting elected, it is Twitter that gets to decide if you even exist outside of your local city, it is Amazon that gets to decide if you even get a website to host your platform. Obviously these aren't the only ones but you see the point I'm trying to make, which is that politics have become a televised drama, and these tech companies are the Executive Producers.

This is the nature of risk. Non-incumbents are always willing to take more risk as they have less to lose. If there isn't a "law" formalized for this there should be, it's as hypocritical as gravity. It's practically a natural law up there with "power grows power" and "capital builds capital".

Hey, mang, your comment was deaded and it looks like you're shadowbanned, but your history looks clean. If you care, contact the site admins to de-ban.