So twitter is both a fundamental right that cannot be easily replicated, and a complete irrelevance that has done nothing at all that would give them any claim to their own user-base?
Your question is poorly worded. Twitter created the platform and fostered the community. The content creators and the platform have grown together. I'm challenging your idea that the platform has contributed nothing, not asserting that it contributes everything. Without their creative ideas to build the platform in the first place, make content discoverable etc etc, it wouldn't exist either.
> that world view is by no means uncommon
I'm not convinced that wikipedia article describes the worldview above - "twitter is both a fundamental right that cannot be easily replicated, and a complete irrelevance that has done nothing at all"
I understand why there might be interest in developing ideas around digital communication rights. It's definitely an interesting topic and one that's going to become more relevant over time.
I am specifically challenging you on the idea that they already exist, and are encompassed by rights such as freedom of speech, which has never encompassed free access to the means to disseminate that speech, or freedom of assembly, which has never included the right to assemble on someone else's property.
Go ahead and argue these are useful ideas we need to talk about, that existing rights need to be mapped and interpreted more expansively in the digital world, that we should start building platforms as a society which encompass these ideas, I might even be on your side.
But being banned on twitter is no violation of any existing right. Especially as twitter is a niche communication tool.
> Twitter created the platform and fostered the community.
Look, i see this as shorthand for "twitter gathered the attention".But that doesn't mean that they own the attention or the people whose attention they have. Good of them to be pioneers, but, like everything, social media is 15 year old tech now and is commodity. The undeniable thing is, users funded 99% of the effort with their work and often with their own ad money, and twitter did 1%. Same (or worse) would go for other social networks. They created a viral vortex, but the intrinsic value of that is not as high as is perceived to be -- in fact most of the value is in lock-in and monopoly rather than in technical facilitation. I find the fact that neither twitter nor FB pay their users quite egregious, and attribute it to 2 things: 1) they have no competitor in their niche and 2) user collectives dont exist and users are not uninionized while those companies are uber-powerful in terms of money and lobbying.
> they already exist,
They don't exist but are coming, in fact i'd say they are late already. I think we 'll soon see major shifts to that direction . Practically, yes they will be just an extension of freedom of speech laws, that's the category where they belong (like how e.g. sexual orientation was added to anti-discrimination laws).
I m not arguing that free speech/free assembly rights will trample on property rights, but that the state should make sure public spaces exist for people to exercise those rights. However platforms should be required by law to make user data (including their friends identifiers) exportable.
I m no legal expert but I wouldn't rule out that some companies may be held into account if a judge judges that they acted in coordination and maliciously to obstruct someones free speech rights.
So again, if social media is a commodity, why does it matter if someone gets kicked off a particular network?
You can't have this both ways.
There are no free speech right implications at all for this, a judge would throw the case out.
FB and Twitter don't pay their users because they're providing a service that their users value for free. Frankly if that's not a good enough deal for you, don't use it. I try not to, they're a waste of bandwidth IMHO.
Interesting view of the world.