• abbotsbury@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Don’t advertisers too have free speech?

    I remember around 2020, a lot of freethinkers began spouting something about how Twitter is “a platform not a publisher” and therefore users are entitled to treat the website like a public meeting place and protected by first amendment rights, etc.

    It was basically a Soverign Citizen argument about how Section 230 means websites don’t have the authority to moderate content at all, and it died down after Trump stopped preaching it after he launched Truth

    Some articles about the notion:

    https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/04/no-section-230-does-not-require-platforms-be-neutral

    https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/publisher-or-platform-it-doesnt-matter

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I remember around 2020, a lot of freethinkers began spouting something about how Twitter is “a platform not a publisher” and therefore users are entitled to treat the website like a public meeting place and protected by first amendment rights, etc.

      I think you’re taking that quote of mine with an unintended meaning. I didn’t mean to suggest advertisers have right to post what they want, rather they have the choice to NOT post if they don’t want to. The right-wing argument appears to suggest that advertisers should be powerless to choose or not choose to advertise. Suggesting they are wheat to be harvested. A resource owned by the company they are purchasing advertising from; its a bizarre notion.