You are changing the subject. If the problem is that large businesses have formed monopolies I agree.. and the answer is to break them up.
Again... you are changing the subject. The problem is does government have the right to COMPEL speech. Not compete in a market of ideas. People have the right to free speech, they do not have the right to be profitable in their speech and they certainly do not have the right to require people listen or read them.
This is a completely different subject... This isn't about free speech, it's about companies securing a monopoly. Microsoft should be broken up, as should Amazon, Google.... and a number of organizations, especially National Banks.
They control markets because many of our politicians are bought and paid for. We could and should break them up.
Okay... now we are back to it social media providers are content producers or not. They are not, and they have never claimed to be. They are publishers and since the do not make money directly with published content, then they can not be held liable for what shows up on their platform... We could change the law making them liable, but that would only mean more content would be screened out because then they would be fiscally responsible for what appears on their platform.
Yes, but to be more correct they reserve the right to take control and ownership over your content unless you post that you have copyrights to what you put out. If you do not copyright your content, anyone can take it... all FB says is that none of their users can take ownership of content without their approval. If you post a song on FB and it isn't protected, and another user takes it and starts making money from it, Facebook can sue them because not only do you have to agree that un-copyrighted material you post belongs to them, but if you are a viewer then you also yield ownership rights to FB.
You have the right to free speech. Companies have the right to deny you service provided you are not violating any other laws. For example, a restaurant can enforce a dress code: they can not deny service to minorities. If Congress changes the laws so that it is illegal to deny terms of service based on anything... well fine... let's debate this and see if it has broad support. The US Constitution gives you the right to free speech... the Constitution does not guarantee the right to wide distribution of speech.
The US Constitution does not guarantee that you will be successful in business only that you are free to pursue happiness. When you are in business there are always environmental changes that you have no control over that will 'ruin' you. If, for example, you have a car wash place... then the city closes your street for three months for road repairs, you are screwed. I've seen things like this happen all the time... it is the nature of business.
It might be wrong, but it is their right to do this. If their advertisers are telling them that they do not want their products marketed side by side with content that their customers do not approve of... well.... then it is a business decision. Companies have the right to protect their brand... if in the process of protecting 'their brand' they end up losing content and viewers... well then they will suffer the consequences of their actions.
This is a different topic and really this is an old debate that actually goes back to the Gutenberg Bible in the 15th century where people were worried that the printing press would have an undo influence on the masses, where a publisher of a printing press who be able to exercise undo influence on the masses. Then radio... then TV... now the internet. But people always find a way to get their points across. When conservatives felt their voices were not heard on TV... they went to AM Radio, eventually an entire TV cable station was dedicated only to conservative content (FOX)... if there is a demand for content, people will find a way to get it... unless the government mucks things up and tries to control the market of ideas.
You are mixing Constitutional protections with with ideas that are not an enumerated right. It is illegal to discriminate on race, religion, and the courts have ruled discrimination against sexual orientation, in certain instances can also be illegal. Now if the government steps in and compels equal access for political and social opinions, well okay... change the law. But if we do that you would be opening up a whole can of worms that I'm not sure many people would like. Anytime the government steps in and tries to control anything it gets fvcked up. Let the free market work.
SJWs and political correctness have been around for centuries. This is not a new phenomenon. People will always use media in an attempt to shape a narrative or promote a political position... and every time there is a new 'technology' be it the printing press... radio... TV.... now the internet, people have always been fearful of the results. New media ALWAYS brings about change... it is the natural order of things. The only time this is a problem is when government attempts to control this, dictating content. If we allow Government to order private companies and individuals what the MUST allow... then where does it end?
You have a point to some degree but then there is the realistic implementation of your points and then there is the idealistic implementation. In the idealistic implementation, you say they don't have to give you a platform. However, there is then the realistic implementation, which says they own the social media space at this point and if you want to reach literally billions of people, you need to have their consent to use their tool. It's not a matter of whether or not you can profit from your speech, it's being allowed to say it. Being censored off of their platform severely limits your ability to make your speech known. It would be like being banned from using the Gutenberg press at the time. Yes, you can publish your materials but your ability to do so is severely hampered by not having access to the press and having to do it by hand. Either the government supports and accepts the citizen's rights to free speech or they don't. Allowing companies that have the market cornered on digital speech to make arbitrary calls, from moment to moment, about what is acceptable speech is infringing on those rights.
I'll say it again, you can't protect ideas without protecting all forms of speech, at least those that don't encourage illegal behaviors. If you allow people or companies to censor or discriminate based on an idea, then all forms of discrimination are on the table. If I, as the government, allow a company to censor based on a political idea, then allowing for them to discriminate on a value set, say religion, is on the table. So is your race, color, creed or sexual orientation. You can't allow freedom of association in one instance and then deny it in other instances, you have to be even handed in how you apply your logic.
Facebook and others in this genre of business have made the claim that they are simply a platform in court. This allows them protection from being sued for various things that are posted on their platform. Whether it is slander, copyright issues or some of type of legal matter, the platform argument can work in their favor to protect them against damages. However, now, in public, they claim to want to censor based on mostly, political or social ideas that the SWJs find abhorrent. Of course, the SJWs are essentially third wave feminists or cucks who support them and their sense of fairness, decency and morals are unbelievably skewed towards fascism and communism but many people have difficulty seeing this for some reason. Social media platforms can't have it both ways, either they are a platform, agnostic of ideas, thoughts or content posted or they are a publisher, who gets to use that defense to censor people and ideas that they do not find worthy of their platform or audience/users. If you allow them to use the platform defense in court, then that's the label that they are stuck with and can't censor people.
You are right, SJWs have been around for centuries and the pendulum swings back and forth. This is though, a fairly skewed swing for the pendulum this time though. We have not seen many times in history where the pendulum went to this kind of extreme and the few times that it does, empires fall. What we are witnessing, unless drastic measures are taken, is the fall of the west. The last time we saw this type of extreme move towards one end or the other, I daresay, led to the dark ages. Science, medical and logic deniers beware, we are in dangerous times.