Edit: you also seem to be posting on here... a form of social media. It's not one of the biggies, but it is a form of it.
I don't really count a forum as social media. On here I'm just Junglist who appears to look like Silvio. It's more of a discussion board, at least that's how I see it. But I can see how it's counted towards social media. I do also use Instagram and snapchat but again, it's for me anyway, not in the same vein of things like Facebook and Twitter.
The main issue is not so much the whole TOS bit but rather how big tech has encroached on our lives and more importantly how society functions, given the recent events. We have, in essence, replaced the notion of "public square" with Twitter and Facebook, who are busy scalping our personal data, habits and more for advertising revenue. Then they are busy curating what we see through their feed mechanisms.
Twitter and Facebook are wholly insufficient platforms for any sort of reasoned public debate about important issues and instead they tend to stoke up division and emotion, I think they are quite literally tearing the west apart, we're eating ourselves. It makes me inclined to think that they are antithetical to how we, as human beings, are supposed to interact in communities. On top of this, in the background, we are busy centralising access to computing resources with a few large providers (e.g. AWS, MSFT, Google). Recipe for future disaster since we are so dependent on technology to do things in modern society. If big tech giants control the equivalent of the public square, it's bad. If you then try to build an equivalent community somewhere else, you are booted from the computing providers. Then where do you go?
We must decentralise heavily, break up monopolies and put protections into law (i.e. we have a say via vote, not rely on some unelected tech execs). As an early worker at Google and Amazon, I've long said that the threat is sort of socialist technocracy and it appears we are already there.
Really agree with you regarding the bit in bold. Social media isn't normal and communicating that way should really be an exception and not the norm. It's like on forums, words are fantastic and get you very far but, speaking personally, I can often get the tone wrong as you don't have the social cues to pick up on. It's like that Key and Peele sketch where two friends are texting one another. One is being super chill and the other is reading it in an antagonistic way. A lot can get lost when just reading words on a screen.
I also agree that monopolies are not good for anyone (other than the owner of that monopoly I suppose) but as hard as it is, it is a free market. Just need someone to have a new idea and if they build it and it's good, people will come. It's obviously nigh on impossible to compete with the big boys as they have such a grasp on it all but it doesn't mean it can't happen.
I'm sure Bebo, MySpace et all thought no one would better them. Same can happen for FB and Twitter.
Despite all of that though. I don't see why a private entity should be forced to do something the owners don't agree with. Regardless of how many people use it on a daily basis, it's not theirs and it doesn't mean people are entitled to use it.
I understand why people are arguing against it but I just disagree as if Twitter is a birth right. It's a service provided by someone. It's a service that when you signed up and presumably (didn't) read the terms of service you agreed to what is and what isn't permitted on the platform.
You could say your free speech is being indirectly suppressed as you don't have access to that platform but your actual free speech hasn't been affected at all. Trump has not lost the right to say what he wants to say he has just lost the ability to say what he wants on a service that isn't his.
If I started spouting (just as an example) lots of racist, xenophobic, sexist and what ever other 'ist' you can think of on here wouldn't the company or mods be well within their rights to remove me from this platform? Why would they want my comments that some may say are in bad taste tied to their platform? Why should a platform holder be forced to host any views that they don't like?
Old people can use twitter if they want as younger people can ... read a newspaper?
It's not that far to say that The ISP's revoke the internet from somebody, and the electric companies revoke power to somebody because they don't agree with (insert non-popular wrong think here). You could start your own internet, or buy a generator.
OK but what if the ISP cuts you off for doing something they required you not to do? If an ISP said "anyone found to do illegal downloads will be cut off" and you go ahead and download some copyright stuff - is that a problem?
If you breech your terms of contract you have no one to blame but yourself.
Wiley got banned from Twitter not so long ago for saying all sorts of anti-Semitic things, do you think he should've been allowed to remain on Twitter, if so, why?
It's not that far different. You can change religion, you can decide later in life to find a god... or not but its still protected.
If you support the green party you will probably change your life towards renewables and live in a field. If you are red team then you will probably give money to the the local smack-head for his fix and the blueteam, probably steal from the smack-head to fund your yacht. Each of these will influence the way you live your life.
You can change your religion in life but it's not as straight forward as one day choosing a new political party or football team. Someone who has been in a religion from birth is going to find it a lot harder to change than someone who became interested in politics later in life.