Analogies are just analogies. Online communities are their own thing. Also, my analogies act to highlight the morality of what companies are doing, which you are evidently disturbed by.
Where people have reach, and you actively degrade that reach after the fact, the action is immorally censorious. Where an audience seeks a particular message, and where another party seeks to deny their access, particularly through underhanded and non-transparent means, the action is immorally censorious. I suspect you just find those actions desirable because they are (for now) aimed at your ideological opponents.
Wrong, but funny that you're trying to discuss my reasons, and not my arguments.
No. Nefarious motivations, such as a desire to exert power by controlling discourse, can be judged by actions, and they should be considered in terms of the kind of future they can bring about. It's well and good to judge someone's credibility with regards to talking about human rights, by observing what they would do with human rights.
Your argument is essentially "this is wrong, because I think it is wrong".
No. Squashing free speech in effect is dangerous, because it's through speech and discourse that a society such as the present one can avoid bloodshed. It is wrong because it is dangerous. It is wrong because it is against a human right, which under-girds all other human rights. Those who are motivated by power, for which rights can be sacrificed, have a very bad historical record.
Sure, but limiting speech in your private forum isn't squashing free speech.
Unless your definition of free speech is being able to say whatever you want whenever and wherever you want with absolutely no consequences from anyone.
Not inviting a friend for lunch because of their annoying Taylor Swift obsession is, by that definition, squashing free speech.
Sure, but limiting speech in your private forum isn't squashing free speech.
Unless you have effective monopoly control over what constitutes the only viable platform for a particular medium. It's entirely disingenuous to claim that YouTube is now simply a "private forum." What if Amazon declared that black people couldn't sell on their "private" infrastructure. Would that really seem fair?
Not inviting a friend for lunch because of their annoying Taylor Swift obsession is, by that definition, squashing free speech.
No, the proper analogy would be the de-platforming and demonetization of Taylor Swift and her fandom through underhanded and non-transparent means.
Do you think we should pass a law forcing every online community to not have content guidelines?
Content guidelines are fine. But the way they are currently used -- where they can be so vague as to mean anything, and where things can change so dramatically after the fact -- isn't acceptable for any platform that basically constitutes a broad reach medium. It basically just devolves into a pretext for censorship in a broad reach medium. Get to a certain level of reach, and your content guideline means something very different than some little web forum tucked away somewhere.
So my answer would be this: It's disingenuous for someone to invoke "show you the door" if you're the only shop in town. If you're the only bakery in town, it's pretty crappy if you're not going to bake someone a wedding cake.
It's all contingent on reach. Buy one radio station, and only play fundamentalist Christian content? I think that's fine. But if you've bought 90% of all radio stations in the country? Yeah, I think the government might be doing us a favor if they called shenanigans on that.
Where people have reach, and you actively degrade that reach after the fact, the action is immorally censorious. Where an audience seeks a particular message, and where another party seeks to deny their access, particularly through underhanded and non-transparent means, the action is immorally censorious. I suspect you just find those actions desirable because they are (for now) aimed at your ideological opponents.