The “private companies administrating censorship” bit gets back to what I was going on about with the deliberate distraction by reframing things away from “that guys a dick/wrong” to “laws and rights and things, bro!”
And censorship can technically exist without direct government administration, or a legal frame work requiring or justifying it (see the Hays and Comic Book Codes, Hollywood Black lists). Though seldom without Government pressure (in this country). That’s what I was talking about with “defacto”, IIRC the courts have generally not bought this “that’s not censorship because the government didn’t do it” part. Source doesn’t matter, its the effect and intent. Though Government is almost always practically necessary for the intended effect to come about.
Twitter, or any company doing this is not administering censorship. They are not assuming a government role of policing speech. They are as you Nemomen said, doing their jobs. Making simple decisions about what sort of speech, media, and behavior they opt to support and publish.
Now if Twitter were somehow empowered by the government to police speech in all venues. Then they would be administering censorship. If Twitter were leading a collusion of other companies, media outlets, etc to prevent certain kinds of speech, or speech by certain people. Making the decisions and dictating what happens then twitter would be administering censorship. If Twitter were lobbying the government or attempting to force their hand to ban certain speech, forms of speech, or speech by certain people. Then Twitter would be administering censorship.
But that’s not the case. They’ve simply removed the opportunity to publish from a certain person who has a habit of using all his wonderful free speech rights to cause a god damn problem on and for twitter and their other users. Milo can still go put his bullshit on Reddit, Twitters not gonna go sue Reddit to prevent that. Milo can go hold court in a bar, Twitter isn’t going to try and get the liquor license pulled and the bar shutdown. If Milo formed his own website, or say worked at a major online publication, Twitter isn’t going to march its troops (not that they have any) through the door and force them to fire the guy.
Because they aren’t censoring anyone. The key difference being between kicking a guy out of your space, and trying to formally block a guy from all spaces everywhere. A company that fires an employee is not forevery baring them from the work force, they are saying “you can’t work here no more”. The here being the key difference every damn time.
