Apple is a business. Facebook is a business. If Apple wants to pull an app from its app store, it should be allowed to – it’s a business and it should be allowed to do whatever it wants to further its business goals so long as it complies with the law. There is no law that mandates that Apple – or any other business (internet or brick and mortar) – sell a good or service that it does not want to sell. Likewise for Facebook. If Facebook wants to pull a bunch of profiles off the system, Facebook should be allowed to do that. Facebook is a business, and it should also be allowed to do whatever it wants so long as it complies with the law.
What frustrates me about this article – as with the last one – is that it imposes restrictions on businesses that simply don’t exist. Yes, as a U.S. citizen you have freedom of speech (to be clear, this is a qualified freedom not an absolute freedom). But “freedom of speech” doesn’t mean that you have the “right” to say whatever you want on Facebook, and Facebook can’t pull your profile. Facebook is a publicly-traded company with fiduciary duties and obligations to its shareholders. Facebook does not have any obligation to enable its users to exercise their (limited) “freedom of speech.”
Don’t get me wrong, I am all for “net neutrality,” and of course I think that the government is overstepping its boundaries as described in this article. But why does this article (and the last article) conflate the rights of private citizens with the requirements for corporations?
Let’s say you have a portfolio website, with commenting enabled. Someone leaves a nasty comment. Shouldn’t YOU have the right to take that comment down? It’s your website – not the commenter’s website – and your website does not exist as a forum to enable everyone on the internet’s freedom of speech. Your website exists to market yourself via your portfolio, and you should be allowed to take down any comments you don’t want on there.