If network effects weren't a thing, there would be a million Facebooks and all of them would be popular. Because of network effects, we no longer have internet bulletin boards, and people congregate in few places rather than many. There's much greater utility in having folks together.

Similarly, subreddit /r/theModsOfMyCitySuckSoComeHereInstead will never gain traction. Once something is cemented as the default that the public uses, it's almost impossible to dislodge.

But you already know this.

> This is ridiculous. Other people's websites are not common carriers.

If they have a billion MAU, they should be. A billion MAU is more than the entire US population, which should more than suffice for "common carrier" designation.

Such websites are effectively public squares where everyone congregates, and because of aforementioned network effects, there are no alternatives. Banned individuals are effectively de-personed. It doesn't matter what the reasons for the ban are, the mere fact that it is possible removes freedom from the individual.

Unless someone breaks certain very particular rules (eg. raping children), they cannot be banned from the park, from the Internet, from email. If then, there's only one popular platform that has a monopoly on X, and billions of people are using that platform to communicate about it, then banning someone from said platform is the moral equivalent of removing them from parks or email.

Email is a perfect example of a protocol that succeeded before the platforms started to take over. It was early and everyone adopted it. We need a similar protocol for social media so your form of argument can't even be used. Preferably a P2P protocol instead of a federated one so that others can't impose their will onto third parties without their consent.

Just like the Mastodon folks lean hard left and want to censor conservative voices out of the mastoverse, the far right conservative folks want to step in and silence LGBT and non-WASP culture. It's the same thing, and the protocol should alleviate anyone from being a victim of ideologues on either side. Or from being a victom of capricious moderators that ban you for liking pineapple on pizza.

Every individual should be god of what they consume and publish, and everyone else is their own god of their own island. Nobody else should be butting in in front of two consenting parties.