> then despite what they claim, they should be held legally responsible.
I fully agree with this. There is a great deal of distrust in contemporary society, because those who hold the power do everything they can to avoid being held responsible. And because they hold the power, they are able to do it. If these parasites want a civilisation to be parasitical off, they will need to shape up.
However, it needs to be careful legal responsibility. Otherwise you just end up with the Google problem. Google will arbitrarily shut down an account for no apparent reason and no clear possibility of appeal or even explanation. So aside from being responsible for the bad actors they choose not to exclude, they should also be responsible for the actors they unfairly or disproportionately exclude. Probably it means their current business models become unviable, but that's fine.
> So aside from being responsible for the bad actors they choose not to exclude, they should also be responsible for the actors they unfairly or disproportionately exclude.
I entirely agree. I think that this could be made quite general: when a private entity is in a position of gatekeeping a large proportion of a market (say, 30%), then it should automatically have a universal service obligation - unable to arbitrarily choose not to do business with those it finds inconvenient. "Fired" customers should have legal recourse under the universal service obligation. Abuse (by a fired customer) would be an acceptable reason to fire that customer, but the business would have to demonstrate abuse to a legal standard of proof.
Business owners might consider this to be an unfair burden. I see it from a socialist perspective: if you're a big player, that's the burden you must bear in order for the market to remain a fair place to do business.
I fully agree with this. There is a great deal of distrust in contemporary society, because those who hold the power do everything they can to avoid being held responsible. And because they hold the power, they are able to do it. If these parasites want a civilisation to be parasitical off, they will need to shape up.
However, it needs to be careful legal responsibility. Otherwise you just end up with the Google problem. Google will arbitrarily shut down an account for no apparent reason and no clear possibility of appeal or even explanation. So aside from being responsible for the bad actors they choose not to exclude, they should also be responsible for the actors they unfairly or disproportionately exclude. Probably it means their current business models become unviable, but that's fine.