I can understand why you might feel that way. At the same time, I think censorship on an infrastructure level sets a very strong precedent. I think infrastructure players should refrain completely from that kind of action.

I think we disagree on what censorship means. To me, censorship very clearly means an active effort to go out and eliminate a particular type of speech or a particular speaker. That means going out and finding that speech or speaker and shutting them down, everywhere.

In this instance, a platform decides, effectively "we refuse to host your ideas, go elsewhere." Facebook and Google and Twitter aren't going out of their way to scrub these people off the internet; they are just kicking them off their own platform.

You might consider this part of the "cancel culture", but it's not censorship.

I just don't think AWS should be considered core infrastructure. ISPs are definitely core infra, which is why I think net neutrality is so important. Domain name registrars and CC processors are a bit of a grey area for me, since those gate access to the internet and online financial services respectively, but there's plenty of precedent for blocking certain businesses from both of those services.

AWS is great the servers you run. Those can be anywhere on earth, including physically located at your business

Sorry, I don't think that is censorship. It is just the bar owner deciding he had enough about you insulting the patrons and kicked you out, but you can keep saying your shit. Just not in his bar.

AWS and Twitter are not infrastructure. Electricity and telecoms are infrastructure.

At the end of the day if my buisness is hosting something the market does not like, my buisness will suffer. It becomes harder to retain and attract new customers and grow my buisness and interfers with my marketing messaging. We live in a capitalistic society this is how the free market works.

This power could be used to sensor you in the future. This power could be put in the hands of a group of people who thinks completely different from you.

Honestly, where on earth have you people been? Tech companies have been "censoring" all sorts of people they deem undesirable for years, why is it the literal terrorist white supremacists that caused everyone to sit up and notice?

That power has always existed, and could have always been used "by those who think completely different" from us. If they think that differently, then they wouldn't even think twice about using said power to censor.

In this case, Twitter et al. thought a LOT about what to do, as they did very little for 4 year's of Trump's presidency, and only decided to act after Trump incited a literal self-coup and insurrection with the goal of illegitimately keeping himself in power.

If in the future "those who think completely differently from me" are going to think liberal ideas are so dangerous to be removed, it won't matter what "standard" we set today. It seems even with the highest standard of "don't support open coups", you still think I will be judged the exact same.

Censorship is bad. But insurrections against legitimate governments are worse.

I do agree 100% with you. That's why I do think we need to decrease the power of the state and also the power of the corporations using a modern antitrust law. If they power continues to grow, we'll live in a totalitarian state, dictate by politicians and corporations together.