When you hear something outrageous on FOX or CNN, you yell "bullshit" at the TV.
When you read the same thing on Facebook and see 20 of your friends positively interacting with the news story and showing their approval, you remain quiet at best, join the lunacy at worst.
What you don't see is the three shadowbanned accounts explaining why it's lunacy.
How much traction could a lawsuit against Reddit, Twitter, etc. have against the practice of banning or shadowbanning?
If a user could show good faith participation, could they claim they've been prohibited from exercising freedom of expression in a public forum?
Suppose someone was banned from a subreddit for their particular hobby or, worse, city or region. This might be the single biggest forum for that person to address their neighbors and peers, and banning could prohibit their ability to find work, housing, opportunities, etc.
Moderators often ban users on a whim. Sometimes they ban users for merely commenting on other items or subreddits that they deem "wrong", and this practice is often automated.
If you can't sue Reddit, could you sue the moderators?
Yes. How close are these platforms to being de facto public squares?
If you're banned from /r/sanfrancisco etc., what do you do? Your voice and ability to participate in the community has been blinded and muffled.
Reddit and Twitter are bigger than Reddit and Twitter. If you're banned, you have less of an ability to participate in modern life. Events, jobs, commentary, and more are gone. There is no alternative, because platforms Hoover up as much as they possibly can.
Ideally these platforms would be protocols, but in the meantime the common carriers that operate them should be held to preserving accessibility.
Moderation isn't easy. It should probably be an order of magnitude more expensive than it already is so that safeguards against "personhood erasure" can be put in place.
You don't want racists, trolls, and bigots spouting hate speech, but you also need to keep the lines open for when these individuals are behaving. Because the pendulum swings and sometimes you find yourself on the other side of the censorship zeitgeist.
Perfectly salient thoughts and people can be memory holed. And that's not just a possibility - it's happening right now.
