An alternative reply, with analogy, if you like them:

You own a restaurant, where you sell poisoned (intentionally and knowingly) food. A group of people band up for class action lawsuit for poisoning them, and have the lawyers post a sign at your restaurant, that everyone poisoned there should reach out and get some compensation.

Should you be allowed to take the sign down?

It’s not a rival store, or speech against them.

It’s a lawsuit, with the users of the platform as the damaged party, against the platform. Removing the possibility to reach the users should result in a default judgement with maximum damages immediately.

The parent comment brings up the ToS as an example of why it's naive to believe Meta is obligated to do something, but what Meta is obligated to do depends on the law.

Yes, if they went back to being chronological feeds of people you follow, then they should get to keep Section 230 immunity.

When they are making editorial decisions about what to content to promote to you and what content to hide from you, then they should lose it.

Section 230 doesn't say anything about publishers. That was entirely made up by chronically online arguers.

What it does say is you aren't liable for something someone else wrote.

It doesn't create liability for things not covered by it.

Guess who decides the order and contents of Facebook feeds? Facebook does. So they wouldn't be liable for someone writing a post saying "gas the jews" but they would still be liable for choosing to show it at the top of everyone's front page, if that was a choice, because the front page was choice-based rather than chronological.

You are relying on the wrong people to be able to understand that nuanced distinction.

>They shouldn’t have to run ads against themselves

This is not how it works when you're found guilty of committing harm. Tobacco companies are a good example of this.

Aha, how clever. We aren't discussing whether they can be forced to display messaging; we're discussing whether they're going to later get slapped down for blocking that messaging.

I get that the distinction matters a bit from time to time (court cases keep blurring the line in the US though), but:

1. With all the other shit that makes it through the filter, this was pretty clearly a targeted, strategic takedown rather than some sort of broad "we don't allow bad ads on the platform." Allowing "all ads" isn't the thing being argued; it's allowing "this ad."

2. The non-offensive idea of "abusers shouldn't be allowed to deceive and gaslight their victims" is pretty strongly in favor of this being a bad move on Meta's part if it was an intentional act. Maybe it shakes out fine for them legally in this particular instance, but the fact that as a society we routinely require companies and individuals to behave with more appearance of moral standing than this suggests that blocking this particular ad is over the line, and it's neither naive nor utopianistic to think so. Even if it's legally in the light-grey, it's an abuse of power worth talking about, and hopefully it inspires more people to leave their platform.

It indeed doesn't, but conservative lawmakers signalled repeatedly that they were unhappy about Meta's protection under section 230 if their moderation policies were not politically neutral