4 ms·
This isn't the limitation of free speech, this is a private company telling one of its users that they aren't welcome due to their behavior. It's like if you we
by nameless912 10y ago
This isn't the limitation of free speech, this is a private company telling one of its users that they aren't welcome due to their behavior. It's like if you were at a store and started soapboxing about <insert alt right conspiracy bullshit here> loudly right in front of the register, the manager of the store is 100% allowed to ask you to leave. Freedom of speech means your speech isn't illegal, not that you will suffer no consequences for it.
ETA: some people made some comments below this that made me want to clarify a few things:
1) Twitter being publicly traded does not automatically make them beholden to every person on Earth, especially in matters of free speech. They're still allowed governing their platform in whatever way they see fit.
2) a better analogy might be a comedy club on open mic nigh.t. If you get up on stage and start making racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. Jokes the club owner has every right to throw you out. Yes, it's a public forum, but limiting your use of what is ultimately a private (i.e. not government owned) establishment does not constitute a violation of your rights unless it can be proven that you were denied access due to your membership in a protected class, or based on your gender, etc. Free speech doesn't protect you from (peaceful and appropriate) backlash.
- corey_moncure 10y agoI think your analogy falls a little flat because 'right in front of the register' at a store isn't literally purpose-built to be a speech platform, as Twitter is.
- hammock 10y agoHe's not commenting whether it's right or not. He's just saying people won't like it
- CoryG89 10y agoExcept that Twitter is not a private company. They are a publicly traded corporation.
- ftrflyr 10y agoTwitter is very much a public company beholden to its shareholders.
- captainmuon 10y agoThat only works in practice if there are public spaces where you can excercise your free speech. If everything is a private space, then it's fine that the government won't limit your speech - but that promise becomes pretty vacuous. I firmly believe that if something becomes as big as twitter (facebook, google, amazon, ...), it becomes infrastructure and should be subject to similar rules as the government. It should no longer be treated like that mom and pop groceries store. It took people centuries to wrangle civil rights (including free speech and parliamentary representation) from their states - in that process changing them into democracies. Before, all of that was completely unheard of. I wonder if in future, people will fight the same way for free speech on Twitter, universal access to Amazon's shipping infrastructure, the right to be indexed (or forgotten) on Google, and so on.
- altaway 10y agoNobody has provided evidence of any bad behavior of the banned accounts.
- maxerickson 10y agoThe comment you replied to doesn't say free speech and doesn't invoke the constitution. They are talking about the comedy club where the owner permanently bans anyone who makes jokes on certain topics. People stop going to it. Which I think Twitter is going to have to have some standards about what sort of behavior they allow, it's just that there is risk of going too far and making the platform boring and useless. Banning accounts used for harassment is not going too far. Banning accounts because some arbitrary number of people don't like what they say probably is.
- erichocean 10y ago> this is a private company I think you mean public company. They went public a few years ago.
- module0000 10y ago> This isn't the limitation of free speech I'm not talking about free speech. This is a company that didn't censor <x>, deciding to censor <x>. I'm sure the users that discussed/read/were-interested-in <x> will be thrilled. That is all.