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Many will say that "free speech" is a negative right, and as such it only means anything in the context of governments: in other words, it is something the gove

by noarchy 10y ago

Many will say that "free speech" is a negative right, and as such it only means anything in the context of governments: in other words, it is something the government cannot take from you. Government can use force (the very real threat of jail, fines, etc) against you to suppress your speech. All Facebook can really do is prevent you from using their site, in the end. Naturally, if they work with a government, Facebook becomes a kind of arm of the government, but that's a separate context (but it is also what this article is about).

colllectorof 10y ago
>Government can use force (the very real threat of jail, fines, etc) against you to suppress your speech. Is free speech a thing worth keeping or not? If it is, than anything that realistically threatens it on a global scale needs to be kept in check. Now, let's not pretend that the only way to suppress speech is to use violence. Governments have a long history of using much subtler and sometimes more efficient tactics like blacklisting. For example, in Soviet Union many "inconvenient" people were free to live as they chose, except they had no chance in hell of getting decent housing or a good job, and were ostracized by many out of fear of "political contagion". So it's not about violence. It's about power. And companies like Google and Facebook have "soft" power rivaling many nation-states.
- noarchy 10y ago
  I wasn't aware that Google or Facebook were required services. You can easily make the choice to use a different email or search provider, and can opt-out of social media. On the other hand, I am not aware of a way in which I can similarly opt-out of what the government of my country does, or even being forced to pay for what they're doing. There are concerns that I have about the level with which some of these companies cooperate with state actors, especially when we're unaware of it. When these companies become partners of government in secret, the state security apparatus is accordingly expanded in ways that do threaten us.

by noarchy 10y ago

colllectorof 10y ago

>Government can use force (the very real threat of jail, fines, etc) against you to suppress your speech. Is free speech a thing worth keeping or not? If it is, than anything that realistically threatens it on a global scale needs to be kept in check. Now, let's not pretend that the only way to suppress speech is to use violence. Governments have a long history of using much subtler and sometimes more efficient tactics like blacklisting. For example, in Soviet Union many "inconvenient" people were free to live as they chose, except they had no chance in hell of getting decent housing or a good job, and were ostracized by many out of fear of "political contagion". So it's not about violence. It's about power. And companies like Google and Facebook have "soft" power rivaling many nation-states.

noarchy 10y ago
I wasn't aware that Google or Facebook were required services. You can easily make the choice to use a different email or search provider, and can opt-out of social media. On the other hand, I am not aware of a way in which I can similarly opt-out of what the government of my country does, or even being forced to pay for what they're doing. There are concerns that I have about the level with which some of these companies cooperate with state actors, especially when we're unaware of it. When these companies become partners of government in secret, the state security apparatus is accordingly expanded in ways that do threaten us.