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Ok, but were an American to find themselves legally censored by another American individual or corporation, they could take their business elsewhere/start their

Ok, but were an American to find themselves legally censored by another American individual or corporation, they could take their business elsewhere/start their own newspaper or webhost/become a soapbox preacher, whatever. None of those are options in the Chinese case.

peoplewindow 9y ago
That's true as long as there are plenty of providers in the market and the barriers to entry are low, so you can get specialist "free speech" firms. Sometimes that's true, sometimes it's not. If Google and Bing both decide to delist your website because they think it's "hateful" or some other reason you're out of luck. There are only two major English-language search engines. If your Wordpress hosting provider doesn't want you, well, that's inconvenient but not the end of the world. One problem with encouraging a culture of "free speech doesn't matter if you're a company" is that the type of speech that requires the most defence is the most unpopular kind, which means you can end up with all the offensive or challenging material lumped under one or two providers ... who are then vulnerable to other forms of attack by people who wish to crush speech they disagree with. It's really a lot more robust if everyone agrees that "I disagree with what you have to say, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it".
- MaxfordAndSons 9y ago
  > One problem with encouraging a culture of "free speech doesn't matter if you're a company" is that the type of speech that requires the most defence is the most unpopular kind, which means you can end up with all the offensive or challenging material lumped under one or two providers ... who are then vulnerable to other forms of attack by people who wish to crush speech they disagree with. It's really a lot more robust if everyone agrees that "I disagree with what you have to say, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it". I totally agree. I wasn't encouraging that attitude per se, but rather pointing out that free speech protections as they are implemented in the US protect the rights of private individuals/corporations to take either attitude towards the speech of others. And FWIW I can't really envision an alternate implementation that insures people abide by the robust interpretation of the value of free speech - at a certain point it falls to the public to continue to embrace free speech as a positive value.

peoplewindow 9y ago

That's true as long as there are plenty of providers in the market and the barriers to entry are low, so you can get specialist "free speech" firms. Sometimes that's true, sometimes it's not. If Google and Bing both decide to delist your website because they think it's "hateful" or some other reason you're out of luck. There are only two major English-language search engines. If your Wordpress hosting provider doesn't want you, well, that's inconvenient but not the end of the world. One problem with encouraging a culture of "free speech doesn't matter if you're a company" is that the type of speech that requires the most defence is the most unpopular kind, which means you can end up with all the offensive or challenging material lumped under one or two providers ... who are then vulnerable to other forms of attack by people who wish to crush speech they disagree with. It's really a lot more robust if everyone agrees that "I disagree with what you have to say, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it".

MaxfordAndSons 9y ago
> One problem with encouraging a culture of "free speech doesn't matter if you're a company" is that the type of speech that requires the most defence is the most unpopular kind, which means you can end up with all the offensive or challenging material lumped under one or two providers ... who are then vulnerable to other forms of attack by people who wish to crush speech they disagree with. It's really a lot more robust if everyone agrees that "I disagree with what you have to say, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it". I totally agree. I wasn't encouraging that attitude per se, but rather pointing out that free speech protections as they are implemented in the US protect the rights of private individuals/corporations to take either attitude towards the speech of others. And FWIW I can't really envision an alternate implementation that insures people abide by the robust interpretation of the value of free speech - at a certain point it falls to the public to continue to embrace free speech as a positive value.