4 ms·

Not offering you their services isn't restricting your freedom. Your freedoms don't include a right to other people's services against their will.

loup-vaillant 9y ago
That would be true if I had alternatives to begin with. If I'm banned from the only communication network in existence, I'm effectively banned from communicating altogether. No more freedom of speech, no more freedom of information, that's pretty heavy stuff. I very much like the idea that no one has the "freedom" to deprive me of my citizens' freedoms. I mean, that's supposed to be the job of judges and juries.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  But you're not. Your entire counter is non-sensical, and is nowhere even close to being reality.
  - loup-vaillant 9y ago
    We were talking about the trinet counterfactual. This world has yet to get to this point, thank goodness.
- gnaritas 9y ago
  You do have alternatives, and no law grants you the right to alternative versions of luxury products. You don't need a social network at all to be a functioning member of society, it's not a right. You're not banned from the only communication network in existence as none of those companies are that. They could all ban you and you still have access to the internet, you can still setup a blog and publish your thoughts to the world, you have not been limited in any way. > No more freedom of speech, no more freedom of information, that's pretty heavy stuff. I don't think you know what freedom of speech even means to be saying that here. Freedom of speech means the government can't limit your speech or punish you for it, it doesn't mean you have a right to every broadcast medium that exists for speech.
  - loup-vaillant 9y ago
    > You don't need a social network at all to be a functioning member of society, it's not a right. I was talking about the trinet hypothesis, where (roughly speaking), Facebook is the internet. If I was banned from that, I couldn't even have a blog. > Freedom of speech means the government can't limit your speech or punish you for it Replace "government" by "no one", and I would agree. (I'll accept one exception, though: judges, when punishing me for some bad deed.) > it doesn't mean you have a right to every broadcast medium that exists for speech. Correct. But it does mean I have a right to at least one broadcast medium. By the way, freedom of speech only become real when the masses got internet access. Before then, only a select few could exercise that right: those with write access to radio, television, or journals.
    - gnaritas 9y ago
      > Replace "government" by "no one", and I would agree. (I'll accept one exception, though: judges, when punishing me for some bad deed.) No. In the U.S. which is all I care about, no one but the government can violate your right to free speech. You do not have a right to not be censored by anyone nor should you. > But it does mean I have a right to at least one broadcast medium. No it does not; it doesn't remotely mean any such thing. > By the way, freedom of speech only become real when the masses got internet access. That's nonsense. Anyone anywhere can walk out into any public area and speak to the crowd; freedom of speech does not in any way imply freedom to wide area broadcast mediums, it means only that you can't get in trouble from the authorities for holding unpopular views. If your views are popular, they will gain an audience from word of mouth alone. You never had a right to TV, or the paper, or any other medium.
      - loup-vaillant 9y ago
        > it means only that you can't get in trouble from the authorities for holding unpopular views. That's freedom of thought. Reducing freedom of speech to the kind that doesn't have any influence (that would be "speaking to the crowd") is utterly ridiculous. You can't be that stupid, and I'm not sure I mean that well. --- PS: I don't care about the legal definition of the term "freedom of speech", it was defined at a time when it couldn't mean anything significant for the common people. Just understand that I'm talking about something broader, more powerful, enabled by the internet. Maybe you don't care about that broader freedom. But then imagine for a second being stripped of all your accounts, including your blog if you have one. We'll see how you don't care.

loup-vaillant 9y ago

That would be true if I had alternatives to begin with. If I'm banned from the only communication network in existence, I'm effectively banned from communicating altogether. No more freedom of speech, no more freedom of information, that's pretty heavy stuff. I very much like the idea that no one has the "freedom" to deprive me of my citizens' freedoms. I mean, that's supposed to be the job of judges and juries.

s73ver_ 9y ago
But you're not. Your entire counter is non-sensical, and is nowhere even close to being reality.
- loup-vaillant 9y ago
  We were talking about the trinet counterfactual. This world has yet to get to this point, thank goodness.
gnaritas 9y ago
You do have alternatives, and no law grants you the right to alternative versions of luxury products. You don't need a social network at all to be a functioning member of society, it's not a right. You're not banned from the only communication network in existence as none of those companies are that. They could all ban you and you still have access to the internet, you can still setup a blog and publish your thoughts to the world, you have not been limited in any way. > No more freedom of speech, no more freedom of information, that's pretty heavy stuff. I don't think you know what freedom of speech even means to be saying that here. Freedom of speech means the government can't limit your speech or punish you for it, it doesn't mean you have a right to every broadcast medium that exists for speech.
- loup-vaillant 9y ago
  > You don't need a social network at all to be a functioning member of society, it's not a right. I was talking about the trinet hypothesis, where (roughly speaking), Facebook is the internet. If I was banned from that, I couldn't even have a blog. > Freedom of speech means the government can't limit your speech or punish you for it Replace "government" by "no one", and I would agree. (I'll accept one exception, though: judges, when punishing me for some bad deed.) > it doesn't mean you have a right to every broadcast medium that exists for speech. Correct. But it does mean I have a right to at least one broadcast medium. By the way, freedom of speech only become real when the masses got internet access. Before then, only a select few could exercise that right: those with write access to radio, television, or journals.
  - gnaritas 9y ago
    > Replace "government" by "no one", and I would agree. (I'll accept one exception, though: judges, when punishing me for some bad deed.) No. In the U.S. which is all I care about, no one but the government can violate your right to free speech. You do not have a right to not be censored by anyone nor should you. > But it does mean I have a right to at least one broadcast medium. No it does not; it doesn't remotely mean any such thing. > By the way, freedom of speech only become real when the masses got internet access. That's nonsense. Anyone anywhere can walk out into any public area and speak to the crowd; freedom of speech does not in any way imply freedom to wide area broadcast mediums, it means only that you can't get in trouble from the authorities for holding unpopular views. If your views are popular, they will gain an audience from word of mouth alone. You never had a right to TV, or the paper, or any other medium.
    - loup-vaillant 9y ago
      > it means only that you can't get in trouble from the authorities for holding unpopular views. That's freedom of thought. Reducing freedom of speech to the kind that doesn't have any influence (that would be "speaking to the crowd") is utterly ridiculous. You can't be that stupid, and I'm not sure I mean that well. --- PS: I don't care about the legal definition of the term "freedom of speech", it was defined at a time when it couldn't mean anything significant for the common people. Just understand that I'm talking about something broader, more powerful, enabled by the internet. Maybe you don't care about that broader freedom. But then imagine for a second being stripped of all your accounts, including your blog if you have one. We'll see how you don't care.