4 ms·
Arrington is completely inconsistent when it comes to the right to free speech. For instance, when it comes to another unsavory free-speech issue, Holocaust de
by gyardley 16y ago
Arrington is completely inconsistent when it comes to the right to free speech. For instance, when it comes to another unsavory free-speech issue, Holocaust denial, he writes:
"Sure, we can’t shut down the dark places on the Internet where people are free to hate Jews [...] But Facebook can take a stand and say it won’t happen in their back yard. Holocaust denial is hate speech, and it cannot be given a place to take root." (from http://techcrunch.com/2009/05/12/facebook-remains-stubbornly-proud-of-position-on-holocaust-denial/ http://techcrunch.com/2009/05/12/facebook-remains-stubbornly...)
He could just as easily swap out prostitution for Holocaust denial and Craigslist for Facebook, and make the exact same argument, no? After all, I'm pretty sure sex traffickers are doing more damage to society today than a handful of anti-semitic cranks.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- padmanabhan01 16y agoThat's backwards. Both facebook and craigslist have rights to block what they want. In facebook's case they wanted to block. In craigslist's case they don't want to block. Free speech is about letting fb or cl decide what they want to block or allow in their site and it is not contradictory to support both: fb's right to block and cl's right to allow.
- gyardley 16y agoRead the article. FB did not want to block and Arrington was arguing that they must.
- dejb 16y agoDid he say they should be forced to block by the law or was he making a strong moral argument that they should block? My impression is that both FB and CL were (possibly inconsistent) moral arguments and not so much about the right to free speech.
- philwelch 16y agoIf you let anti-semitic cranks rant freely, then you know who the anti-semitic cranks are. Likewise, if you let sex traffickers openly advertise on Craigslist, the vice squad knows where to find them. So the case for free speech on both is similar.