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no more right of access to a privately-owned live-streaming platform with an audience in the millions than he had right of access to a broadcast TV network If

no more right of access to a privately-owned live-streaming platform with an audience in the millions than he had right of access to a broadcast TV network If the government now has the right to say, "piece of content X -- not allowed" arbitrarily and with no process and rational standard, then Free Speech is simply broken. An event of that magnitude is now history. A free society should not be rewriting history. People are still free to not-view and not-read. That right can't practically be infringed. What can be infringed is the right to view and the right to read. You can tease apart the right to say something with the right to have it signal-boosted along the way As the internet is currently formulated, "signal boost" is equivalent to discovery. Being able to manipulate discovery for 90% of the population is tantamount to the power of censorship. if you want to save Free Speech you're going to have to in case we throw the baby out with the bathwater here In a fair system which truly supports Free Speech, in the end, signal boosting a bad message becomes a good thing. If it's really bad and full of nonsense, then there will be a reaction and backlash which will bury the bad message. What we have in the years leading up to 2019, is a small group of activists supported by a cultural minority (academia+media+tech) who signal boosted messages, including those of bad actors who hijacked activist messages. Then, when the backlash came against the bad actors, there was an artificial campaign of suppression, which encouraged more backlash against the suppression. Now, we are in a vicious cycle of censorship/suppression supported by government and corporate power versus the backlash to that suppression. If we want it to end, then we can let Free Speech do what it's supposed to, so the backlash can go to where it belongs: Against bad actors hijacking good messages and bad actors with really bad messages.

ABCLAW 8y ago
>If the government now has the right to say, "piece of content X -- not allowed" arbitrarily and with no process and rational standard, then Free Speech is simply broken. The key part of this is the word arbitrary. You can't take 'anything down for no reason', but you certainly can take things down. Even the most robust version of free speech protections have carve outs. The government can prevent you from branding your email product 'Gmail', they can censure you for shouting fire in a crowded theater, they can go after you if you issue a tweet which lies about how many cars your car company is going to build in the next quarter, etc.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  The key part of this is the word arbitrary. You can't take 'anything down for no reason' The government can prevent you from branding your email product 'Gmail', they can censure you for shouting fire in a crowded theater, they can go after you if you issue a tweet which lies about how many cars your car company is going to build in the next quarter, etc. All of those things have due process and objective standards attached to them. None of those are arbitrary. Those are all following established law. That's a far cry from only saying, "Okay, these messages are 'bad.' We're now de-platforming them."
- sbov 8y ago
  > they can censure you for shouting fire in a crowded theater Or lock you up you for spreading anti-war rhetoric, which is what the actual case this quote came from was about.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
lancewiggs 8y ago
This risks making about as much sense as “free guns” or “free nuclear weapons”. While we are tolerant about free speech in New Zealand, and indeed we have amazing access to our politicians, even to the point where the dildo-throwing protestors who targeted the 3rd most powerful politician here was let go immediately. We are, however, rightly intolerant of hate speech, especially speech against a segment of the population. (We do have our share of racist fools, and our media let their own standards slide too far.) Almost every country has laws on the books like this, including the USA.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  This risks making about as much sense as “free guns” I think the US 2nd Amendment is a great thing. People everywhere should have that absolute degree of freedom. That's certainly not the same thing as "free nuclear weapons." We are, however, rightly intolerant of hate speech, especially speech against a segment of the population. The problem we've seen with this, is that rather tame bog-standard Republican positions in the US are being tarred as "hate speech" by bad actors on the Far Left. (Accompanied by Far Leftist mobs chasing bog-standard Republicans in the street and beating them up. There's video of this to be found on YouTube.) I'm fine with direct incitement being illegal. That's pretty much the same thing as prohibiting explicit threats of physical violence. But there should be a wide zone around any kind of political opinion which isn't direct incitement. Otherwise, without objective standards, everything just devolves into namecalling, trying to get everyone else de-platformed. In 2019, every enforcement mechanism needs to be vetted with the question: Can this be exploited? Because in 2019, you can rest assured that some bad actor will exploit it. Almost every country has laws on the books like this, including the USA. There is no such thing as "Hate Speech" in the US. However, we do have laws against things like direct incitement.
  - rhcom2 8y ago
    The 2nd amendment isn't absolute though, which you can see through the different gun laws in each state.
    - 8y ago

ABCLAW 8y ago

>If the government now has the right to say, "piece of content X -- not allowed" arbitrarily and with no process and rational standard, then Free Speech is simply broken. The key part of this is the word arbitrary. You can't take 'anything down for no reason', but you certainly can take things down. Even the most robust version of free speech protections have carve outs. The government can prevent you from branding your email product 'Gmail', they can censure you for shouting fire in a crowded theater, they can go after you if you issue a tweet which lies about how many cars your car company is going to build in the next quarter, etc.

stcredzero 8y ago
The key part of this is the word arbitrary. You can't take 'anything down for no reason' The government can prevent you from branding your email product 'Gmail', they can censure you for shouting fire in a crowded theater, they can go after you if you issue a tweet which lies about how many cars your car company is going to build in the next quarter, etc. All of those things have due process and objective standards attached to them. None of those are arbitrary. Those are all following established law. That's a far cry from only saying, "Okay, these messages are 'bad.' We're now de-platforming them."
sbov 8y ago
> they can censure you for shouting fire in a crowded theater Or lock you up you for spreading anti-war rhetoric, which is what the actual case this quote came from was about.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

lancewiggs 8y ago

This risks making about as much sense as “free guns” or “free nuclear weapons”. While we are tolerant about free speech in New Zealand, and indeed we have amazing access to our politicians, even to the point where the dildo-throwing protestors who targeted the 3rd most powerful politician here was let go immediately. We are, however, rightly intolerant of hate speech, especially speech against a segment of the population. (We do have our share of racist fools, and our media let their own standards slide too far.) Almost every country has laws on the books like this, including the USA.

stcredzero 8y ago
This risks making about as much sense as “free guns” I think the US 2nd Amendment is a great thing. People everywhere should have that absolute degree of freedom. That's certainly not the same thing as "free nuclear weapons." We are, however, rightly intolerant of hate speech, especially speech against a segment of the population. The problem we've seen with this, is that rather tame bog-standard Republican positions in the US are being tarred as "hate speech" by bad actors on the Far Left. (Accompanied by Far Leftist mobs chasing bog-standard Republicans in the street and beating them up. There's video of this to be found on YouTube.) I'm fine with direct incitement being illegal. That's pretty much the same thing as prohibiting explicit threats of physical violence. But there should be a wide zone around any kind of political opinion which isn't direct incitement. Otherwise, without objective standards, everything just devolves into namecalling, trying to get everyone else de-platformed. In 2019, every enforcement mechanism needs to be vetted with the question: Can this be exploited? Because in 2019, you can rest assured that some bad actor will exploit it. Almost every country has laws on the books like this, including the USA. There is no such thing as "Hate Speech" in the US. However, we do have laws against things like direct incitement.
- rhcom2 8y ago
  The 2nd amendment isn't absolute though, which you can see through the different gun laws in each state.
  - 8y ago