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No, they aren't. Hong Kong is about free speech insofar as the protestors are fighting for their freedom of speech from the Chinese (and Chinese proxy) governme

No, they aren't. Hong Kong is about free speech insofar as the protestors are fighting for their freedom of speech from the Chinese (and Chinese proxy) government. You do not, should not, and will never have a "right" to "free speech" in media that are privately owned and managed by others. You have a right to not have a government censor your speech. The federal government cannot compell you to remove an editorial from your blog criticizing the government. They may not compell your isp to bar traffic to that blog. Insofar as the ISP is a government mandated oligopoly, it's reasonable to argue that they may not block access to your ip. Must a blogging website provide you hosting? No. You never had such a "right" and you never will. You can argue that they have a duty to provide you equitable and fair service, but we rarely use duties in western political philosophy (an example would be Australia compelling citizens to vote). Private citizens may or may not publish your material on their media at their discretion. You have zero right to any of their bandwidth, resources, or otherwise, again, in general. Furthermore you shouldn't, because that would in fact be tantamount to governmenr infringement of the freedom of speech of those private citizens.

falcolas 7y ago
Where, on the internet, do I have a right to free speech? The internet is pivotal to modern communications, yet it is effectively entirely private. If the citizens and their representatives felt strongly enough to create common carrier laws for telegraphs (see a sibling comment for more details), why should we feel differently about speech that travels over channels designed and built for communication across internet? > governmenr infringement of the freedom of speech of those private citizens Those "private citizens" are actually corporations making billions of dollars in profit to provide us, in part, with communication channels on their platforms.
- jknoepfler 7y ago
  Did you deliberately ignore the note about government induced oligopolies? You don't have a right to free speech on the comment section of my blog, or my twitch chat stream, or my discord channel. Those platforms enable me to moderate that content. If they lacked that feature, it wouldn't support or undermine anyone's rights, mine or yours.
  - falcolas 7y ago
    Unless the government provides internet service, what does it matter who runs the ISPs, whether they are "government induced ogliopolies" or plucky startups? They're still private entities; still not protected by your vision of the right to free speech.
    - jknoepfler 7y ago
      "Ownership" is not black-and-white in this space. The government (in the United States anyway) grants/auctions access to publicly owned resources (such as water, power, rail, land, the federal reserve, etc. etc.) for the purposes of creating fundamental infrastructure. How property rights for those resources convey corresponding constitutional rights of users (or other government imposed requirements, see for example insurance and healthcare) is something that is continually in tension and requires constant litigation. As distinct, say, from the twitch chat feed on my speedrunning channel.

falcolas 7y ago

Where, on the internet, do I have a right to free speech? The internet is pivotal to modern communications, yet it is effectively entirely private. If the citizens and their representatives felt strongly enough to create common carrier laws for telegraphs (see a sibling comment for more details), why should we feel differently about speech that travels over channels designed and built for communication across internet? > governmenr infringement of the freedom of speech of those private citizens Those "private citizens" are actually corporations making billions of dollars in profit to provide us, in part, with communication channels on their platforms.

jknoepfler 7y ago
Did you deliberately ignore the note about government induced oligopolies? You don't have a right to free speech on the comment section of my blog, or my twitch chat stream, or my discord channel. Those platforms enable me to moderate that content. If they lacked that feature, it wouldn't support or undermine anyone's rights, mine or yours.
- falcolas 7y ago
  Unless the government provides internet service, what does it matter who runs the ISPs, whether they are "government induced ogliopolies" or plucky startups? They're still private entities; still not protected by your vision of the right to free speech.
  - jknoepfler 7y ago
    "Ownership" is not black-and-white in this space. The government (in the United States anyway) grants/auctions access to publicly owned resources (such as water, power, rail, land, the federal reserve, etc. etc.) for the purposes of creating fundamental infrastructure. How property rights for those resources convey corresponding constitutional rights of users (or other government imposed requirements, see for example insurance and healthcare) is something that is continually in tension and requires constant litigation. As distinct, say, from the twitch chat feed on my speedrunning channel.