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Freedom of speech means that here is no monopolistic power (such as the government) that has final say on restricting speech. However, it doesn't mean that you,

Freedom of speech means that here is no monopolistic power (such as the government) that has final say on restricting speech. However, it doesn't mean that you, as a private citizen or free-market-participant, have to aid and abet all speech that is directed at you. If someone tells me the Earth as flat, I do not have to give his ideas equal weight if I do not believe they deserve it, and I should not be compelled to help him espouse his beliefs either.

einpoklum 6y ago
You are comparing the choices of an individual to those of the app distribution mechanisms which are nearly-universal. It's true that you _can_ find Parler out of those app stores, but a significant fraction of people would not be able to do so; nor would people encounter Parler as a popular app they might consider installing. (The web hosting is a different issue since there are a bunch of hosting options.)
austincheney 6y ago
Perhaps in theory, but in practice (in the US) freedom of speech is limited to government intrusion only, as defined by the constitution’s first amendment. There is no legal application, to private entities, of free speech.
- throwaway3699 6y ago
  When freedom of speech was codified as a value in the constitution, it made sense because the government is realistically the only entity that could engage in mass censorship. Nobody predicted a private company would get to that point, which is why those laws don't exist. We must decide if that needs to change.
  - sangnoir 6y ago
    > We must decide if that needs to change. This will require either amending the constitution to strip companies of their 1A rights, OR the supreme court ruling that companies are not people and have no 1A rights. Both are tall orders in my view, with far-reaching direct and 2nd-order effects.
    - krzyk 6y ago
      > supreme court ruling that companies are not people Wait, in the US companies are considered people?
      - umanwizard 6y ago
        No, but they are collections of people and as such have certain rights.
      - sangnoir 6y ago
        I was channeling Mitt Romney ("Corporations are people, my friend"[1]). But companies, trusts, PACs, SuperPACs, country clubs, HOA's, etc are legal persons. The supreme court ruled all persons (birthed or incorporated) have free speech rights, and additionally, money is free speech[2]. 1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romney-says-corporations-are-people/2011/08/11/gIQABwZ38I_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romney-says-cor... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckley_v._Valeo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckley_v._Valeo
    - throwaway3699 6y ago
      Not necessarily. The phone company can't cut you off for what you said on the phone.
  - ComodoHacker 6y ago
    >Nobody predicted a private company would get to that point Not quite, the East India Company is a counter example.
    - gerikson 6y ago
      The example of the EIC was used as an argument against the British Crown by proponents of American independence. Source: Dalrymple's The Anarchy.
    - throwaway3699 6y ago
      The East India Company was processing (and reading) the mail of hundreds of millions of people, and freely choosing who is allowed to continue sending mail?
  - austincheney 6y ago
    That line of thinking has no historical basis in the US. In past times mass publishers, large newspapers, had every bit as much influence.
    - throwaway3699 6y ago
      Influence yes, but they weren't able to censor communication between two private citizens. Social media is the new telephone.
  - peytn 6y ago
    I’m sorry but that just isn’t true. The framing generation was worried about the tyranny of the masses, global corporations, religious authorities, and many more threats to self-governance.
  - volkl48 6y ago
    That's certainly untrue, at that time access to any sort of mass communication was even more controlled by a few private actors. There were not all that many major printing presses out there and a limited number of publishers would have truly controlled your only access to dissemiating information to a significant number of people besides actual in-person speech. And they certainly did choose what they were willing to publish.
  - 8note 6y ago
    Banning someone from twitter is still not mass censorship though. The ideas can still be passed around just fine over snail mail
  - foldr 6y ago
    I wonder what fraction of the crackpots and conspiracy theorists on twitter would have had the wherewithall to start their own newspapers, though. The barrier to mass communication is so much lower than it was in the 18th century.
    - oceanplexian 6y ago
      Actually your portrayal is not that far off from history. The Boston Massacre was greatly exaggerated, really only five rioters were killed and arguably the British shot them after violent provocation. Paul Revere's engraving was fiction and portrayed them as murdering the colonists in cold blood, which planted the seeds of the American Revolution. As far as the barrier to mass communication being lower, perhaps, but mass communication was more prominent in the 18th century than you might think. Pamphlets were fairly inexpensive easily duplicated short-form propaganda, and were read aloud in taverns and churches. Communication wasn't "instant" but it was possible, and the social aspects would have made it more like Twitter and Facebook than I think we'd like to admit.
      - foldr 6y ago
        Yes, I'm aware of that. There was plenty of nonsense and propaganda printed, but I don't think it's possible to deny that twitter gives more people a bigger platform than pamphlets ever did. Otherwise why are people even using twitter instead of printing pamphlets?
- nec4b 6y ago
  One would expect american companies upholding values of its country which enabled them to prosper. None of them would exist today if free speech was not possible when they started.
  - philipov 6y ago
    I think that private entities being able to limit the speech that is performed on their property is an expression of their own free speech, and should be protected by the right that protects that speech from intrusion by the government. I also think that us being forced to rely on private platforms for public discourse is a grave threat to democracy. There must be public forums that are strong enough to be viable and legitimate places for the majority of public political discourse to take place without relying on private institutions.
    - makomk 6y ago
      It's an "expression of their own free speech" that - thanks to Section 230 - comes without any of the restrictions or liability that would apply if it was actually their own speech. They're very much getting to have their cake and eat it here.
  - austincheney 6y ago
    Then they have a baseless false expectation.
- refurb 6y ago
  This is true with regards to the Constitution and the 1st amendment. That said, the US has a strong ethos around freedom of speech that goes beyond just gov't intrusion. Is big tech within their right to censor how they see fit? Yes. Is it antithetical to the American ethos? Probably.
StanislavPetrov 6y ago
>free-market-participant We're talking about the situation in the United States, not a free market. If there were viable alternatives, nobody would care about being blocked from Twitter or Google or Facebook. The fact that these monopolies collude in their censorship campaign makes the impact that much more severe. The situation with these monopolies colluding to block an aspiring competitor is clearly an anti-trust issue.
- dmitriid 6y ago
  The greatest delusion free-market proponents seem to have is that there will always be a "viable alternative" in a free market. And that there will be no monopolies. There's literally no reason for a "viable alternative" to not appear. I mean, Parler is a "viable alternative" to Twitter, isn't it? It got kicked off AWS? Go ahead, and create your own viable alternative, there's literally nothing stopping you, just like in a "free market".
  - wilsynet 6y ago
    You don’t need to create your own alternative to AWS. There are a large number of cloud infrastructure and hosting providers around the world. And multiple competitors to AWS in the US alone.
    - ttt0 6y ago
      It's all the way up to the banks though, Visa and Mastercard are deplatforming people too.
    - krzyk 6y ago
      Yeah, there are three large ones in US: AWS, Azure and GCP. And considering that Google banned the app GCP is also out of the question. BTW. You know that the largest cloud provides in the world are also the ones I mentioned above? There is only Alibaba Cloud that is outside US and all the rest are just small businesses (that might just resell what the big three is providing). And what would be next? Let's block the "new Parler" on the DNS or routing level - build yourself a new internet? I hate far right wing and also hate far left wing, but I will protect both right to speak.
peytn 6y ago
I’m not here to argue or anything, but I vaguely recall from reading from the federalist papers way back in high school that free expression without fear of reprisal was what we were going for. Is that not the goal? I feel like some really distorted arguments have flooded the internet recently, and I’m doubting my own recollection now.
- csa 6y ago
  > I vaguely recall from reading from the federalist papers way back in high school that free expression without fear of reprisal ... from government. I will add that even with regards to the government, there are limits to free speech — falsely shouting “fire” in a crowded theater is the archetypal example. Some people seem to think that freedom of speech is something that can be broadly forced upon private organizations, and that’s simply not true. If folks don’t like companies that, in their opinion, unreasonably restrict speech, then I suggest they vote with their dollars, their attention, and maybe their work (e.g., via competitors).
  - philh 6y ago
    > I will add that even with regards to the government, there are limits to free speech — falsely shouting “fire” in a crowded theater is the archetypal example. Note that when this phrase was originally used, it was to justify imprisoning people who distributed flyers opposing the draft in WW1, and the supreme court later partially overturned it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...
  - rlt 6y ago
    > If folks don’t like companies that, in their opinion, unreasonably restrict speech, then I suggest they vote with their dollars, their attention, and maybe their work (via competitors). Like Gab and Parler! Oh wait... I generally agree private businesses shouldn’t be forced to do business with anyone they don’t want to, but we’re talking about near monopolies that in many ways wield more power than governments. Apple and Google each have a monopoly on app distribution on their platforms. Facebook and Twitter combined effectively have a monopoly on social networks.
rndgermandude 6y ago
You're describing the status quo, and even that falls apart a little. There are already exemptions, like businesses being forbidden to discriminate based on "protected class", utility companies cannot refuse service to customers they do not like (as long as those customers pay), emergency rooms cannot refuse service to people they do not like, and so on. What we have here is a small group of companies exerting quasi-monopoly power; Apple and Google controlling "apps" or Twitter and Facebook controlling "social media". Sure, they have some smaller competitors technically, just like East Germany had some smaller political parties technically. If it was up to me, I'd change the status quo: Let FAAGT decide if they want to be publishers, no limited liability, or open platforms, limited liability but at the same time they have to agree to Freedom of Speech for all, unless it's criminal speech like incitement to violence, or some narrow additional predefined exemptions such as the option to not allow pornography or nudity or gore. And then, if Parler fails to moderate their content again and leaves up criminal stuff, it's the job of law enforcement and courts to not only sanction the people who abused Parler to commit these crimes, but also the state to sanction Parler.
- theonlybutlet 6y ago
  You've been drinking the Kool-Aid liability is no-cure all solution, these platforms will merely cease to exist. I agree that they have quasi-monopoly powers, there are other platforms that have this though, they are now basically modern forms of Press & Media. Editorial decisions whether to publish or not and whether to self or government regulate are issues the world has experience with. The difference is in the scale and the speed at which these platforms can disseminate information. There is no clear cut solution (you'll see this if you look into press & media regulation) and society needs to decide how to move forward.
- xnx 6y ago
  What is "FAAGT"?
  - rndgermandude 6y ago
    I dropped the Netflix N in FAANG and added a T. Netflix is out of scope because they are an editorialized publishing platform without liability shield already. And added Twitter, which usually isn't big enough for FAANG, but in this context, by reach and influence, they deserve to be in the list. Could have been less lazy and just spelled it out. Sorry for the confusion.
commandlinefan 6y ago
In a few days, Parler is going to find a new hosting provider, and the networks (also private companies) will refuse to route to that hosting provider and the banks (also private companies) will close their accounts, unless they fall in line and ban Parler as well.
- ric2b 6y ago
  > and the networks (also private companies) will refuse to route to that hosting provider There was once something called "Net Neutrality". As I recall conservatives were strongly against it.
save_ferris 6y ago
Speech in the US has always had limits, the idea that America has pushed for completely unlimited free speech is not true, and incitement and false statements of fact are some of the cornerstone cases in which speech loses its protection under the 1st Amendment[0]. Speech has never been, and will never be, completely protected without exceptions in the US. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

einpoklum 6y ago

You are comparing the choices of an individual to those of the app distribution mechanisms which are nearly-universal. It's true that you _can_ find Parler out of those app stores, but a significant fraction of people would not be able to do so; nor would people encounter Parler as a popular app they might consider installing. (The web hosting is a different issue since there are a bunch of hosting options.)

austincheney 6y ago

Perhaps in theory, but in practice (in the US) freedom of speech is limited to government intrusion only, as defined by the constitution’s first amendment. There is no legal application, to private entities, of free speech.

throwaway3699 6y ago
When freedom of speech was codified as a value in the constitution, it made sense because the government is realistically the only entity that could engage in mass censorship. Nobody predicted a private company would get to that point, which is why those laws don't exist. We must decide if that needs to change.
- sangnoir 6y ago
  > We must decide if that needs to change. This will require either amending the constitution to strip companies of their 1A rights, OR the supreme court ruling that companies are not people and have no 1A rights. Both are tall orders in my view, with far-reaching direct and 2nd-order effects.
  - krzyk 6y ago
    > supreme court ruling that companies are not people Wait, in the US companies are considered people?
    - umanwizard 6y ago
      No, but they are collections of people and as such have certain rights.
    - sangnoir 6y ago
      I was channeling Mitt Romney ("Corporations are people, my friend"[1]). But companies, trusts, PACs, SuperPACs, country clubs, HOA's, etc are legal persons. The supreme court ruled all persons (birthed or incorporated) have free speech rights, and additionally, money is free speech[2]. 1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romney-says-corporations-are-people/2011/08/11/gIQABwZ38I_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romney-says-cor... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckley_v._Valeo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckley_v._Valeo
  - throwaway3699 6y ago
    Not necessarily. The phone company can't cut you off for what you said on the phone.
- ComodoHacker 6y ago
  >Nobody predicted a private company would get to that point Not quite, the East India Company is a counter example.
  - gerikson 6y ago
    The example of the EIC was used as an argument against the British Crown by proponents of American independence. Source: Dalrymple's The Anarchy.
  - throwaway3699 6y ago
    The East India Company was processing (and reading) the mail of hundreds of millions of people, and freely choosing who is allowed to continue sending mail?
- austincheney 6y ago
  That line of thinking has no historical basis in the US. In past times mass publishers, large newspapers, had every bit as much influence.
  - throwaway3699 6y ago
    Influence yes, but they weren't able to censor communication between two private citizens. Social media is the new telephone.
- peytn 6y ago
  I’m sorry but that just isn’t true. The framing generation was worried about the tyranny of the masses, global corporations, religious authorities, and many more threats to self-governance.
- volkl48 6y ago
  That's certainly untrue, at that time access to any sort of mass communication was even more controlled by a few private actors. There were not all that many major printing presses out there and a limited number of publishers would have truly controlled your only access to dissemiating information to a significant number of people besides actual in-person speech. And they certainly did choose what they were willing to publish.
- 8note 6y ago
  Banning someone from twitter is still not mass censorship though. The ideas can still be passed around just fine over snail mail
- foldr 6y ago
  I wonder what fraction of the crackpots and conspiracy theorists on twitter would have had the wherewithall to start their own newspapers, though. The barrier to mass communication is so much lower than it was in the 18th century.
  - oceanplexian 6y ago
    Actually your portrayal is not that far off from history. The Boston Massacre was greatly exaggerated, really only five rioters were killed and arguably the British shot them after violent provocation. Paul Revere's engraving was fiction and portrayed them as murdering the colonists in cold blood, which planted the seeds of the American Revolution. As far as the barrier to mass communication being lower, perhaps, but mass communication was more prominent in the 18th century than you might think. Pamphlets were fairly inexpensive easily duplicated short-form propaganda, and were read aloud in taverns and churches. Communication wasn't "instant" but it was possible, and the social aspects would have made it more like Twitter and Facebook than I think we'd like to admit.
    - foldr 6y ago
      Yes, I'm aware of that. There was plenty of nonsense and propaganda printed, but I don't think it's possible to deny that twitter gives more people a bigger platform than pamphlets ever did. Otherwise why are people even using twitter instead of printing pamphlets?
nec4b 6y ago
One would expect american companies upholding values of its country which enabled them to prosper. None of them would exist today if free speech was not possible when they started.
- philipov 6y ago
  I think that private entities being able to limit the speech that is performed on their property is an expression of their own free speech, and should be protected by the right that protects that speech from intrusion by the government. I also think that us being forced to rely on private platforms for public discourse is a grave threat to democracy. There must be public forums that are strong enough to be viable and legitimate places for the majority of public political discourse to take place without relying on private institutions.
  - makomk 6y ago
    It's an "expression of their own free speech" that - thanks to Section 230 - comes without any of the restrictions or liability that would apply if it was actually their own speech. They're very much getting to have their cake and eat it here.
- austincheney 6y ago
  Then they have a baseless false expectation.
refurb 6y ago
This is true with regards to the Constitution and the 1st amendment. That said, the US has a strong ethos around freedom of speech that goes beyond just gov't intrusion. Is big tech within their right to censor how they see fit? Yes. Is it antithetical to the American ethos? Probably.

StanislavPetrov 6y ago

>free-market-participant We're talking about the situation in the United States, not a free market. If there were viable alternatives, nobody would care about being blocked from Twitter or Google or Facebook. The fact that these monopolies collude in their censorship campaign makes the impact that much more severe. The situation with these monopolies colluding to block an aspiring competitor is clearly an anti-trust issue.

dmitriid 6y ago
The greatest delusion free-market proponents seem to have is that there will always be a "viable alternative" in a free market. And that there will be no monopolies. There's literally no reason for a "viable alternative" to not appear. I mean, Parler is a "viable alternative" to Twitter, isn't it? It got kicked off AWS? Go ahead, and create your own viable alternative, there's literally nothing stopping you, just like in a "free market".
- wilsynet 6y ago
  You don’t need to create your own alternative to AWS. There are a large number of cloud infrastructure and hosting providers around the world. And multiple competitors to AWS in the US alone.
  - ttt0 6y ago
    It's all the way up to the banks though, Visa and Mastercard are deplatforming people too.
  - krzyk 6y ago
    Yeah, there are three large ones in US: AWS, Azure and GCP. And considering that Google banned the app GCP is also out of the question. BTW. You know that the largest cloud provides in the world are also the ones I mentioned above? There is only Alibaba Cloud that is outside US and all the rest are just small businesses (that might just resell what the big three is providing). And what would be next? Let's block the "new Parler" on the DNS or routing level - build yourself a new internet? I hate far right wing and also hate far left wing, but I will protect both right to speak.

peytn 6y ago

I’m not here to argue or anything, but I vaguely recall from reading from the federalist papers way back in high school that free expression without fear of reprisal was what we were going for. Is that not the goal? I feel like some really distorted arguments have flooded the internet recently, and I’m doubting my own recollection now.

csa 6y ago
> I vaguely recall from reading from the federalist papers way back in high school that free expression without fear of reprisal ... from government. I will add that even with regards to the government, there are limits to free speech — falsely shouting “fire” in a crowded theater is the archetypal example. Some people seem to think that freedom of speech is something that can be broadly forced upon private organizations, and that’s simply not true. If folks don’t like companies that, in their opinion, unreasonably restrict speech, then I suggest they vote with their dollars, their attention, and maybe their work (e.g., via competitors).
- philh 6y ago
  > I will add that even with regards to the government, there are limits to free speech — falsely shouting “fire” in a crowded theater is the archetypal example. Note that when this phrase was originally used, it was to justify imprisoning people who distributed flyers opposing the draft in WW1, and the supreme court later partially overturned it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...
- rlt 6y ago
  > If folks don’t like companies that, in their opinion, unreasonably restrict speech, then I suggest they vote with their dollars, their attention, and maybe their work (via competitors). Like Gab and Parler! Oh wait... I generally agree private businesses shouldn’t be forced to do business with anyone they don’t want to, but we’re talking about near monopolies that in many ways wield more power than governments. Apple and Google each have a monopoly on app distribution on their platforms. Facebook and Twitter combined effectively have a monopoly on social networks.

rndgermandude 6y ago

You're describing the status quo, and even that falls apart a little. There are already exemptions, like businesses being forbidden to discriminate based on "protected class", utility companies cannot refuse service to customers they do not like (as long as those customers pay), emergency rooms cannot refuse service to people they do not like, and so on. What we have here is a small group of companies exerting quasi-monopoly power; Apple and Google controlling "apps" or Twitter and Facebook controlling "social media". Sure, they have some smaller competitors technically, just like East Germany had some smaller political parties technically. If it was up to me, I'd change the status quo: Let FAAGT decide if they want to be publishers, no limited liability, or open platforms, limited liability but at the same time they have to agree to Freedom of Speech for all, unless it's criminal speech like incitement to violence, or some narrow additional predefined exemptions such as the option to not allow pornography or nudity or gore. And then, if Parler fails to moderate their content again and leaves up criminal stuff, it's the job of law enforcement and courts to not only sanction the people who abused Parler to commit these crimes, but also the state to sanction Parler.

theonlybutlet 6y ago
You've been drinking the Kool-Aid liability is no-cure all solution, these platforms will merely cease to exist. I agree that they have quasi-monopoly powers, there are other platforms that have this though, they are now basically modern forms of Press & Media. Editorial decisions whether to publish or not and whether to self or government regulate are issues the world has experience with. The difference is in the scale and the speed at which these platforms can disseminate information. There is no clear cut solution (you'll see this if you look into press & media regulation) and society needs to decide how to move forward.
xnx 6y ago
What is "FAAGT"?
- rndgermandude 6y ago
  I dropped the Netflix N in FAANG and added a T. Netflix is out of scope because they are an editorialized publishing platform without liability shield already. And added Twitter, which usually isn't big enough for FAANG, but in this context, by reach and influence, they deserve to be in the list. Could have been less lazy and just spelled it out. Sorry for the confusion.

commandlinefan 6y ago

In a few days, Parler is going to find a new hosting provider, and the networks (also private companies) will refuse to route to that hosting provider and the banks (also private companies) will close their accounts, unless they fall in line and ban Parler as well.

ric2b 6y ago
> and the networks (also private companies) will refuse to route to that hosting provider There was once something called "Net Neutrality". As I recall conservatives were strongly against it.

save_ferris 6y ago

Speech in the US has always had limits, the idea that America has pushed for completely unlimited free speech is not true, and incitement and false statements of fact are some of the cornerstone cases in which speech loses its protection under the 1st Amendment[0]. Speech has never been, and will never be, completely protected without exceptions in the US. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...