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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 rep

• 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.
    • sbuk 6y ago
      Gab and Parler are free to run their own datacenters. It has nothing to do with “monopolies”, which come and go.
      • rlt 6y ago
        I didn’t mention AWS.
      • bluescrn 6y ago
        Then those datacentres would be deplatformed from the Internet. At this point, their only option to survive would be to build their own new internet. And that would need power/spectrum/land or other things that could be taken away from them by determined enough activism. Maybe they could survive for a while by moving to a decentralised P2P/blockchain system of some kind. But that could potentially be blocked at an ISP level.
        • ric2b 6y ago
          > Then those datacentres would be deplatformed from the Internet. A few years ago I heard some people say we needed net neutrality. Republicans were against it.
    • jackson1442 6y ago
      AWS isn’t anywhere close to a monopoly and has one of the most lax AUPs in the game. These services can also self-host like the olden days. As for Apple, yes. They do have a monopoly over their app platforms. Either a more robust PWA support framework or side loading needs to be a priority on iOS. I wouldn’t consider Google as having a monopoly over app distribution as you can sideload apps on Android and Android has (from what I’ve heard) well-rounded PWA support.
    • roenxi 6y ago
      Well, wait and see. The free market doesn't move in 24 hours. There is moderation that is clearly a good idea, moderation that is sketchy and moderation that is overdone. I may be behind the times, but I really don't think an app in the app store is that important. They still have a web site. The AWS ban is more concerning but if they have to they can move to foreign hosting - maybe this will be the push to finally get the Europeans to build up some tech companies. Big tech have basically declared that 30% of America is unwelcome on their platform. That is overbearing moderation that is likely to provoke a market response. I'd give it 6-12 months to see if they can hold on to a monopoly even leaving that massive slice of the market in play.
  • dsnr 6y ago
    > 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. Why not? Private companies must respect your rights, like your right not to be discriminated against, so why can‘t they be forced to respect your right to free speech? Just because the status quo of the legal ecosystem is not ready to handle this edge-cases doesn‘t mean it can‘t be made to do it with some adjustments.
    • simonh 6y ago
      Because your rights do not override my rights, and if I run an Internet forum, chat service, etc you can’t force me to publish or distribute material I don’t want to. We are all autonomous citizens, including people who own or run communications services.
      • raffraffraff 6y ago
        There's a difference between you running "a" forum and controlling 99% of the internet. It's good to break up huge monopolies.
        • jackson1442 6y ago
          Amazon Web Services does not control 99% of the internet.
          • krzyk 6y ago
            They control ~32% of cloud services (https://www.parkmycloud.com/blog/aws-vs-azure-vs-google-cloud-market-share/ https://www.parkmycloud.com/blog/aws-vs-azure-vs-google-clou...), and I assume if Parler moved to GCP they would be also blocked. Question what would MS Azure do? That mostly leaves Alibaba Cloud (I have no idea if it is available outside China) and "Others" - so a 43%. Not much to choose from considering that the big players have the best prices.
            • 6y ago
  • raffraffraff 6y ago
    The whole "if you don't like it, vote with your dollars" angle doesn't really work when a handful of companies own, control and host 99.999% of social media. The power that these private companies wield is greater than the power of any government. They're not democratic. They are driven by the unending pursuit of growth. They have no moral compass, so their rules are in their own private interest. They dodge taxes, support populist movements to virtue signal, and they quietly collude with governments that wish to spy on their journalists and citizens so they can "disappear" them for wrongthink. Their rules are "whatever is best for us". I don't know what the answer is, but having seen these large private companies censor rational discussion of scientific fact, this scares me.
    • yorwba 6y ago
      > The whole "if you don't like it, vote with your dollars" angle doesn't really work when a handful of companies own, control and host 99.999% of social media. "Voting with your dollars" means taking your dollars and giving them to the 0.001% that agree with you. Then this will strengthen them a little so they may become 0.0011% or whatever. Any large social movement should be able to support a share of the economy commensurate to its size, complete with their own journalists, printing presses, leaflet distributors, radio stations, TV shows, phone factories, app stores and social media apps, or whatever communication infrastructure they want to use. Of course that requires lots of work, but if that work is divided by the number of people involved, it becomes manageable again (after all, the whole rest of society manages just fine). If people want to skip that work and instead rely on others to provide them with everything, they shouldn't be surprised if they don't get exactly what they want.
      • krzyk 6y ago
        Well, but remember what happened when they voted with their "dollars", Parler was blocked. This looks like a internet version of witch hunt.
        • yorwba 6y ago
          Voting for Parler is not enough if you don't also vote for an app store that will offer Parler for download and a hosting provider that will allow them to use their infrastructure etc. To use an analogy closer to the founding of the United States: if you want to publish a radical new newspaper, you need to be prepared to buy your own printing press and build up your own network of stores, because the existing printers and sellers may not want to support you.
  • curt15 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. Also see the Supreme Court case Brandenburg v Ohio (1969), which excluded from protection speech "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action"
• aWidebrant 6y ago
  In practice, the American revolution did not come about through open debate: https://thebaffler.com/salvos/on-the-rudeness-of-mobs-pogue https://thebaffler.com/salvos/on-the-rudeness-of-mobs-pogue 'On October 25, the freemen of Essex County, New Jersey, proclaimed that anyone who adhered to the Stamp Act should be cast out of polite society, that decent people should have “no Communication with any such Person, nor speak with them on any Occasion unless it be to inform them of their Vileness.” This was not an isolated view. One writer to a Pennsylvania paper suggested, in language typical of the time, that a man paying stamp duties should be “branded with eternal infamy and reproach,” and cast out. “Let him be alone in the world—let him wish to associate with the wild beasts of some dark loathsome cave.”'
  • theonlybutlet 6y ago
    Very interesting. I think this whole debate may finally pierce many people's delusion's of grandeur.
• chrischen 6y ago
  One could argue this is not reprisal and more of "no shoes no shirt no service." These people aren't providing Parlor services for free. They are doing it as part of a mutual partnership to profit, and if they choose to no longer benfit/profit off of the business shouldn't they have the right? I mean, Apple supports many progressive initiatives like equal rights campaigns, and that is part of the brand. Shouldn't Apple be allowed to maintain that brand image? Supporting a company that is antithetical to that brand image may be a move that ultimately increases their shareholder value for all one knows. Take Fox News as an example. They're not going to allow their platform to be used for liberal propaganda, and most likely also vet any advertisers. They aren't expected to just allow any content to be broadcast. I guess a devil's advocate viewpoint could be that some of these services are platforms, but then again the reasons given for some of these bans aren't necessarily strictly political.
• chrischen 6y ago
  I would argue that there's no point appealing to authority since what we are going for changes with the times, but there's a fundamental difference between reprisal and aid. Say you wanted to host a website that was explaining the evils of cloud hosting, and you did this on EC2 (AWS). Amazon has every right to have in their terms clauses that disallow such content which they do not agree with. If they do host it they are doing damage to themselves, and if they do not host it they are simply not supporting an attack on cloud hosting. The act of choosing not to engage in business is not an attack in itself.
  • peytn 6y ago
    I guess, I mean that’s the tails-you-lose of it. It does feel as though somebody’s bought up all the printing presses, and in the face of scrutiny for doing so is disrupting swaths of the opposition party’s press apparatus as the incoming party takes over. I mean Amazon isn’t any ol’ business, but one with great reach facing historic threats of regulation. It just doesn’t feel like the right thing for our republic. It feels like foul play, and I guess my recourse is at the ballot box. I guess I think the points raised here and elsewhere about what businesses can do are specious. We still try to keep things fair.