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This is simply tu quoque - clearly there are limits to free speech in every country but where possible the right to free expression should outweigh the the stat

This is simply tu quoque - clearly there are limits to free speech in every country but where possible the right to free expression should outweigh the the state’s desire to silence political opposition. Twitter was a pretty good example of this actually - protecting people’s right to hear from the President (despite him saying and doing many things that would have got regular users banned) right up until the point where he led an insurrection on the Capitol. I don’t think you can argue anything other than Twitter taking their responsibility to free speech incredibly seriously - to the point where they were often accused of being complicit to juice user metrics. And perhaps do some research into Joel Kaplan before you claim the same of Facebook. Clearly this is not in the same realm as Holocaust denial (which is incidentally also legal in roughly half of the EU countries).

wyattpeak 6y ago
> This is simply tu quoque Not the original poster, but I don't think it is. The problem is that, since all countries acknowledge that there should be limits on speech, it's inappropriate for one country (or company, for that matter) to decide what should be the limit in another country. If it were black and white, there'd be a much stronger case. But this is a company saying "our shade of grey is preferable to yours". I obviously don't agree with what the Turkish government demanded, but I'm unconvinced that this in particular is a strong argument for a foreign company to decide to overrule local law. And I really think that should be a very high bar.
- kristianc 6y ago
  The issue is that once you go down that road, you preclude discussion of any issues by one country / company if that country also imposes limitations. You need to pick a principle somewhere - and I’m not sure ‘we’ll simply block access to any material the host government finds objectionable’ is going to be one that’s going to lead us toward a better world.

wyattpeak 6y ago

> This is simply tu quoque Not the original poster, but I don't think it is. The problem is that, since all countries acknowledge that there should be limits on speech, it's inappropriate for one country (or company, for that matter) to decide what should be the limit in another country. If it were black and white, there'd be a much stronger case. But this is a company saying "our shade of grey is preferable to yours". I obviously don't agree with what the Turkish government demanded, but I'm unconvinced that this in particular is a strong argument for a foreign company to decide to overrule local law. And I really think that should be a very high bar.

kristianc 6y ago
The issue is that once you go down that road, you preclude discussion of any issues by one country / company if that country also imposes limitations. You need to pick a principle somewhere - and I’m not sure ‘we’ll simply block access to any material the host government finds objectionable’ is going to be one that’s going to lead us toward a better world.