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> Both market to the (mostly American) far right, with their shtick being basically "you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US without fear of

> Both market to the (mostly American) far right, with their shtick being basically "you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US without fear of being banned or other moderation". It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. Free speech used to be something all Americans supported and defended.

davidlinc1 6y ago
It's not. It happens to be an effective marketing vehicle for this particular audience, so you see it presented first and foremost, in an almost hyperbolic way. They conflate free speech infringements with basic service policies. Doesn't mean that other Americans no longer consider free speech important.
mint2 6y ago
why do so many people confusedly assume free speech means forcing printers to print neo-nazi propaganda. Whatever happened to freedom of association? Some businesses and people don’t want to associate with neonazis and don’t want to be known as the company that helps neonazis. Why do people who espouse free speech want to take away freedom to choose who one associates with?
- InvertedRhodium 6y ago
  'Free speech' means nothing at all in the private sector - but 'supporting free speech' most definitely does. If a company opts to not support free speech (which is an ideal that I believe most Americans would say should be supported) by enacting censorship rules beyond what is illegal, they shouldn't be surprised when people that believe in that ideal look on them less favorably.
  - Delmania 6y ago
    By supporting free speech I support the right for us to say what we will without fear of retribution from the government. By supporting freedom of association I support that company’s can ban you for saying things they don’t agree with. Aren’t Gab and Parker right wing libertarian free market success stories? People found Twitter didn’t agree with their views so they founded a competitor.
    - InvertedRhodium 6y ago
      > By supporting freedom of association I support that company’s can ban you for saying things they don’t agree with The US already limit companies "Right of Association" by virtue of things like Providers of Last Resort (that's the extent of my knowledge on this topic in the context of America) so it's not an alien concept. Do you feel that the electricity company should be able to cut off your power supply because you made a blog post they don't agree with? How about your mobile phone provider? And if not, why are online services treated any differently?
      - nicoffeine 6y ago
        If you're planning on a violent assault on others, all those protections disappear. Free speech has well established limitations that are pretty easy to understand.
        InvertedRhodium 6y ago
        I don't believe anything I've said contradicts that position.
        nicoffeine 6y ago
        You keep trying to associate Parler and Gab as supporters of free speech. Parler was shut down because it refused to moderate content that incited violence. Gab's browser extension Dissenter was removed from Google and Firefox for the same reason: unmoderated content that often featured calls to violence. These platforms are being used by white nationalists and other extremists to normalize their hateful ideology and encourage violence against anyone with different gender orientations, nationality, ethnicity, or religious beliefs. Gab and Parler have zero interest in free speech as a human right. They want unlimited free speech for acceptable groups (mostly white straight Christians) and no rights for anyone else. Users on those platforms have posted their intent to hurt and kill others, that content was never moderated, and those users carried out acts of violence. Companies who don't want to be associated with that have disconnected their services ahead of the inevitable legal action to shut the services down. Literally no one in the US has had their electricity or phone cut off because of a "disagreeable blog post." It's a ridiculous example to bring up in the sea of information about what's going on in those forums.
  - throwaway189262 6y ago
    Any internet platform that didnt moderate would be overwhelmed with spam, porn, scams, hate, etc. Censorship and moderation are the same, a set of rules you must follow to participate. Gab is has huge problems with porn spam because of free speech policies. Imagine if email providers were not allowed to filter. Your email would be totally unusable. Enacting no filters beyond what's illegal would make most of the internet unusable. Like imagine if HN had no moderation? It would lose its original purpose. So what do you mean support free speech exactly? Allow people to freely post porn, scams, lies, death threats?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- lom888 6y ago
  The argument I've heard from friends on the left opposed to free speech is that barely-moderated forums inevitably turn into "white supremacist" sites.
  - pii 6y ago
    "friends on the left opposed to free speech" is your willful misunderstanding of the issue
    - lom888 6y ago
      These friends overtly say that free speech should be limited, in those exact terms. Not some speech, "free speech". Please let me know how you perceive me to be misunderstanding them willfully.
      - pstuart 6y ago
        So free speech should include incitement of violence? Slander and libel?
      - pii 6y ago
        I think you might want to listen to them more closely, I can't answer on their behalf. If, by chance, they're anything like me, then I agree that there's giant categories of prohibited speech that should remain so. Lying about medicine, slander, libel, incitement to violence to name a few.
        lom888 6y ago
        They want the first amendment repealed as they say it protects racists, homophobes and transphobes. They say that liberal free speech laws led to Trump and free speech should be curtailed for that reason. They openly say that they are opposed to free speech. I am trying to present their views as neutrally as I can, but this is what they say and support.
        6y ago
- Turing_Machine 6y ago
  Hmm... so in your opinion, back in the days of the Hollywood blacklist, when Louis B. Mayer decided that he wasn't going to buy any more screenplays from communists (or anyone who even had friends who were communists), that was perfectly okay? "Freedom of association", right? The truly bizarre thing about the "woke" movement is that they seem to have absolutely no conception that the stuff they're doing to others can just as easily be done to them.
  - Turing_Machine 6y ago
    Touched a nerve, didn't it? You might be surprised at how fast this kind of thing can turn around.
    - Turing_Machine 6y ago
      Recommended reading: https://www.amazon.com/True-Believer-Thoughts-Movements-Perennial-ebook/dp/B003TO5838/ https://www.amazon.com/True-Believer-Thoughts-Movements-Pere... Edit: more recommended reading: http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/conformism.html http://www.paulgraham.com/conformism.html
      - mint2 6y ago
        I’m not sure how you’re interpreting these, but if you are against businesses deplatforming those who express neonazi, and white nationalist propaganda I don’t think Paul Graham’s message supports you. I doubt Paul graham equates neonazi propaganda with his examples of past situations where you could believe something that was later thought of as very wrong: “ how can you be sure you wouldn't also have believed everything you were supposed to if you had grown up among the plantation owners of the pre-Civil War South, or in Germany in the 1930s” Are you saying that in 30 years that society will collectively think neonazi beliefs are correct and thus we were crazy to ostracize them? And you are saying that is why we should stop censoring them? Because in a future state we might live in a dystopia we should stop censoring the people trying to create the dystopia? And also that censoring neonazis is akin to those example like being anti slavery in the antebellum south? Is this your take away? Those arguments sound rather farcical and Paul himself actually explains why that is. Paul says this: “Of course, we're not just looking for things we can't say. We're looking for things we can't say that are true, or at least have enough chance of being true that the question should remain open.“ There is no doubt about neonazi propaganda. Whether or not it is true is not an open question. White supremacist propaganda maybe being right is not an open question.
- throwaway33432 6y ago
  freedom of association isn't really a thing anymore; if one were to promote that maxim, a large portion of the civil rights laws, anti-discrimination laws, etc. just become unenforceable. see stuff akin to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colorado_Civil_Rights_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...
  - anigbrowl 6y ago
    The idea of public accommodation is ultimately based on the notion that commercial appeals (such as a store window and an open door) constitute an 'invitation to treat' (do business) and that these should not be withheld from anyone on the basis of their unalterable personal characteristics.
    - Ancapistani 6y ago
      > these should not be withheld from anyone on the basis of their unalterable personal characteristics Where does this boundary lie? Is political party unalterable? Ideology? Religion?
      - anigbrowl 6y ago
        That depends who you ask. I don't think religion is unalterable, for example, but in the USA it holds a privileged legal position for historical reasons - although courts have concluded that merely claiming religious status is insufficient, eg https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/18/18-1141.pdf https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/18/18-1141.pdf In general the Us recognizes race/ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation (to some degree) and religion as 'suspect classes' deserving of protection. But it's a thorny subject and understanding all the different perspectives is going to require a lot of reading.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
kumarvvr 6y ago
When free speech turns to hate speech, filled with lies and distortions, can it still be called free speech? Is free speech absolute? If tomorrow, fox news falsely says your family is defrauding the IRS, qould you be ok with that because thwy have the right to free speech? The intent of free speech is to have tge freedom to criticise those in power. Not to spread hate and divisions in the society.
- errantmind 6y ago
  Yes, it can be called free speech, although there can be repercussions when that speech falls into slander / libel / defamation. Outside of that, why would you ever want the government deciding what you can and cannot say? Right now you may be aligned with the government, but that can change very easily in the future
  - kumarvvr 6y ago
    I was commenting on the hypocrisy of some, who love to bang the free speech drum, but expect the government to protect them from private individuals actions. Be it citizens or corporations. If one wants the govt to ensure free speech, then it is implied it must also ensure a private individuals right to pursue legal actions, such as denial or service or lawsuits.
  - pii 6y ago
    "I don't care whether the government allows someone to lie to me about the contents of my medicine"
  - anigbrowl 6y ago
    Well, suppose there's a group of people saying that another group of people (which happens to include you) should be killed as soon as possible. In an ideal world, they probably wouldn't do that because they'd recognize that collective aggression against others could rebound on them, but in the imperfect world we actually occupy it happens all the time. Of course, you could just figure they'll limit their social opportunities and eventually grow out of it or develop some higher wisdom, but just how long should you have to put up with threats from random strangers and anxieties about your personal safety while you are waiting for your antagonists to become enlightened?
danShumway 6y ago
The reason they're seen as a separate demographic for marketing purposes is because the "far right" has a very specific view of free speech that is largely divorced from: A) the actual full scope of the problem of censorship in the real world, B) the actual rights that other people have to freely associate or filter content they find objectionable, and C) the actual practical ways to increase free speech access. Ignoring for a second the ideologies these people espouse, purely speaking as a free speech advocate far right people make my job harder, both because they only seem to show up to advocate for free speech in very selective situations, and because most of their ideas on how to preserve free speech are, frankly, really bad. Most of the far right crowd isn't going to show up to bat for concepts like Net Neutrality, they're not going to be out campaigning against LGBTQ+ or sex censorship. These are the people I see in my timelines cheering on government intervention into public university curriculums. They push dangerous concepts like Section 230 repeals or nationalizing media companies, and some of their more experimental proposals are just blatantly unconstitutional. It's wild to hear proposals from people who claim that they're free speech advocates that would not hold up under almost any Supreme Court ruling. These people also don't have sophisticated ideas on how to handle spam, pornography, or copyright other than to shrug their shoulders and say that the 1st Amendment shouldn't apply to those things. And their big solution to Twitter censorship is to make new centralized platforms that (for now) cater to specifically them; there's nothing realistic or interesting or permanent about what they're proposing. It's a demographic that likes to say that they're pro-free-speech, but in my opinion a lot of that is just thoughtless rhetoric around the fact that they're mad that different people than them now have power to form their own communities and organize their own social campaigns. So I would not call Gab or Parler bastions of free speech, and it irritates me that those sites steal headlines and place themselves at the center of these debates. Both sites are far right echo chambers filled with a lot of people who's primary experience with censorship begins and ends with the idea that nobody should be allowed to block them on Twitter. And neither site is afraid to engage in its own censorship -- the sites bill themselves as 1st Amendment advocates purely based around who they censor, not because they have compelling or innovative ideas about how to run a community in general. I'm being a little uncharitable here, but I'm not being very uncharitable. I have almost completely given up trying to engage with far right ideas on free speech, because a significant portion of that demographic is only interested in free speech in ways that personally benefit them, and trying to assemble their views into an internally consistent philosophy has frankly been kind of a giant waste of my time. If you're worried about tech censorship, go donate to Mastodon or Matrix -- projects that are filled with people who are actually thinking about free speech in deep, thoughtful, and practical ways.
pii 6y ago
I have the right to promote terrorism? Shit somebody should have told me sooner
- rvz 6y ago
  Khamenei is that you? I thought you said something similar on Twitter a few months, years back but your main account didn't get banned for promoting terrorism.
covermydonkey 6y ago
As a South African all of this is fascinating. Especially the shift of where the "center" is. It seemed every American not on the left is called "far right" from where I am sitting. Half a dozen of my friends have moved to the States and a few have scolded me for my understanding saying that plenty of centrists are labeled far right. I'm beginning to glaze over the label now. It doesn't hold any sway for me because it is used so flippantly.
- cambalache 6y ago
  Because the American mainstream left became bananas. The Democratic and Republican parties would still be right-wing/conservative all across the world except in America, but the woke/sjw/faang crowd is socially hard-left also all across the world (not in economics or international politics, they are very conservative there,even hawkish). So, for example, me, a very leftist third world person has now more in common with your average mid-westerner republican than with a coastal google employee.
  - SrslyJosh 6y ago
    Ah yes, the old "you made me become a neonazi" trope.
    - cambalache 6y ago
      That is not a trope, much less an old one. The "I am ideologically pure and anyone against me must be censured, silenced or even more" is an old trope. You a white guy, are calling a POC a neonazi because I dont buy your discourse of being an enlightened superior being. Get lost.
      - Igelau 6y ago
        How do you know they're a white guy?
  - PpEY4fu85hkQpn 6y ago
    Maybe you can refresh my memory, was it the "American mainstream left" that just sieged the Capitol in a murderous attempt to overthrow democracy?
joe_the_user 6y ago
It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. Free speech used to be something all Americans supported and defended. America once had a very finite number of publishers who were the primary gate keepers for what published. America suppressed the works of Wilhelm Reich and Henry Miller. America once arrested members of the IWW for engaging in street corner soapbox speak-outs [1]. America engaged in anti-socialist repression on a fairly large scale.[2] It's common to reference an imaginary free speech fundamentalist era somewhere in the US past but, sorry, it's not there. And, of course, the extreme right only pretend to be true free speech fundamentalists - Note how the dropped Milo Yiannopoulos when his speech offended them. [1] https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/industrial-workers-world-campaigns-free-speech-spokane-washington-usa-1908-1910 https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/industrial-workers... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids
mushbino 6y ago
"Free speech" in these instances means bigotry and calls to violence. Also, we're talking about private businesses here, you can't be that naive.
- l33t2327 6y ago
  Private businesses used to occasionally support free speech as a concept.
  - dheera 6y ago
    When private businesses support free speech everyone sues the hell out of them for "interfering in elections" when it really was netizens swaying voter opinions using free speech.
  - mushbino 6y ago
    If someone comes into your business to promote racist and bigoted causes, and promote violence, do you have the right to kick them out?
baix777 6y ago
"Break into Congress and kill the swamp creatures". This is a quote from Parler, and this is known as incitement, which is often illegal. The first amendment does not apply to child porn for obvious reasons, but it also doesn't apply to threats of violence, which isn't so obvious to everyone. To make this obvious, this is not a free speech issue.
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  The number of messages on Parler that had content like that was probably very limited. You’re cherry picking one message on a platform with double digit millions of users to paint a certain picture. But let’s not forget about all the violence in BLM riots over the last year, much of which was organized and popularized on social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook, who all get a pass. And yes it is a free speech issue when several companies that have left leaning cultures and leaders take concurrent actions to block a right leaning platform that mostly carries fully legal speech.
  - sellyme 6y ago
    > The number of messages on Parler that had content like that was probably very limited. Why are you saying "probably"? A lot of it was backed up. You can go check for yourself, it was very markedly not limited.
    - throwawaysea 6y ago
      Feel free to share your hard evidence, with comparisons to total number of users and total message volume. Until then, you're making an unproven claim.
  - hidarinokutsu 6y ago
    r/ParlerWatch has been surfacing violent threats for months, long before the Capitol riot. https://old.reddit.com/r/ParlerWatch/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ParlerWatch/
  - barbacoa 6y ago
whytaka 6y ago
Everyone supports free speech. Everyone also supports moderation. All liberty comes with moderation else we have chaos. Imagine someone talking loudly outside your window all night. You’d have laws made about public disturbances. Would you then be a freedom hating communist? I don’t know about that. Now if you also have a forum where you’d like to have more family friendly conversations. Would you welcome the Nazi hatemongerer? I would think you’d moderate them out. Imagine you have a church, and an atheist disturbs your mass by shrieking god doesn’t exist. Would you escort them out? This is so basic to me that I can’t believe people have a hard time grasping something so obvious. I can’t help but think they are being disingenuous.
Spivak 6y ago
I will defend to the death someone’s right to hold and speak any beliefs, ideas, or opinions no matter how controversial or unorthodox. What I will not defend is someone who knowingly speaks untruths or uses language as a weapon with the intent to hurt others. Just because it uses mouth sounds doesn’t make something speech. If you think homosexuals are an abomination and an affront to god then you’re free to believe that and tell everyone you know. But that doesn’t mean you should be allowed to shout f*g at a gay person on the street. Only the former is speech, the latter is hate.
saila 6y ago
Just because Gab and Parler claim to support free speech absolutism--and use that for marketing purposes--doesn't make it true. I signed up on Gab recently to see what people were talking about on there, and the discussion is far less diverse than Twitter (there's just no comparison). Twitter has X, Y, and Z Twitter, whereas Gab basically seems to be just Q Twitter these days. And on Gab, you'll get shouted down within milliseconds if you post something that doesn't fit the general vibe, and you'll probably be called a f#g for your trouble. (I've seen the same thing on so-called "patriot" live streams that also claim free speech absolutism but then ban you for saying anything they don't want to hear, even good-faith efforts to explain the motivations of the "other side.") Therefore, I can confidently claim that Twitter, just as an example, cares more about and does far more to promote free speech than Gab ever could or will, even though they don't use "free speech" as a marketing cudgel.
- soundnote 6y ago
  > I signed up on Gab recently to see what people were talking about on there, and the discussion is far less diverse than Twitter (there's just no comparison). Twitter has X, Y, and Z Twitter, whereas Gab basically seems to be just Q Twitter these days. Gab being Q twitter is probably related to this: https://twitter.com/beeeeeers/status/1358141547057848320 https://twitter.com/beeeeeers/status/1358141547057848320 That said, mostly any platform that allows some kind of speech banned on mainstream platforms will initially turn into a hive of said banned content for completely obvious reasons. > I've seen the same thing on so-called "patriot" live streams that also claim free speech absolutism but then ban you for saying anything they don't want to hear, even good-faith efforts to explain the motivations of the "other side." This does sound sad. I've found a few places online where there are people of all manner of creeds and they're some of the best places. They usually don't contain wokelets or rabid Q people, which probably explains why they remain nice and interesting.
GVIrish 6y ago
> It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. > Free speech used to be something all Americans supported and defended. It's not that most Americans don't care about free speech. It's that most Americans understand that constitutional free speech means the government can't infringe on your speech, except in limited circumstances (like extortion, inciting violence, inciting panic, divulging classified material, etc). The reason companies like Gab and Parler market 'free speech' to the far right, is because the far right often engages in trolling, harassment, incitement to violence, disinformation, and bigotry in social media. As such, they run into the moderation policies of those platforms and at some point start running into bans. Not to say other parts of the political spectrum don't run into moderation and bans too, but it's a bigger problem right now for the far right. There's a debate to be had about the power social media giants have over public discourse and whether internet service providers should be able to blacklist companies like they did to Parler. But that still doesn't fall under the umbrella of constitutional free speech. Businesses usually have wide latitude to refuse service to customers, particularly for toxic behavior.
- naniwaduni 6y ago
  Before taking "constitutional" free speech for a concept, we have to understand that free speech is a prescriptive social norm. It happens to have a constitutional instantiation. That instantiation happens to be expressed as a restriction on the government's chartered power; this is an artifact of the process by which it was drafted, i.e. as part of a collection of proposed restraints on the powers federal government. No reasonable person should confuse the very limited constitutional guarantee given to free speech with the norm itself.
  - enraged_camel 6y ago
    "Free speech" has never, ever meant "say whatever you want without any consequences whatsoever." That's what conservatives seem to be demanding these days. And when they don't get it, they whine about "cancel culture."
  - GVIrish 6y ago
geofft 6y ago
Just about all Americans support and defend doing moral things, but the "Moral Majority" was partisan. Just about all Americans have values that they care about, but the "Values Voter Summit" is partisan. Just about no Americans advocate for being irresponsible with government money, but "fiscal responsibility" is a specific partisan interpretation of what sorts of uses of government money are reasonable. That only a subset of the population wants to be marketed to under the banner of "free speech" doesn't mean that people don't care about free speech itself. (Neither Gab nor Parler have any objection to FOSTA/SESTA's unconstitutional limitations on free speech and neither of them have any interest in standing up for the free speech rights of sex workers, let alone their ability to participate in the free market.)
anigbrowl 6y ago
It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. It is indeed incredible, though perhaps not in the sense that you meant.
- rbanffy 6y ago
  I think the right (no pun intended) word here is "disheartening".
kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
These are bottom feeders who want to cash in on social media without the overhead of moderation. To MBAs that's a cost center that has to go. The "free speech" spiel is just their cover story to fend off government intrusion while the user base festers.
throwaway189262 6y ago
> It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. It's because private companies don't want to host their extreme views. Private companies free to regulate their own platforms is a very Republican position. Hobby Lobby and Chic Fil A are perfect examples of right leaning companies imposing their own political views of what is acceptable on their employees and customers. It would be liberal to regulate what private companies allow or block on their platforms, which is why Republicans complain about being cancelled but don't take action. Forcing companies to allow free speech using regulations is a liberal proposition. Right leaning people are free to create their own platforms that cater to far right conspiracies, racism, homophobia, death threats, and white supremacists. And that's what they did
uniqueid 6y ago
If you were a photographer creating erotic gay art or a writer hosting a Communist poetry night, I would advise you not to bank on the right wing defending your freedom of expression.

davidlinc1 6y ago

It's not. It happens to be an effective marketing vehicle for this particular audience, so you see it presented first and foremost, in an almost hyperbolic way. They conflate free speech infringements with basic service policies. Doesn't mean that other Americans no longer consider free speech important.

mint2 6y ago

why do so many people confusedly assume free speech means forcing printers to print neo-nazi propaganda. Whatever happened to freedom of association? Some businesses and people don’t want to associate with neonazis and don’t want to be known as the company that helps neonazis. Why do people who espouse free speech want to take away freedom to choose who one associates with?

InvertedRhodium 6y ago
'Free speech' means nothing at all in the private sector - but 'supporting free speech' most definitely does. If a company opts to not support free speech (which is an ideal that I believe most Americans would say should be supported) by enacting censorship rules beyond what is illegal, they shouldn't be surprised when people that believe in that ideal look on them less favorably.
- Delmania 6y ago
  By supporting free speech I support the right for us to say what we will without fear of retribution from the government. By supporting freedom of association I support that company’s can ban you for saying things they don’t agree with. Aren’t Gab and Parker right wing libertarian free market success stories? People found Twitter didn’t agree with their views so they founded a competitor.
  - InvertedRhodium 6y ago
    > By supporting freedom of association I support that company’s can ban you for saying things they don’t agree with The US already limit companies "Right of Association" by virtue of things like Providers of Last Resort (that's the extent of my knowledge on this topic in the context of America) so it's not an alien concept. Do you feel that the electricity company should be able to cut off your power supply because you made a blog post they don't agree with? How about your mobile phone provider? And if not, why are online services treated any differently?
    - nicoffeine 6y ago
      If you're planning on a violent assault on others, all those protections disappear. Free speech has well established limitations that are pretty easy to understand.
      - InvertedRhodium 6y ago
        I don't believe anything I've said contradicts that position.
        nicoffeine 6y ago
        You keep trying to associate Parler and Gab as supporters of free speech. Parler was shut down because it refused to moderate content that incited violence. Gab's browser extension Dissenter was removed from Google and Firefox for the same reason: unmoderated content that often featured calls to violence. These platforms are being used by white nationalists and other extremists to normalize their hateful ideology and encourage violence against anyone with different gender orientations, nationality, ethnicity, or religious beliefs. Gab and Parler have zero interest in free speech as a human right. They want unlimited free speech for acceptable groups (mostly white straight Christians) and no rights for anyone else. Users on those platforms have posted their intent to hurt and kill others, that content was never moderated, and those users carried out acts of violence. Companies who don't want to be associated with that have disconnected their services ahead of the inevitable legal action to shut the services down. Literally no one in the US has had their electricity or phone cut off because of a "disagreeable blog post." It's a ridiculous example to bring up in the sea of information about what's going on in those forums.
- throwaway189262 6y ago
  Any internet platform that didnt moderate would be overwhelmed with spam, porn, scams, hate, etc. Censorship and moderation are the same, a set of rules you must follow to participate. Gab is has huge problems with porn spam because of free speech policies. Imagine if email providers were not allowed to filter. Your email would be totally unusable. Enacting no filters beyond what's illegal would make most of the internet unusable. Like imagine if HN had no moderation? It would lose its original purpose. So what do you mean support free speech exactly? Allow people to freely post porn, scams, lies, death threats?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
lom888 6y ago
The argument I've heard from friends on the left opposed to free speech is that barely-moderated forums inevitably turn into "white supremacist" sites.
- pii 6y ago
  "friends on the left opposed to free speech" is your willful misunderstanding of the issue
  - lom888 6y ago
    These friends overtly say that free speech should be limited, in those exact terms. Not some speech, "free speech". Please let me know how you perceive me to be misunderstanding them willfully.
    - pstuart 6y ago
      So free speech should include incitement of violence? Slander and libel?
    - pii 6y ago
      I think you might want to listen to them more closely, I can't answer on their behalf. If, by chance, they're anything like me, then I agree that there's giant categories of prohibited speech that should remain so. Lying about medicine, slander, libel, incitement to violence to name a few.
      - lom888 6y ago
        They want the first amendment repealed as they say it protects racists, homophobes and transphobes. They say that liberal free speech laws led to Trump and free speech should be curtailed for that reason. They openly say that they are opposed to free speech. I am trying to present their views as neutrally as I can, but this is what they say and support.
        6y ago
Turing_Machine 6y ago
Hmm... so in your opinion, back in the days of the Hollywood blacklist, when Louis B. Mayer decided that he wasn't going to buy any more screenplays from communists (or anyone who even had friends who were communists), that was perfectly okay? "Freedom of association", right? The truly bizarre thing about the "woke" movement is that they seem to have absolutely no conception that the stuff they're doing to others can just as easily be done to them.
- Turing_Machine 6y ago
  Touched a nerve, didn't it? You might be surprised at how fast this kind of thing can turn around.
  - Turing_Machine 6y ago
    Recommended reading: https://www.amazon.com/True-Believer-Thoughts-Movements-Perennial-ebook/dp/B003TO5838/ https://www.amazon.com/True-Believer-Thoughts-Movements-Pere... Edit: more recommended reading: http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/conformism.html http://www.paulgraham.com/conformism.html
    - mint2 6y ago
      I’m not sure how you’re interpreting these, but if you are against businesses deplatforming those who express neonazi, and white nationalist propaganda I don’t think Paul Graham’s message supports you. I doubt Paul graham equates neonazi propaganda with his examples of past situations where you could believe something that was later thought of as very wrong: “ how can you be sure you wouldn't also have believed everything you were supposed to if you had grown up among the plantation owners of the pre-Civil War South, or in Germany in the 1930s” Are you saying that in 30 years that society will collectively think neonazi beliefs are correct and thus we were crazy to ostracize them? And you are saying that is why we should stop censoring them? Because in a future state we might live in a dystopia we should stop censoring the people trying to create the dystopia? And also that censoring neonazis is akin to those example like being anti slavery in the antebellum south? Is this your take away? Those arguments sound rather farcical and Paul himself actually explains why that is. Paul says this: “Of course, we're not just looking for things we can't say. We're looking for things we can't say that are true, or at least have enough chance of being true that the question should remain open.“ There is no doubt about neonazi propaganda. Whether or not it is true is not an open question. White supremacist propaganda maybe being right is not an open question.
throwaway33432 6y ago
freedom of association isn't really a thing anymore; if one were to promote that maxim, a large portion of the civil rights laws, anti-discrimination laws, etc. just become unenforceable. see stuff akin to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colorado_Civil_Rights_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  The idea of public accommodation is ultimately based on the notion that commercial appeals (such as a store window and an open door) constitute an 'invitation to treat' (do business) and that these should not be withheld from anyone on the basis of their unalterable personal characteristics.
  - Ancapistani 6y ago
    > these should not be withheld from anyone on the basis of their unalterable personal characteristics Where does this boundary lie? Is political party unalterable? Ideology? Religion?
    - anigbrowl 6y ago
      That depends who you ask. I don't think religion is unalterable, for example, but in the USA it holds a privileged legal position for historical reasons - although courts have concluded that merely claiming religious status is insufficient, eg https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/18/18-1141.pdf https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/18/18-1141.pdf In general the Us recognizes race/ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation (to some degree) and religion as 'suspect classes' deserving of protection. But it's a thorny subject and understanding all the different perspectives is going to require a lot of reading.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]

kumarvvr 6y ago

When free speech turns to hate speech, filled with lies and distortions, can it still be called free speech? Is free speech absolute? If tomorrow, fox news falsely says your family is defrauding the IRS, qould you be ok with that because thwy have the right to free speech? The intent of free speech is to have tge freedom to criticise those in power. Not to spread hate and divisions in the society.

errantmind 6y ago
Yes, it can be called free speech, although there can be repercussions when that speech falls into slander / libel / defamation. Outside of that, why would you ever want the government deciding what you can and cannot say? Right now you may be aligned with the government, but that can change very easily in the future
- kumarvvr 6y ago
  I was commenting on the hypocrisy of some, who love to bang the free speech drum, but expect the government to protect them from private individuals actions. Be it citizens or corporations. If one wants the govt to ensure free speech, then it is implied it must also ensure a private individuals right to pursue legal actions, such as denial or service or lawsuits.
- pii 6y ago
  "I don't care whether the government allows someone to lie to me about the contents of my medicine"
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  Well, suppose there's a group of people saying that another group of people (which happens to include you) should be killed as soon as possible. In an ideal world, they probably wouldn't do that because they'd recognize that collective aggression against others could rebound on them, but in the imperfect world we actually occupy it happens all the time. Of course, you could just figure they'll limit their social opportunities and eventually grow out of it or develop some higher wisdom, but just how long should you have to put up with threats from random strangers and anxieties about your personal safety while you are waiting for your antagonists to become enlightened?

danShumway 6y ago

The reason they're seen as a separate demographic for marketing purposes is because the "far right" has a very specific view of free speech that is largely divorced from: A) the actual full scope of the problem of censorship in the real world, B) the actual rights that other people have to freely associate or filter content they find objectionable, and C) the actual practical ways to increase free speech access. Ignoring for a second the ideologies these people espouse, purely speaking as a free speech advocate far right people make my job harder, both because they only seem to show up to advocate for free speech in very selective situations, and because most of their ideas on how to preserve free speech are, frankly, really bad. Most of the far right crowd isn't going to show up to bat for concepts like Net Neutrality, they're not going to be out campaigning against LGBTQ+ or sex censorship. These are the people I see in my timelines cheering on government intervention into public university curriculums. They push dangerous concepts like Section 230 repeals or nationalizing media companies, and some of their more experimental proposals are just blatantly unconstitutional. It's wild to hear proposals from people who claim that they're free speech advocates that would not hold up under almost any Supreme Court ruling. These people also don't have sophisticated ideas on how to handle spam, pornography, or copyright other than to shrug their shoulders and say that the 1st Amendment shouldn't apply to those things. And their big solution to Twitter censorship is to make new centralized platforms that (for now) cater to specifically them; there's nothing realistic or interesting or permanent about what they're proposing. It's a demographic that likes to say that they're pro-free-speech, but in my opinion a lot of that is just thoughtless rhetoric around the fact that they're mad that different people than them now have power to form their own communities and organize their own social campaigns. So I would not call Gab or Parler bastions of free speech, and it irritates me that those sites steal headlines and place themselves at the center of these debates. Both sites are far right echo chambers filled with a lot of people who's primary experience with censorship begins and ends with the idea that nobody should be allowed to block them on Twitter. And neither site is afraid to engage in its own censorship -- the sites bill themselves as 1st Amendment advocates purely based around who they censor, not because they have compelling or innovative ideas about how to run a community in general. I'm being a little uncharitable here, but I'm not being very uncharitable. I have almost completely given up trying to engage with far right ideas on free speech, because a significant portion of that demographic is only interested in free speech in ways that personally benefit them, and trying to assemble their views into an internally consistent philosophy has frankly been kind of a giant waste of my time. If you're worried about tech censorship, go donate to Mastodon or Matrix -- projects that are filled with people who are actually thinking about free speech in deep, thoughtful, and practical ways.

pii 6y ago

I have the right to promote terrorism? Shit somebody should have told me sooner

rvz 6y ago
Khamenei is that you? I thought you said something similar on Twitter a few months, years back but your main account didn't get banned for promoting terrorism.

covermydonkey 6y ago

As a South African all of this is fascinating. Especially the shift of where the "center" is. It seemed every American not on the left is called "far right" from where I am sitting. Half a dozen of my friends have moved to the States and a few have scolded me for my understanding saying that plenty of centrists are labeled far right. I'm beginning to glaze over the label now. It doesn't hold any sway for me because it is used so flippantly.

cambalache 6y ago
Because the American mainstream left became bananas. The Democratic and Republican parties would still be right-wing/conservative all across the world except in America, but the woke/sjw/faang crowd is socially hard-left also all across the world (not in economics or international politics, they are very conservative there,even hawkish). So, for example, me, a very leftist third world person has now more in common with your average mid-westerner republican than with a coastal google employee.
- SrslyJosh 6y ago
  Ah yes, the old "you made me become a neonazi" trope.
  - cambalache 6y ago
    That is not a trope, much less an old one. The "I am ideologically pure and anyone against me must be censured, silenced or even more" is an old trope. You a white guy, are calling a POC a neonazi because I dont buy your discourse of being an enlightened superior being. Get lost.
    - Igelau 6y ago
      How do you know they're a white guy?
- PpEY4fu85hkQpn 6y ago
  Maybe you can refresh my memory, was it the "American mainstream left" that just sieged the Capitol in a murderous attempt to overthrow democracy?

joe_the_user 6y ago

It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. Free speech used to be something all Americans supported and defended. America once had a very finite number of publishers who were the primary gate keepers for what published. America suppressed the works of Wilhelm Reich and Henry Miller. America once arrested members of the IWW for engaging in street corner soapbox speak-outs [1]. America engaged in anti-socialist repression on a fairly large scale.[2] It's common to reference an imaginary free speech fundamentalist era somewhere in the US past but, sorry, it's not there. And, of course, the extreme right only pretend to be true free speech fundamentalists - Note how the dropped Milo Yiannopoulos when his speech offended them. [1] https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/industrial-workers-world-campaigns-free-speech-spokane-washington-usa-1908-1910 https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/industrial-workers... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids

mushbino 6y ago

"Free speech" in these instances means bigotry and calls to violence. Also, we're talking about private businesses here, you can't be that naive.

l33t2327 6y ago
Private businesses used to occasionally support free speech as a concept.
- dheera 6y ago
  When private businesses support free speech everyone sues the hell out of them for "interfering in elections" when it really was netizens swaying voter opinions using free speech.
- mushbino 6y ago
  If someone comes into your business to promote racist and bigoted causes, and promote violence, do you have the right to kick them out?

baix777 6y ago

"Break into Congress and kill the swamp creatures". This is a quote from Parler, and this is known as incitement, which is often illegal. The first amendment does not apply to child porn for obvious reasons, but it also doesn't apply to threats of violence, which isn't so obvious to everyone. To make this obvious, this is not a free speech issue.

throwawaysea 6y ago
The number of messages on Parler that had content like that was probably very limited. You’re cherry picking one message on a platform with double digit millions of users to paint a certain picture. But let’s not forget about all the violence in BLM riots over the last year, much of which was organized and popularized on social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook, who all get a pass. And yes it is a free speech issue when several companies that have left leaning cultures and leaders take concurrent actions to block a right leaning platform that mostly carries fully legal speech.
- sellyme 6y ago
  > The number of messages on Parler that had content like that was probably very limited. Why are you saying "probably"? A lot of it was backed up. You can go check for yourself, it was very markedly not limited.
  - throwawaysea 6y ago
    Feel free to share your hard evidence, with comparisons to total number of users and total message volume. Until then, you're making an unproven claim.
- hidarinokutsu 6y ago
  r/ParlerWatch has been surfacing violent threats for months, long before the Capitol riot. https://old.reddit.com/r/ParlerWatch/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ParlerWatch/
- barbacoa 6y ago

whytaka 6y ago

Everyone supports free speech. Everyone also supports moderation. All liberty comes with moderation else we have chaos. Imagine someone talking loudly outside your window all night. You’d have laws made about public disturbances. Would you then be a freedom hating communist? I don’t know about that. Now if you also have a forum where you’d like to have more family friendly conversations. Would you welcome the Nazi hatemongerer? I would think you’d moderate them out. Imagine you have a church, and an atheist disturbs your mass by shrieking god doesn’t exist. Would you escort them out? This is so basic to me that I can’t believe people have a hard time grasping something so obvious. I can’t help but think they are being disingenuous.

Spivak 6y ago

I will defend to the death someone’s right to hold and speak any beliefs, ideas, or opinions no matter how controversial or unorthodox. What I will not defend is someone who knowingly speaks untruths or uses language as a weapon with the intent to hurt others. Just because it uses mouth sounds doesn’t make something speech. If you think homosexuals are an abomination and an affront to god then you’re free to believe that and tell everyone you know. But that doesn’t mean you should be allowed to shout f*g at a gay person on the street. Only the former is speech, the latter is hate.

saila 6y ago

Just because Gab and Parler claim to support free speech absolutism--and use that for marketing purposes--doesn't make it true. I signed up on Gab recently to see what people were talking about on there, and the discussion is far less diverse than Twitter (there's just no comparison). Twitter has X, Y, and Z Twitter, whereas Gab basically seems to be just Q Twitter these days. And on Gab, you'll get shouted down within milliseconds if you post something that doesn't fit the general vibe, and you'll probably be called a f#g for your trouble. (I've seen the same thing on so-called "patriot" live streams that also claim free speech absolutism but then ban you for saying anything they don't want to hear, even good-faith efforts to explain the motivations of the "other side.") Therefore, I can confidently claim that Twitter, just as an example, cares more about and does far more to promote free speech than Gab ever could or will, even though they don't use "free speech" as a marketing cudgel.

soundnote 6y ago
> I signed up on Gab recently to see what people were talking about on there, and the discussion is far less diverse than Twitter (there's just no comparison). Twitter has X, Y, and Z Twitter, whereas Gab basically seems to be just Q Twitter these days. Gab being Q twitter is probably related to this: https://twitter.com/beeeeeers/status/1358141547057848320 https://twitter.com/beeeeeers/status/1358141547057848320 That said, mostly any platform that allows some kind of speech banned on mainstream platforms will initially turn into a hive of said banned content for completely obvious reasons. > I've seen the same thing on so-called "patriot" live streams that also claim free speech absolutism but then ban you for saying anything they don't want to hear, even good-faith efforts to explain the motivations of the "other side." This does sound sad. I've found a few places online where there are people of all manner of creeds and they're some of the best places. They usually don't contain wokelets or rabid Q people, which probably explains why they remain nice and interesting.

GVIrish 6y ago

> It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. > Free speech used to be something all Americans supported and defended. It's not that most Americans don't care about free speech. It's that most Americans understand that constitutional free speech means the government can't infringe on your speech, except in limited circumstances (like extortion, inciting violence, inciting panic, divulging classified material, etc). The reason companies like Gab and Parler market 'free speech' to the far right, is because the far right often engages in trolling, harassment, incitement to violence, disinformation, and bigotry in social media. As such, they run into the moderation policies of those platforms and at some point start running into bans. Not to say other parts of the political spectrum don't run into moderation and bans too, but it's a bigger problem right now for the far right. There's a debate to be had about the power social media giants have over public discourse and whether internet service providers should be able to blacklist companies like they did to Parler. But that still doesn't fall under the umbrella of constitutional free speech. Businesses usually have wide latitude to refuse service to customers, particularly for toxic behavior.

naniwaduni 6y ago
Before taking "constitutional" free speech for a concept, we have to understand that free speech is a prescriptive social norm. It happens to have a constitutional instantiation. That instantiation happens to be expressed as a restriction on the government's chartered power; this is an artifact of the process by which it was drafted, i.e. as part of a collection of proposed restraints on the powers federal government. No reasonable person should confuse the very limited constitutional guarantee given to free speech with the norm itself.
- enraged_camel 6y ago
  "Free speech" has never, ever meant "say whatever you want without any consequences whatsoever." That's what conservatives seem to be demanding these days. And when they don't get it, they whine about "cancel culture."
- GVIrish 6y ago

geofft 6y ago

Just about all Americans support and defend doing moral things, but the "Moral Majority" was partisan. Just about all Americans have values that they care about, but the "Values Voter Summit" is partisan. Just about no Americans advocate for being irresponsible with government money, but "fiscal responsibility" is a specific partisan interpretation of what sorts of uses of government money are reasonable. That only a subset of the population wants to be marketed to under the banner of "free speech" doesn't mean that people don't care about free speech itself. (Neither Gab nor Parler have any objection to FOSTA/SESTA's unconstitutional limitations on free speech and neither of them have any interest in standing up for the free speech rights of sex workers, let alone their ability to participate in the free market.)

anigbrowl 6y ago

It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. It is indeed incredible, though perhaps not in the sense that you meant.

rbanffy 6y ago
I think the right (no pun intended) word here is "disheartening".

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago

These are bottom feeders who want to cash in on social media without the overhead of moderation. To MBAs that's a cost center that has to go. The "free speech" spiel is just their cover story to fend off government intrusion while the user base festers.

throwaway189262 6y ago

> It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. It's because private companies don't want to host their extreme views. Private companies free to regulate their own platforms is a very Republican position. Hobby Lobby and Chic Fil A are perfect examples of right leaning companies imposing their own political views of what is acceptable on their employees and customers. It would be liberal to regulate what private companies allow or block on their platforms, which is why Republicans complain about being cancelled but don't take action. Forcing companies to allow free speech using regulations is a liberal proposition. Right leaning people are free to create their own platforms that cater to far right conspiracies, racism, homophobia, death threats, and white supremacists. And that's what they did

uniqueid 6y ago

If you were a photographer creating erotic gay art or a writer hosting a Communist poetry night, I would advise you not to bank on the right wing defending your freedom of expression.