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You're being snarky, but this is essentially true (as I understand it). In the US, outside of a few legally protected characteristics, a company is free to exe

You're being snarky, but this is essentially true (as I understand it). In the US, outside of a few legally protected characteristics, a company is free to exercise its speech to choose not to provide service to customers it does not wish to. The government forcing companies to provide service would be a violation of their speech rights. Some companies go out of their way to try to be better than that because they recognize the influence they have on public access to platforms. (Zuckerberg cares a lot about this: https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/16/mark-zuckerberg-and-free-speech.html https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/16/mark-zuckerberg-and-f...), but ultimately all of that is above and beyond what the legal expectations are. In FB's case it wasn't so much a policy change that lead to them shutting down Trump's account, but that USG's position as a rule of law nation was in question after 1/6 and it no longer met their own policy requirements that give elected politicians in rule of law democracies a special pass to violate their moderation rules. The irony is this is a variant of the same argument made in the gay cake case, but with the political partisanship reversed. The notable difference in that case is that sexual orientation is a protected characteristic.

ardit33 6y ago
"The government forcing companies to provide service would be a violation of their speech rights." -- True, but the government can institute a bill of rights for digital platforms, and make it mandatory for companies that want to have section 230 protection. Youtube will be free to choose between following the bill of rights, or becoming a regulated media like the TV, or being prone to defamation lawsuits and be responsible for its content. What that bill of rights would look like? That's a different story... but google, or any tech company, having the power to just delete your gmail/email account, and erase all your stored data at will it is kinda scary. There should be a happy medium. We do this for evictions already (i.e. there is a process for the eviction, we should do something lightweight for the digital space as well). Eg, if google has determined you have abused on your email, you will have 30 days to retrieve your data, and contacts and transfer them somewhere else. Losing access altogether is very disruptive.
- Aunche 6y ago
  > the government can institute a bill of rights for digital platforms, and make it mandatory for companies that want to have section 230 protection. Social Media companies actually want this as well because then they can just deflect all unpopular decisions to this bill of rights. That's why Facebook spent $700 million to create their own content moderation "supreme court." Congress had every opportunity to explore this issue further during the Congressional hearings about section 230. Unfortunately, they were more interested in whining about why this specific issue should be censored or why this specific issue should not be censored.
throwawaysea 6y ago
> Some companies go out of their way to try to be better than that because they recognize the influence they have on public access to platforms. If they have that amount of public influence they should be broken up, or heavily regulated as public utilities, so that they uphold freedom of speech online in the new digital public town square.
leereeves 6y ago
> a company is free to exercise its speech It wasn't always like that. We used to have rules like common carrier restricting the phone company, the fairness doctrine restricting television networks, and campaign finance rules restricting other media. We truly live in the golden age of corporate power.
- bogwog 6y ago
  > the fairness doctrine restricting television networks We seriously need that one back
  - Trill-I-Am 6y ago
    So that MSNBC could’ve been forced to air pro-Trump defenses?
    - leereeves 6y ago
      Yes. And Fox could have been forced to air criticism, and in both cases fewer Americans would live in echo chambers. Media partisanship is misinforming and dividing Americans.
Spivak 6y ago
It's basically an application of freedom vs liberty. You are less free as a result of having to follow the rules of the road but have greater liberty by being able to travel safely and efficiently. This balance is governance's equivalent of "three hard problems." When it comes to platform moderation it seems like HN at large overwhelmingly holds the opinion that for speech liberty is maximized with freedom. Which might be right but for me personally I've experienced the reality not being able myself on the internet because of all the hate I've received. The solution has been for my whole life has boiled down to "just pretend to be a straight white cis American man" to the point of having to use a voice-changer to play videogames online. Like it does work and solves the immediate problem. But the truth is also that it has gotten a lot better in recent years. We're finally out of the "there are no girls on the internet" dark ages and I don't know if the ends justify the means but something is working.
mellosouls 6y ago
The irony is this is a variant of the same argument made in the gay cake case, but with the political partisanship reversed. The notable difference in that case is that sexual orientation is a protected characteristic. The other far more notable difference is the baker didn't own all the cake shops.
- t-writescode 6y ago
  And the "gay cake case" would also be closer to not just providing cork board space for people to stick pins and messages in; but also to require the engineers or CEO herself to write down the words that they put on the bulletin board, after they're orated to her.
- fossuser 6y ago
  Eh I don’t buy this. FB isn’t the internet and there are a lot of social media companies with social media apps. The protected characteristic is the relevant bit.
ng12 6y ago
The debate is not whether there is a legal requirement for YouTube to provide freedom of speech (categorically, there is not) but whether that is harmful to society. The concept of freedom of expression extends beyond the bound of US law.
- waterhouse 6y ago
  Exactly. It makes me uneasy to see all these people who seem to have no idea that freedom of speech is or could be anything other than a particular law. (That there are benefits to having an unrestricted exchange of ideas in public, and that censoring some ideas is a slippery slope to censoring others.) If that law didn't exist, would it occur to them to create it?
  - fossuser 6y ago
    I think you're misstating my comment a bit. The government compelling speech from private companies is a speech violation. Arguably private companies and individuals should adapt to choose better services that suit their interests. I'm not sure that compelling company speech is a good idea and gets messy quickly (particularly around moderation). I'm a fan of Urbit which I think is a clever model that makes all of this largely unnecessary.
    - waterhouse 6y ago
      I see. Then I think you're misunderstanding the position of those you're arguing against. Well, I don't know exactly what throwaway1959 believes, but he criticized Youtube's CEO for "censoring opinions of other people that she does not agree with". He did not say that the government should do anything about it; that was something you mentioned. I don't know if this is a common misconception or if something else is going on, but it's fairly common for one person to say it's bad for a company to suppress free speech, and someone else to reply that it's not illegal for the company to do that, as if that were a counterargument. Is it believed that saying something is bad = saying it should be illegal? Not only is that a bad policy, it contradicts the ideal of freedom of speech itself: that bad speech should be allowed. I don't understand how someone could believe a free speech advocate would think that (other than by understanding them poorly or having a low opinion of their logical consistency). For illustration, here's an entire article titled "The YouTube Ban Is Un-American, Wrong, and Will Backfire", 2300 words—none of which says that Youtube's actions are illegal, or should be, or even mentions the First Amendment. I think this is the position of free speech advocates generally: that suppressing free speech is bad and that those who do it should be criticized and shamed but not punished (unless it's the government, in which case it may be illegal). https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-youtube-ban-is-un-american-wrong https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-youtube-ban-is-un-american...
zarkov99 6y ago
I don't think the analogy holds. A mom and pop shop should be given more latitude on who they serve than a communication platform monopoly.
pnt12 6y ago
There's the law, and there's the principle. Your platform may be legally allowed to censor everything, but it's clear it doesn't take freedom of expression seriously. If we add some more mental gymnastics, we can say the Chinese government supports all legal freedom of speech as well. If this sounds ridiculous but the former does not, we should evaluate why one type of censorship means freedom but another means oppression.
- CleaveIt2Beaver 6y ago
  That element has already been evaluated, and is re-evaluated every time this argument is made. A private platform is free to censor users as they see fit, as the users are free to A) not use their platform at all, B) use a competing platform, or C) create a competing platform. You are not compelled to post your thoughts on FB, or Hackernews, or anywhere else, nor are you entitled to a platform to do so there. The flip-side, censorship by gov't, is platform independent. This is where the 1st amendment protects come into play, defending you (and the hosting platform) from gov't suppression regarding political or religious speech. If the USA hosted an official message board, then we could argue comparisons to China.

ardit33 6y ago

"The government forcing companies to provide service would be a violation of their speech rights." -- True, but the government can institute a bill of rights for digital platforms, and make it mandatory for companies that want to have section 230 protection. Youtube will be free to choose between following the bill of rights, or becoming a regulated media like the TV, or being prone to defamation lawsuits and be responsible for its content. What that bill of rights would look like? That's a different story... but google, or any tech company, having the power to just delete your gmail/email account, and erase all your stored data at will it is kinda scary. There should be a happy medium. We do this for evictions already (i.e. there is a process for the eviction, we should do something lightweight for the digital space as well). Eg, if google has determined you have abused on your email, you will have 30 days to retrieve your data, and contacts and transfer them somewhere else. Losing access altogether is very disruptive.

Aunche 6y ago
> the government can institute a bill of rights for digital platforms, and make it mandatory for companies that want to have section 230 protection. Social Media companies actually want this as well because then they can just deflect all unpopular decisions to this bill of rights. That's why Facebook spent $700 million to create their own content moderation "supreme court." Congress had every opportunity to explore this issue further during the Congressional hearings about section 230. Unfortunately, they were more interested in whining about why this specific issue should be censored or why this specific issue should not be censored.

throwawaysea 6y ago

> Some companies go out of their way to try to be better than that because they recognize the influence they have on public access to platforms. If they have that amount of public influence they should be broken up, or heavily regulated as public utilities, so that they uphold freedom of speech online in the new digital public town square.

leereeves 6y ago

> a company is free to exercise its speech It wasn't always like that. We used to have rules like common carrier restricting the phone company, the fairness doctrine restricting television networks, and campaign finance rules restricting other media. We truly live in the golden age of corporate power.

bogwog 6y ago
> the fairness doctrine restricting television networks We seriously need that one back
- Trill-I-Am 6y ago
  So that MSNBC could’ve been forced to air pro-Trump defenses?
  - leereeves 6y ago
    Yes. And Fox could have been forced to air criticism, and in both cases fewer Americans would live in echo chambers. Media partisanship is misinforming and dividing Americans.

Spivak 6y ago

It's basically an application of freedom vs liberty. You are less free as a result of having to follow the rules of the road but have greater liberty by being able to travel safely and efficiently. This balance is governance's equivalent of "three hard problems." When it comes to platform moderation it seems like HN at large overwhelmingly holds the opinion that for speech liberty is maximized with freedom. Which might be right but for me personally I've experienced the reality not being able myself on the internet because of all the hate I've received. The solution has been for my whole life has boiled down to "just pretend to be a straight white cis American man" to the point of having to use a voice-changer to play videogames online. Like it does work and solves the immediate problem. But the truth is also that it has gotten a lot better in recent years. We're finally out of the "there are no girls on the internet" dark ages and I don't know if the ends justify the means but something is working.

mellosouls 6y ago

The irony is this is a variant of the same argument made in the gay cake case, but with the political partisanship reversed. The notable difference in that case is that sexual orientation is a protected characteristic. The other far more notable difference is the baker didn't own all the cake shops.

t-writescode 6y ago
And the "gay cake case" would also be closer to not just providing cork board space for people to stick pins and messages in; but also to require the engineers or CEO herself to write down the words that they put on the bulletin board, after they're orated to her.
fossuser 6y ago
Eh I don’t buy this. FB isn’t the internet and there are a lot of social media companies with social media apps. The protected characteristic is the relevant bit.

ng12 6y ago

The debate is not whether there is a legal requirement for YouTube to provide freedom of speech (categorically, there is not) but whether that is harmful to society. The concept of freedom of expression extends beyond the bound of US law.

waterhouse 6y ago
Exactly. It makes me uneasy to see all these people who seem to have no idea that freedom of speech is or could be anything other than a particular law. (That there are benefits to having an unrestricted exchange of ideas in public, and that censoring some ideas is a slippery slope to censoring others.) If that law didn't exist, would it occur to them to create it?
- fossuser 6y ago
  I think you're misstating my comment a bit. The government compelling speech from private companies is a speech violation. Arguably private companies and individuals should adapt to choose better services that suit their interests. I'm not sure that compelling company speech is a good idea and gets messy quickly (particularly around moderation). I'm a fan of Urbit which I think is a clever model that makes all of this largely unnecessary.
  - waterhouse 6y ago
    I see. Then I think you're misunderstanding the position of those you're arguing against. Well, I don't know exactly what throwaway1959 believes, but he criticized Youtube's CEO for "censoring opinions of other people that she does not agree with". He did not say that the government should do anything about it; that was something you mentioned. I don't know if this is a common misconception or if something else is going on, but it's fairly common for one person to say it's bad for a company to suppress free speech, and someone else to reply that it's not illegal for the company to do that, as if that were a counterargument. Is it believed that saying something is bad = saying it should be illegal? Not only is that a bad policy, it contradicts the ideal of freedom of speech itself: that bad speech should be allowed. I don't understand how someone could believe a free speech advocate would think that (other than by understanding them poorly or having a low opinion of their logical consistency). For illustration, here's an entire article titled "The YouTube Ban Is Un-American, Wrong, and Will Backfire", 2300 words—none of which says that Youtube's actions are illegal, or should be, or even mentions the First Amendment. I think this is the position of free speech advocates generally: that suppressing free speech is bad and that those who do it should be criticized and shamed but not punished (unless it's the government, in which case it may be illegal). https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-youtube-ban-is-un-american-wrong https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-youtube-ban-is-un-american...

zarkov99 6y ago

I don't think the analogy holds. A mom and pop shop should be given more latitude on who they serve than a communication platform monopoly.

pnt12 6y ago

There's the law, and there's the principle. Your platform may be legally allowed to censor everything, but it's clear it doesn't take freedom of expression seriously. If we add some more mental gymnastics, we can say the Chinese government supports all legal freedom of speech as well. If this sounds ridiculous but the former does not, we should evaluate why one type of censorship means freedom but another means oppression.

CleaveIt2Beaver 6y ago
That element has already been evaluated, and is re-evaluated every time this argument is made. A private platform is free to censor users as they see fit, as the users are free to A) not use their platform at all, B) use a competing platform, or C) create a competing platform. You are not compelled to post your thoughts on FB, or Hackernews, or anywhere else, nor are you entitled to a platform to do so there. The flip-side, censorship by gov't, is platform independent. This is where the 1st amendment protects come into play, defending you (and the hosting platform) from gov't suppression regarding political or religious speech. If the USA hosted an official message board, then we could argue comparisons to China.