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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 ser

by 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.