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>My understanding of U.S.A. First amendment is that government won't infringe on your right of free speech. It doesn't say you can come into my home, workplace,

>My understanding of U.S.A. First amendment is that government won't infringe on your right of free speech. It doesn't say you can come into my home, workplace, store, or website and yell what you want on my property. This is exactly my point. If we are going to classify online discussion on platforms like Facebook as being protected free speech, there is no way that we can allow those services to be in control of who gets to say what. The government has an obligation to provide an acceptable platform for citizens to have online discussions in that case which would actually serve as a digital "town square", protected by our first amendment rights. Anything else becomes a de facto infringement of those rights. And saying "well you can build your own website" is naive and missing the point. To put a barrier like that in front of the exercising of one's rights is tantamount to a digital Jim Crow.

NikolaNovak 5y ago
>>If we are going to classify online discussion on platforms like Facebook as being protected free speech But that is a massive "If" and I'm denying you the premise, until you convince me otherwise. I think you're starting from a certain point assuming everybody is there already. Note, I agree with many of your detailed points later, such as "build your own website" missing the network effects of established platforms; but most fundamentally I think what you're taking for granted is the actual big important discussion to be had, e.g. "The government has an obligation to provide an acceptable platform for citizens to have online discussions" - I don't think Government has that obligation today, and if you / we think it should, then that's the discussion and lobbying to be had. (Never mind how well I think a government-created platform with government-designed technical stack and UI, and with guaranteed free speech and no moderation whatsoever, will actually work in practice... to quote Frank Borman, what we have here is a failure of imagination :P )

NikolaNovak 5y ago

>>If we are going to classify online discussion on platforms like Facebook as being protected free speech But that is a massive "If" and I'm denying you the premise, until you convince me otherwise. I think you're starting from a certain point assuming everybody is there already. Note, I agree with many of your detailed points later, such as "build your own website" missing the network effects of established platforms; but most fundamentally I think what you're taking for granted is the actual big important discussion to be had, e.g. "The government has an obligation to provide an acceptable platform for citizens to have online discussions" - I don't think Government has that obligation today, and if you / we think it should, then that's the discussion and lobbying to be had. (Never mind how well I think a government-created platform with government-designed technical stack and UI, and with guaranteed free speech and no moderation whatsoever, will actually work in practice... to quote Frank Borman, what we have here is a failure of imagination :P )