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"Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation,

"Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recognized as a human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights law by the United Nations." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/principle https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/principle It is hard to sympathize with people who sow disinformation that costs people lives. But it is also hard to watch principles being ignored for immediate benefit. Principles are tested not when it is convenient for you to follow them. What I think is needed is people spending more time to figure out how it is possible to reconcile fight against misinformation with preserving basic human right which is ability to express your opinion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce... "In the United States, some categories of speech are not protected by the First Amendment. According to the Supreme Court of the United States, the U.S. Constitution protects free speech while allowing limitations on certain categories of speech.[1] (...) Categories of speech that are given lesser or no protection by the First Amendment (and therefore may be restricted) include obscenity, fraud, child pornography, speech integral to illegal conduct, speech that incites imminent lawless action, speech that violates intellectual property law, true threats, and commercial speech such as advertising. Defamation that causes harm to reputation is a tort and also an exception to free speech." So in short. There are existing laws that can be used to decide what is and what is not protected by freedom of speech. These laws should in my opinion be applied by judicial system, not invented on the spot by corporations. People should understand they are responsible for what they say online just as if they used other methods of communication. And if the exceptions to free speech are incorrect or incomplete, we should demand that the law is corrected in a democratic process rather than having companies act on their own.

elliekelly 5y ago
What about YouTube’s right to freedom of expression?
- lmilcin 5y ago
  YouTube is a company. Freedom of speech only applies to individuals and communities of individuals. EDIT: elliekelly, I can't answer because I am being rate limited and can't write new comments on HN. You have surprised me, but it is sadly true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - elliekelly 5y ago
    One would think. But corporations are people and have first amendment rights thanks to Citizens United.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  I wish freedom of expression were GPL-style freedom instead of MIT-style freedom, e.g., "You're free to express whatever opinions you want. You may not keep others from expressing whatever opinions they want."
AndrewBissell 5y ago
> But it is also hard to watch principles being ignored for immediate benefit. This won't even provide any "benefit" in terms of increased vaccination rates, but that's not the real purpose anyway. What they're really doing is carving up large chunks of people into information silos and trying to reduce the amount of communication happening between them.
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  How so? If one were charitable to this action, you'd say they're blowing up a silo full of rat poison and disallowing people from adding poison back in. The balance between "free speech" in the moral, not legal, sense and disinformation is going to be just like "security v. privacy" has been, but perhaps even harder to draw lines for. If you accept as a premise that most anti-vax sentiment is driven by charlatan media outlets and influencers (and probably nation-state adversaries), and that much of what is repeated by laypeople is an echo of this intentional drivel, and that this drivel is immediately costing not only their own lives, but the lives of others, what do you do? It's literally a disease. Which the Chinese would say about "people talking about democracy". So there it is: Where, if at all, do we in a "free society" draw the line where harmful disinformation campaigns get cut out? I argued several years back that the "app layer" of the internet should have more freedom of control over their content, but that the "infrastructure" layer should be expected to be more neutral. In other words, if an anti-vax website or social network got hosted on AWS, it would be a different thing for AWS or a registrar to kick them out.
  - AndrewBissell 5y ago
    Well I reject your premise, but on a more fundamental level I simply do not believe (on the basis of overwhelming evidence) that the gargantuan tech monopolies and the people pulling their strings care at all about the public health, disease prevention, or human life, so I am left looking for other motives. During the debate over Covid vaccines a common refrain has been "any safety issues have always shown up within a few months of administration." This is straight up misinformation: the Pandemix vaccine is a very high profile counterexample where symptoms first appeared about a year after the first shots were given, and it took another year after that for authorities to acknowledge the link. I only know about this because I occasionally peruse sources which would probably be labeled as "anti-vax," whereas the people repeating the false claim ad nauseam have often picked it up from sources which would be considered "authoritative," including public health authorities. But especially on this issue we have to pretend that there is one "side" which has a monopoly on accurate information. I wonder how much longer YouTube will even allow you to point out that the manufacturers of the completely-safe-beyond-any-doubt-whatsoever Covid vaccines have been blanket exempted from liability for any injuries caused by their products.
hestefisk 5y ago
Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom to lie and hurt public health efforts.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- fallingknife 5y ago
  No it absolutely does. This has been ruled on by the courts a million times.
gwbas1c 5y ago
> What I think is needed is people spending more time to figure out how it is possible to reconcile fight against misinformation with preserving basic human right which is ability to express your opinion. Simple: The right to free speech doesn't mean people have to listen, or guarantee access to a publisher. You can self-publish all you want.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  This is false argument. Ability to work with companies is no longer an option if you want any message through. If you can't post on any social media you are as good as being completely censored.
  - avianlyric 5y ago
    > Ability to work with companies is no longer an option if you want any message through. It never has been. Publishers refusing to publish speech isn’t a new phenomenon. Newspapers, radio and TV stations have been doing it since their inceptions. What do you think an “editor” does? > If you can't post on any social media you are as good as being completely censored. That’s hardly true either. You can run your own websites, mailing lists, or just send stuff in the post. There are plenty of people that don’t use social media, I doubt they feel censored.
- Mary-Jane 5y ago
  Thought experiment: how would you feel if YouTube banned all pro-trans content? ...or pro-choice, or anti-Isreal/Jewish material? It doesn't matter to me if you're against companies censoring any of these things. Be aware that it means you're fine with authoritarianism, so long as it aligns with your politics...

elliekelly 5y ago

What about YouTube’s right to freedom of expression?

lmilcin 5y ago
YouTube is a company. Freedom of speech only applies to individuals and communities of individuals. EDIT: elliekelly, I can't answer because I am being rate limited and can't write new comments on HN. You have surprised me, but it is sadly true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- elliekelly 5y ago
  One would think. But corporations are people and have first amendment rights thanks to Citizens United.
josephcsible 5y ago
I wish freedom of expression were GPL-style freedom instead of MIT-style freedom, e.g., "You're free to express whatever opinions you want. You may not keep others from expressing whatever opinions they want."

AndrewBissell 5y ago

> But it is also hard to watch principles being ignored for immediate benefit. This won't even provide any "benefit" in terms of increased vaccination rates, but that's not the real purpose anyway. What they're really doing is carving up large chunks of people into information silos and trying to reduce the amount of communication happening between them.

unethical_ban 5y ago
How so? If one were charitable to this action, you'd say they're blowing up a silo full of rat poison and disallowing people from adding poison back in. The balance between "free speech" in the moral, not legal, sense and disinformation is going to be just like "security v. privacy" has been, but perhaps even harder to draw lines for. If you accept as a premise that most anti-vax sentiment is driven by charlatan media outlets and influencers (and probably nation-state adversaries), and that much of what is repeated by laypeople is an echo of this intentional drivel, and that this drivel is immediately costing not only their own lives, but the lives of others, what do you do? It's literally a disease. Which the Chinese would say about "people talking about democracy". So there it is: Where, if at all, do we in a "free society" draw the line where harmful disinformation campaigns get cut out? I argued several years back that the "app layer" of the internet should have more freedom of control over their content, but that the "infrastructure" layer should be expected to be more neutral. In other words, if an anti-vax website or social network got hosted on AWS, it would be a different thing for AWS or a registrar to kick them out.
- AndrewBissell 5y ago
  Well I reject your premise, but on a more fundamental level I simply do not believe (on the basis of overwhelming evidence) that the gargantuan tech monopolies and the people pulling their strings care at all about the public health, disease prevention, or human life, so I am left looking for other motives. During the debate over Covid vaccines a common refrain has been "any safety issues have always shown up within a few months of administration." This is straight up misinformation: the Pandemix vaccine is a very high profile counterexample where symptoms first appeared about a year after the first shots were given, and it took another year after that for authorities to acknowledge the link. I only know about this because I occasionally peruse sources which would probably be labeled as "anti-vax," whereas the people repeating the false claim ad nauseam have often picked it up from sources which would be considered "authoritative," including public health authorities. But especially on this issue we have to pretend that there is one "side" which has a monopoly on accurate information. I wonder how much longer YouTube will even allow you to point out that the manufacturers of the completely-safe-beyond-any-doubt-whatsoever Covid vaccines have been blanket exempted from liability for any injuries caused by their products.

hestefisk 5y ago

Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom to lie and hurt public health efforts.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fallingknife 5y ago
No it absolutely does. This has been ruled on by the courts a million times.

gwbas1c 5y ago

> What I think is needed is people spending more time to figure out how it is possible to reconcile fight against misinformation with preserving basic human right which is ability to express your opinion. Simple: The right to free speech doesn't mean people have to listen, or guarantee access to a publisher. You can self-publish all you want.

lmilcin 5y ago
This is false argument. Ability to work with companies is no longer an option if you want any message through. If you can't post on any social media you are as good as being completely censored.
- avianlyric 5y ago
  > Ability to work with companies is no longer an option if you want any message through. It never has been. Publishers refusing to publish speech isn’t a new phenomenon. Newspapers, radio and TV stations have been doing it since their inceptions. What do you think an “editor” does? > If you can't post on any social media you are as good as being completely censored. That’s hardly true either. You can run your own websites, mailing lists, or just send stuff in the post. There are plenty of people that don’t use social media, I doubt they feel censored.
Mary-Jane 5y ago
Thought experiment: how would you feel if YouTube banned all pro-trans content? ...or pro-choice, or anti-Isreal/Jewish material? It doesn't matter to me if you're against companies censoring any of these things. Be aware that it means you're fine with authoritarianism, so long as it aligns with your politics...