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A government which bans someone from speaking is preventing someone from talking to you. The government need not even consider the mode by which information is

A government which bans someone from speaking is preventing someone from talking to you. The government need not even consider the mode by which information is transmitted, or who is paying for these transmissions. If I am banned from sharing information such as classified intel, there is no means by which I am permitted to communicate this to you. A government which bans things also carries the force of government, which means laws, courts, police, and prison, which is typically the sole prerogative of government. A public square is one which is funded and governed by public means, and the source of funding is one of the core mechanisms for ensuring that the public institution answers to public money. Facebook is a private property, much like HN and the BMJ. That means people like dang, who also engage in banning, are not paid for by the government. Surely one's concept of public square does not entail private parties footing the bill for fancy engineers and metaphorical dang. As a matter of prescription, why would we ever want Facebook to be the financially responsible party for public town squares? Why do we not have the government fund an actually public town square? Or ought we be using tax money to fund Facebook itself?

throw10920 5y ago
> A government which bans someone from speaking is preventing someone from talking to you. I didn't say "prevents someone from speaking" - I specifically said "censors the press" because those are two very different cases (and because that's the exact language that GP used). A government could censor the press but not prevent private individuals from speaking to each other, so it wouldn't technically be preventing people from speaking - but it's pretty clear that it's still engaging in censorship (which was the point I was making to GP). > If I am banned from sharing information such as classified intel Classified material isn't covered under free speech. Free speech protects sentiment and expression. Classified information isn't sentiment, it's factual data, and it's protected for national security reasons, so as long as the material is classified for that reason, and not, say, to hide the embarrassment of a government official (which is illegal in the US at least), it's pretty clear that it's not free speech. > A public square is one which is funded and governed by public means I disagree. A "public square" is a forum for expression that appears to be open to all, styles itself as a public square, and has a substantial population in it. The CEO of Twitter, for instance, implied that Twitter is a public square[1]. > As a matter of prescription, why would we ever want Facebook to be the financially responsible party for public town squares? Aha, that's a good question - we don't! Or, I don't - the problem is that it is a de-facto town square already, not that I want it to be (a regulated) one. Top of my wish-list is for it to not be that - for the DoJ to take it apart and/or force them to make it trivially easy to move your Facebook data somewhere else. (I suspect you share this sentiment) Unfortunately, because the DoJ appears to have lost its fangs over the past few decades, we're stuck with the Facebook behemoth - so, if we're stuck with it anyway, it's morally right for them to adhere to free-speech principles. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/09/05/jack-dorsey-twitter-users-consider-it-a-public-square.html https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/09/05/jack-dorsey-twitter-us...
- threatofrain 5y ago
  You are free to define the "public" part of public town square as essentially popular, open and social, but that is not the flashpoint of disagreement. When people disagree on the boundaries between private and public institutions, they are not disagreeing over whether something is popular, open, and social. A public elementary school is not public because it is popular, open, and social, and neither is a mall. And public funding is a critical component to public governance. Facebook is accountable to private money. There is a reason why people don't like the idea of politics being funded by private money. To change that, we might talk about using taxpayer money to fund Facebook, and rather than mere rules for companies, we might talk about public ownership and governance of Facebook and not merely breaking businesses apart. Breaking Facebook apart is about dealing with free market concerns. Nationalizing Facebook is about recognizing that Facebook ought be a public institution.

throw10920 5y ago

> A government which bans someone from speaking is preventing someone from talking to you. I didn't say "prevents someone from speaking" - I specifically said "censors the press" because those are two very different cases (and because that's the exact language that GP used). A government could censor the press but not prevent private individuals from speaking to each other, so it wouldn't technically be preventing people from speaking - but it's pretty clear that it's still engaging in censorship (which was the point I was making to GP). > If I am banned from sharing information such as classified intel Classified material isn't covered under free speech. Free speech protects sentiment and expression. Classified information isn't sentiment, it's factual data, and it's protected for national security reasons, so as long as the material is classified for that reason, and not, say, to hide the embarrassment of a government official (which is illegal in the US at least), it's pretty clear that it's not free speech. > A public square is one which is funded and governed by public means I disagree. A "public square" is a forum for expression that appears to be open to all, styles itself as a public square, and has a substantial population in it. The CEO of Twitter, for instance, implied that Twitter is a public square[1]. > As a matter of prescription, why would we ever want Facebook to be the financially responsible party for public town squares? Aha, that's a good question - we don't! Or, I don't - the problem is that it is a de-facto town square already, not that I want it to be (a regulated) one. Top of my wish-list is for it to not be that - for the DoJ to take it apart and/or force them to make it trivially easy to move your Facebook data somewhere else. (I suspect you share this sentiment) Unfortunately, because the DoJ appears to have lost its fangs over the past few decades, we're stuck with the Facebook behemoth - so, if we're stuck with it anyway, it's morally right for them to adhere to free-speech principles. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/09/05/jack-dorsey-twitter-users-consider-it-a-public-square.html https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/09/05/jack-dorsey-twitter-us...

threatofrain 5y ago
You are free to define the "public" part of public town square as essentially popular, open and social, but that is not the flashpoint of disagreement. When people disagree on the boundaries between private and public institutions, they are not disagreeing over whether something is popular, open, and social. A public elementary school is not public because it is popular, open, and social, and neither is a mall. And public funding is a critical component to public governance. Facebook is accountable to private money. There is a reason why people don't like the idea of politics being funded by private money. To change that, we might talk about using taxpayer money to fund Facebook, and rather than mere rules for companies, we might talk about public ownership and governance of Facebook and not merely breaking businesses apart. Breaking Facebook apart is about dealing with free market concerns. Nationalizing Facebook is about recognizing that Facebook ought be a public institution.