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> I don't think making political viewpoints a protected characteristic is a good way to achieve that, and would cause as many problems as it would solve. By th

> I don't think making political viewpoints a protected characteristic is a good way to achieve that, and would cause as many problems as it would solve. By this logic, civil rights for race, etc. was not a good way to solve the discrimination issue. The real solution would have been to break up large companies since if there are no large companies then different races and sexes could just open up their own businesses to serve their own communities without the need to force other small business owners to serve people they do not want to serve. But that is obviously not the problem civil rights aim to solve. Allowing companies to discriminate by any identity characteristic promotes the Balkanization of society which is something we do not want. Democrat and republican enclaves are just as fractious to the nation as white and black enclaves. What problems would civil rights for political orientation cause that civil rights for race, sex, etc. do not cause?

MattPalmer1086 5y ago
You raise some excellent points, and I don't have comprehensive answers to them. At the very least you're making me re-evaluate my position. I agree balkanisation is a big issue. We actually have that anyway with large service providers hosting everything, e.g. filter bubbles, AI driven news feeds, etc. Balkanisation in information flow can be mitigated by requiring interoperability protocols, to prevent lock-in to particular service providers. I want to remove the ability of large companies to be able to monitor and manipulate information flow in society. Not just for political viewpoints, but for everything. So I guess I have wider goals than this specific issue. To your question on what problems would be caused by civil rights for political viewpoints that don't apply to the others, I would return to the fact that other protected characteristics are essentially innate to a person and aren't a matter of choice, and are relatively easy to define. Pretty much anything anyone says can be viewed as a political statement, or it can be argued as such. You would have to carve out a large number of exceptions and argue them all on a case by case basis, and by law in many cases. Is hate speech permitted? Incitement to violence? Spreading dangerous mis-information? Who assesses whether a statement is a political statement or an exception that is not protected? I don't see the above as any kind of rebuttal of your position. I'm still thinking about your arguments, it's just what I have right now. Not sure how much longer we can go in this thread, but thanks for giving me an interesting and thought provoking debate!
- CyberRabbi 5y ago
  > Is hate speech permitted? Incitement to violence? Spreading dangerous mis-information? Who assesses whether a statement is a political statement or an exception that is not protected? To address this question, there is at least 200 years of US common law available to evaluate whether or not something should be protected under the first amendment. I’m simply suggesting that we protect the same rights to speech in the private sphere that we already do in the public sphere, at the very least for companies whose main line of business is serving as a platform for the speech of others that would otherwise be generally open to the public. In the age of privately owned and centralized online media platforms and marketplaces, extending civil rights to free speech seems logical. > thanks for giving me an interesting and thought provoking debate! Thank you too

MattPalmer1086 5y ago

You raise some excellent points, and I don't have comprehensive answers to them. At the very least you're making me re-evaluate my position. I agree balkanisation is a big issue. We actually have that anyway with large service providers hosting everything, e.g. filter bubbles, AI driven news feeds, etc. Balkanisation in information flow can be mitigated by requiring interoperability protocols, to prevent lock-in to particular service providers. I want to remove the ability of large companies to be able to monitor and manipulate information flow in society. Not just for political viewpoints, but for everything. So I guess I have wider goals than this specific issue. To your question on what problems would be caused by civil rights for political viewpoints that don't apply to the others, I would return to the fact that other protected characteristics are essentially innate to a person and aren't a matter of choice, and are relatively easy to define. Pretty much anything anyone says can be viewed as a political statement, or it can be argued as such. You would have to carve out a large number of exceptions and argue them all on a case by case basis, and by law in many cases. Is hate speech permitted? Incitement to violence? Spreading dangerous mis-information? Who assesses whether a statement is a political statement or an exception that is not protected? I don't see the above as any kind of rebuttal of your position. I'm still thinking about your arguments, it's just what I have right now. Not sure how much longer we can go in this thread, but thanks for giving me an interesting and thought provoking debate!

CyberRabbi 5y ago
> Is hate speech permitted? Incitement to violence? Spreading dangerous mis-information? Who assesses whether a statement is a political statement or an exception that is not protected? To address this question, there is at least 200 years of US common law available to evaluate whether or not something should be protected under the first amendment. I’m simply suggesting that we protect the same rights to speech in the private sphere that we already do in the public sphere, at the very least for companies whose main line of business is serving as a platform for the speech of others that would otherwise be generally open to the public. In the age of privately owned and centralized online media platforms and marketplaces, extending civil rights to free speech seems logical. > thanks for giving me an interesting and thought provoking debate! Thank you too