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Random thought, maybe totally off base. This is Europe, so not equivalent but there seems to be a lot of people in the US as well who want private companies to

Random thought, maybe totally off base. This is Europe, so not equivalent but there seems to be a lot of people in the US as well who want private companies to be compelled to respect your privacy (4th amendment) but also many people who don't think websites should or could be compelled to respect your freedom of speech (1st amendment), I wonder if there is an overlap in these groups...

RIMR 5y ago
I don't think these concepts are comparable. My First Amendment rights cannot be violated by a private website, because I can always go to another website, or start my own. Being deplatformed isn't the same as being silenced, because nobody is preventing you from speaking, or punishing you legally for what you have said. My Fourth Amendment rights could absolutely be violated by a private website, as they could hand my potentially incriminating private data over to the US authorities, without a warrant and without my consent, and there's literally no opt-out or recourse for me if that data is then used against me by the government.
- seiferteric 5y ago
  Hmm, but you could have not given the data or used the website in the first place.
foxfluff 5y ago
My (European) perspective is that, just like we need laws to protect privacy online, we do also need laws to institute freedom of speech online. I'm not exactly sure what the right way to go about it is (obviously we shouldn't and cannot force every company online to publish whatever anyone wants to say), but fact is that right now you are at the mercy of private companies if you want to communicate online, and restricting freedom of speech to the proverbial "free speech zone" where discussion isn't actually happening is not a healthy state of affairs. I'd probably at least advocate for something like net neutrality.. ISPs and hosting providers should not work as censors and arbiters of good taste. They should be more like utilities; as long as you're not doing anything illegal, what you do or say is none of their business. Unfortunately this isn't a solution for the common person whose communications are limited to platforms like facebook and twitter.

RIMR 5y ago

I don't think these concepts are comparable. My First Amendment rights cannot be violated by a private website, because I can always go to another website, or start my own. Being deplatformed isn't the same as being silenced, because nobody is preventing you from speaking, or punishing you legally for what you have said. My Fourth Amendment rights could absolutely be violated by a private website, as they could hand my potentially incriminating private data over to the US authorities, without a warrant and without my consent, and there's literally no opt-out or recourse for me if that data is then used against me by the government.

seiferteric 5y ago
Hmm, but you could have not given the data or used the website in the first place.

foxfluff 5y ago

My (European) perspective is that, just like we need laws to protect privacy online, we do also need laws to institute freedom of speech online. I'm not exactly sure what the right way to go about it is (obviously we shouldn't and cannot force every company online to publish whatever anyone wants to say), but fact is that right now you are at the mercy of private companies if you want to communicate online, and restricting freedom of speech to the proverbial "free speech zone" where discussion isn't actually happening is not a healthy state of affairs. I'd probably at least advocate for something like net neutrality.. ISPs and hosting providers should not work as censors and arbiters of good taste. They should be more like utilities; as long as you're not doing anything illegal, what you do or say is none of their business. Unfortunately this isn't a solution for the common person whose communications are limited to platforms like facebook and twitter.