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> Everyone has their own rules, some explicit, some secret, most entirely arbitrary, and there is never a proper appeals process. That’s by design. The govern

by awb 5y ago

> Everyone has their own rules, some explicit, some secret, most entirely arbitrary, and there is never a proper appeals process. That’s by design. The government creates a framework within which you can then create your own private experience. The free market, freedom of choice, freedom of association, etc. is the balancing act to self-regulate private party practices. If we start centralizing and standardizing free speech requirements from the government all the way down to your blog, we’d be putting all our eggs in 1 basket. The government does not restrict repetitive speech for example, yet you’d now be powerless to regulate spam. You’d also be powerless to moderate HN or any other topical social community, as off-topic speech is protected at the federal level. The variety in free speech rules is a feature not a bug.

bambax 5y ago
This is inconsistent. If the rules were changed so that speech was regulated by the government, then the rules could also be changed to fight spam. It won't happen, unfortunately, since "free speech" has become an article of faith in the US. Yet there are democracies where this works well; the choice isn't between freedom and slavery, the US or North Korea.
- awb 5y ago
  > If the rules were changed so that speech was regulated by the government, then the rules could also be changed to fight spam. Yes, but there are very valid reasons to curtail speech at a private level that don’t make sense at a national level like curating content, creating unique social spaces, topical content, etc. Constraints make things interesting sometimes. Like Twitter’s original character limit, or Google Shorts clip length, or HN’s moderation policies. They restricted speech in order to create a unique experience that people liked. My freedom to post pop culture gossip is restricted on HN and I’m OK with it. With bottom-up free speech rules, you can create this interesting landscape of private content. With top-down free speech rules, a government can’t react quickly enough to accommodate all of these entrepreneurial reasons for privately restricting speech. If I want to create a positive social network where every post has to have a positive sentiment analysis as determined by an AI, then why do you need to have the ability to share your negative thoughts on my private platform that I pay for? You already have the ability to do that in a public square, or on your own private website. What does society gain by forcing me to accept all legal speech on my private site? It sounds like a recipe for stifling innovation.

by awb 5y ago

bambax 5y ago

This is inconsistent. If the rules were changed so that speech was regulated by the government, then the rules could also be changed to fight spam. It won't happen, unfortunately, since "free speech" has become an article of faith in the US. Yet there are democracies where this works well; the choice isn't between freedom and slavery, the US or North Korea.

awb 5y ago
> If the rules were changed so that speech was regulated by the government, then the rules could also be changed to fight spam. Yes, but there are very valid reasons to curtail speech at a private level that don’t make sense at a national level like curating content, creating unique social spaces, topical content, etc. Constraints make things interesting sometimes. Like Twitter’s original character limit, or Google Shorts clip length, or HN’s moderation policies. They restricted speech in order to create a unique experience that people liked. My freedom to post pop culture gossip is restricted on HN and I’m OK with it. With bottom-up free speech rules, you can create this interesting landscape of private content. With top-down free speech rules, a government can’t react quickly enough to accommodate all of these entrepreneurial reasons for privately restricting speech. If I want to create a positive social network where every post has to have a positive sentiment analysis as determined by an AI, then why do you need to have the ability to share your negative thoughts on my private platform that I pay for? You already have the ability to do that in a public square, or on your own private website. What does society gain by forcing me to accept all legal speech on my private site? It sounds like a recipe for stifling innovation.