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So as a free-speech absolutist, would you let anyone walk into a Starbucks and start shouting about anything they wanted? Would it be okay for them to write a m

So as a free-speech absolutist, would you let anyone walk into a Starbucks and start shouting about anything they wanted? Would it be okay for them to write a manifesto on the chalkboard next to the barista? Starbucks is a privately owned location and has the right to enforce behavioral standards or kick people out. Social Media is the same. Privately owned and can set their own standards. The internet has plenty of space for people to post their opinions on their own servers. They are annoyed because if you take away social media, you make it harder for them to get an audience.

nonethewiser 4y ago
Starbucks product is also coffee, not a speech platform.
- tingletech 4y ago
  social media's product is eyeballs on ads, not a speech platform
  - treerunner 4y ago
    Yet Facebook and Twitter literally base their business model on sorting out what you get to read. These companies manipulate access to speech when their algorithms decide what you like — and yes, this includes ads.
evandale 4y ago
> So as a free-speech absolutist, would you let anyone walk into a Starbucks and start shouting about anything they wanted? Starbucks is on private property. > Would it be okay for them to write a manifesto on the chalkboard next to the barista? The Starbucks chalkboard is privately owned. >Social Media is the same. Privately owned and can set their own standards. No it isn't. Anyone can log into Twitter and Facebook and see tweets and posts. They're public squares that are closely related to a mall rather than a private Starbucks location. > The internet has plenty of space for people to post their opinions on their own servers. Up until other big tech companies like CloudFlare decide they don't want to be associated with you and stop offering you ddos protection. > They are annoyed because if you take away social media, you make it harder for them to get an audience. Exactly! And that's why Twitter, Facebook, and Google should be treated as public squares. It's not fair that one group can access a public resource that others cannot.
- Aachen 4y ago
  I don't see how the heck my website is a public square but my home or café isn't, this argument sounds self-contradictory
  - solarmist 4y ago
    Yup. This is the exact problem that we’re (as a society/world) wrestling with. The reason it is (not just seems) different is because of the scope. A message on a chalkboard cannot reach millions of people (without the internet), but it can on a website. That by itself distorts the public/private argument, but we as a society aren’t sure how or to what extent yet. These lawsuits are the second step (the first step was arguing about it in public) of figuring that out.
    - krapp 4y ago
      So, because any website can potentially reach millions of people, all websites must be considered public spaces and must be coerced to allow all legal speech? I honestly don't think it distorts the public/private argument, any more than MacDonald's serving billions of customers distorts the question of whether it's a private corporation or whether its scale transforms it into a public service. But the inevitable endgame of this is going to be the government regulating all speech on the internet, and most of the internet no longer allowing any kind of user content, and I don't think the free speech absolutists so willing to throw the baby of free speech out with the bathwater of consequence are going to like it.
      - solarmist 4y ago
        Yes and no, because we’ve seen society wide effects from this over the last 15-20 years. But all websites? To my knowledge, the only websites people agree on this are Facebook and Twitter. So probably probably not all websites, but that's one of the things that need to be worked out. When does a site reach a scale where it can no longer be treated solely as a private entity? What should happen then? How should we identify those sites? Then what? There are tons of people who agree with you, tons who don't, and tons in between. But the majority seem to be on the side that things can't stay the way they’ve been. The effects on society over the last 20 years are not good. I haven't seen much disagreement on that. No one can agree on what to do about it though. McDonald's is an interesting example because there are debates happening there too, but making people fat doesn't have cause the same visceral reaction as interfering with elections. Which government? This is a global issue. It's going to be a long painful process of screwing up then trying to fix it.
zosima 4y ago
The court and statute in question specifically mention that censorship can happen for a variety of legal reason. This ruling only denies the right to censor based on viewpoint, something which I believe Starbucks is also bound by. You can throw a customer out for being obnoxious and threatening. But probably not for sitting at a table and calmly discussing the pros and cons of various abortion laws, sharing opinions Starbucks disagree with.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  > This ruling only denies the right to censor based on viewpoint, something which I believe Starbucks is also bound by. In California this might be true, I believe political affiliation is a protected class in California. But political affiliation is not a protected class federally, so it should generally be legal for corporations to discriminate against people on the basis of political belief, as long as they don't do that in a way that could be construed as discriminating on the basis of something that is a protected class, like race.
andrew_ 4y ago
poor examples. a disruptive patron on private physical property can be removed on numerous other grounds such as trespassing, just as damaging private property has its own legal stipulations. as it is now, virtual private property doesn't have parity with laws governing physical private property.
- themitigating 4y ago
  Servers are privately-owned and on private property
netheril96 4y ago
You can ban speech based on non-content criteria such as the volume of sound, but when you ban speech based on the content, it is a violation of the principle of free speech. Whether private companies should not be able to discriminate speech based on content is still up to debate, but don’t compare this to shouting.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  > when you ban speech based on the content, it is a violation of the principle of free speech This is the sealion's argument, that you have to be willing to engage with them at all times in all contexts. It implicitly denies freedom of association. For example, if I am running doomermetalchats.com do I have to tolerate K-pop fanatics with their relentless positivity and sunny optimism?
  - inkblotuniverse 4y ago
    Run a decentralized system akin to a modernized mailing list with a nice UI, where every person accessing the list gets to pick how their view of the list is filtered, choosing from competing filters or creating their own. Filters could be machine-based, competing human-moderator based, whatever. The doomers and the stans can be talking right alongside each other and never see each other; effectively, the doomer 'site' only exists virtually, as a mutually visible consensus among a subset of the network.
    - anigbrowl 4y ago
      This has been tried repeatedly, and it turns out nobody likes it. People either self-segregate into echo chambers following very simple patterns of assortativity, or complain about being 'shadowbanned' if they can't reach the audience they want to. There are a few different motivations for social communication, both cooperative and antagonistic. People often want to be able to communicate freely with their peers and exclude non-members of their peer group (socially, algorithmically, or by fiat), but sometimes also to be able to push into and perhaps take over network territory of rival groups or that they consider should be common.
saurik 4y ago
Does Starbucks let random people come in and shout about some things, but not other things? Do they let anyone write on their blackboard at all? No. These are not things you can do in a Starbucks, because there are rules and they apply to everyone the same regardless of the content of their message or the thought they are wanting to express: sometimes you don't get to talk to other people in the way you want, and that's fine. However, if I come to a Starbucks and I start having a conversation about something in a quiet voice similar to what is allowed of any other person at Starbucks--maybe because I am on a date with another guy--I certainly do not believe that the people who run the Starbucks should decide they will refuse to serve me or allow me to talk about our date with each other because they disagree with us being homosexual. You are correct that the right to freedom of speech is not the same thing as a right to be heard by the people you want to talk at, regardless of whether they want to hear you or not... but that isn't what is in question here: people are being entirely banned from platforms such that even their explicit followers can't access their content, and messages with certain forms of content that are merely being sent between small groups of people are being "moderated" out of existence.
Overtonwindow 4y ago
Why does it have to be either or? By your logic, we can bring back Kiwifarms, 8chan, and Stormfront. They are privately owned and have the right NOT "to enforce behavioral standards," but I think you're being disingenuous. As someone who opposes free speech, would you be ok with Facebook allowing you to mute speech you do not like? The argument against "free speech absolutism" has more to do with one person wanting to exert power to silence another, and they are depending on social media to do that.

nonethewiser 4y ago

Starbucks product is also coffee, not a speech platform.

tingletech 4y ago
social media's product is eyeballs on ads, not a speech platform
- treerunner 4y ago
  Yet Facebook and Twitter literally base their business model on sorting out what you get to read. These companies manipulate access to speech when their algorithms decide what you like — and yes, this includes ads.

evandale 4y ago

> So as a free-speech absolutist, would you let anyone walk into a Starbucks and start shouting about anything they wanted? Starbucks is on private property. > Would it be okay for them to write a manifesto on the chalkboard next to the barista? The Starbucks chalkboard is privately owned. >Social Media is the same. Privately owned and can set their own standards. No it isn't. Anyone can log into Twitter and Facebook and see tweets and posts. They're public squares that are closely related to a mall rather than a private Starbucks location. > The internet has plenty of space for people to post their opinions on their own servers. Up until other big tech companies like CloudFlare decide they don't want to be associated with you and stop offering you ddos protection. > They are annoyed because if you take away social media, you make it harder for them to get an audience. Exactly! And that's why Twitter, Facebook, and Google should be treated as public squares. It's not fair that one group can access a public resource that others cannot.

Aachen 4y ago
I don't see how the heck my website is a public square but my home or café isn't, this argument sounds self-contradictory
- solarmist 4y ago
  Yup. This is the exact problem that we’re (as a society/world) wrestling with. The reason it is (not just seems) different is because of the scope. A message on a chalkboard cannot reach millions of people (without the internet), but it can on a website. That by itself distorts the public/private argument, but we as a society aren’t sure how or to what extent yet. These lawsuits are the second step (the first step was arguing about it in public) of figuring that out.
  - krapp 4y ago
    So, because any website can potentially reach millions of people, all websites must be considered public spaces and must be coerced to allow all legal speech? I honestly don't think it distorts the public/private argument, any more than MacDonald's serving billions of customers distorts the question of whether it's a private corporation or whether its scale transforms it into a public service. But the inevitable endgame of this is going to be the government regulating all speech on the internet, and most of the internet no longer allowing any kind of user content, and I don't think the free speech absolutists so willing to throw the baby of free speech out with the bathwater of consequence are going to like it.
    - solarmist 4y ago
      Yes and no, because we’ve seen society wide effects from this over the last 15-20 years. But all websites? To my knowledge, the only websites people agree on this are Facebook and Twitter. So probably probably not all websites, but that's one of the things that need to be worked out. When does a site reach a scale where it can no longer be treated solely as a private entity? What should happen then? How should we identify those sites? Then what? There are tons of people who agree with you, tons who don't, and tons in between. But the majority seem to be on the side that things can't stay the way they’ve been. The effects on society over the last 20 years are not good. I haven't seen much disagreement on that. No one can agree on what to do about it though. McDonald's is an interesting example because there are debates happening there too, but making people fat doesn't have cause the same visceral reaction as interfering with elections. Which government? This is a global issue. It's going to be a long painful process of screwing up then trying to fix it.

zosima 4y ago

The court and statute in question specifically mention that censorship can happen for a variety of legal reason. This ruling only denies the right to censor based on viewpoint, something which I believe Starbucks is also bound by. You can throw a customer out for being obnoxious and threatening. But probably not for sitting at a table and calmly discussing the pros and cons of various abortion laws, sharing opinions Starbucks disagree with.

MichaelCollins 4y ago
> This ruling only denies the right to censor based on viewpoint, something which I believe Starbucks is also bound by. In California this might be true, I believe political affiliation is a protected class in California. But political affiliation is not a protected class federally, so it should generally be legal for corporations to discriminate against people on the basis of political belief, as long as they don't do that in a way that could be construed as discriminating on the basis of something that is a protected class, like race.

andrew_ 4y ago

poor examples. a disruptive patron on private physical property can be removed on numerous other grounds such as trespassing, just as damaging private property has its own legal stipulations. as it is now, virtual private property doesn't have parity with laws governing physical private property.

themitigating 4y ago
Servers are privately-owned and on private property

netheril96 4y ago

You can ban speech based on non-content criteria such as the volume of sound, but when you ban speech based on the content, it is a violation of the principle of free speech. Whether private companies should not be able to discriminate speech based on content is still up to debate, but don’t compare this to shouting.

anigbrowl 4y ago
> when you ban speech based on the content, it is a violation of the principle of free speech This is the sealion's argument, that you have to be willing to engage with them at all times in all contexts. It implicitly denies freedom of association. For example, if I am running doomermetalchats.com do I have to tolerate K-pop fanatics with their relentless positivity and sunny optimism?
- inkblotuniverse 4y ago
  Run a decentralized system akin to a modernized mailing list with a nice UI, where every person accessing the list gets to pick how their view of the list is filtered, choosing from competing filters or creating their own. Filters could be machine-based, competing human-moderator based, whatever. The doomers and the stans can be talking right alongside each other and never see each other; effectively, the doomer 'site' only exists virtually, as a mutually visible consensus among a subset of the network.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    This has been tried repeatedly, and it turns out nobody likes it. People either self-segregate into echo chambers following very simple patterns of assortativity, or complain about being 'shadowbanned' if they can't reach the audience they want to. There are a few different motivations for social communication, both cooperative and antagonistic. People often want to be able to communicate freely with their peers and exclude non-members of their peer group (socially, algorithmically, or by fiat), but sometimes also to be able to push into and perhaps take over network territory of rival groups or that they consider should be common.

saurik 4y ago

Does Starbucks let random people come in and shout about some things, but not other things? Do they let anyone write on their blackboard at all? No. These are not things you can do in a Starbucks, because there are rules and they apply to everyone the same regardless of the content of their message or the thought they are wanting to express: sometimes you don't get to talk to other people in the way you want, and that's fine. However, if I come to a Starbucks and I start having a conversation about something in a quiet voice similar to what is allowed of any other person at Starbucks--maybe because I am on a date with another guy--I certainly do not believe that the people who run the Starbucks should decide they will refuse to serve me or allow me to talk about our date with each other because they disagree with us being homosexual. You are correct that the right to freedom of speech is not the same thing as a right to be heard by the people you want to talk at, regardless of whether they want to hear you or not... but that isn't what is in question here: people are being entirely banned from platforms such that even their explicit followers can't access their content, and messages with certain forms of content that are merely being sent between small groups of people are being "moderated" out of existence.

Overtonwindow 4y ago

Why does it have to be either or? By your logic, we can bring back Kiwifarms, 8chan, and Stormfront. They are privately owned and have the right NOT "to enforce behavioral standards," but I think you're being disingenuous. As someone who opposes free speech, would you be ok with Facebook allowing you to mute speech you do not like? The argument against "free speech absolutism" has more to do with one person wanting to exert power to silence another, and they are depending on social media to do that.