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That would not protect free speech, it would infringe on it. Forcing someone to host someone else's speech is both an infringement on their right to free speech

That would not protect free speech, it would infringe on it. Forcing someone to host someone else's speech is both an infringement on their right to free speech and on the free speech rights of users who want a well-moderated community, which you cannot have if the government is overriding moderator discretion. It's also quite dangerous, as the government will likely use that power to promote speech it likes and drown out speech it doesn't like. I wonder if I will have to use a VPN to access Hacker News from the UK in the future, as this site will surely not let the UK government prevent it from moderating itself.

sennight 4y ago
> Forcing someone to host someone else's speech... The solution is easy: stop lying about being a "platform" if you want editorial control. > ...the free speech rights of users who want a well-moderated community... Wut? How does free speech infringe on free speech, exactly?
- sirsinsalot 4y ago
  They're conflating "free speech" with "freedom to not read or see things I don't like". They forgot you can close your browser tab if you don't like something, or stop using a service if the content isn't something you like. ie, making their problem everyone else's.
- cauch 4y ago
  > Wut? How does free speech infringe on free speech, exactly? I think the idea is that you don't really have free speech is some group of people are afraid to speak, which is what you have when it's not well moderated. It's, I think, the argument in the center of "cancel culture is bad for free speech". Cancel culture don't stop people before they talk, and don't legally condemn anyone, but they force some people to not say what they have on their mind because the consequences will be unpleasant for them. In fact, I would even say that people who are critical against cancel culture but are also arguing that free speech should not be moderated are just hypocritical: cancel culture is what you get (amongst other things) when there is no "moderation".
  - sirsinsalot 4y ago
    Freedom of speech isn't freedom from being told en mass to "shut up" and being made to move along somewhere else (or everyone else blocking or moving elsewhere away from you) Rightly so. Freedom of speech isn't freedom of reach.
    - cauch 4y ago
      Not sure I see what you mean. First, I did not say "freedom of speech is ...", but "you don't really have freedom of speech if ...". It's a bit like saying "you don't really have freedom of movement if you have a law abolishing the borders but at the same time another law that says that citizen will have their legs amputated". Of course, "freedom of movement" isn't "freedom of having your legs", but the point is that the GOAL of freedom of movement can be, in practice, impaired if you apply some rules that impair it. The problem here is that "move along somewhere else" is impacted by this law: apparently (not 100% but some sentence in the text seems to say that), this law can say that every "somewhere else" can be forced to accept the mass of "shut up" people. So, there will be nowhere to go where they can speak freely, which, in practice, will force them to just not being able to exercise their freedom of speech right. I really don't get people who are pro freedom of speech, but at the same time have no much problem will people being coerced, in one way or another, to not speak. Either they are hypocritical (and want to be able to impose their speech without caring about the speech of others), or they've released the substance for the shadows (they are putting values on an empty concept instead of focusing on the goal).
      - sirsinsalot 4y ago
        Because though all voices should be spoken, I personally get to decide what I hear and how loud, and get to choose how I respond. Across an entire population it has a democratic effect when freedom of speech is in full effect without being restricted or controlled by government for means of shaping the outcome. If I say "Islamic fundamentalism should be the norm" I will fully expect to be boo'd at, shouted down, blocked, shunned and made unwelcome. That tells me my views are not welcome. I can choose to stay, and keep using my voice, but it'll be counter productive. So i'll make a space where I can say that Islamic fundamentalism should be the norm, and find like minded people. And if I find enough, we might start a party and get votes. Enough people vote and my islamic fundamentalist government runs the country. Or, people just keep telling me I am an idiot and that's OK too. I have big issues with forcing (vs being made uncomfortable by other people's free speech) to move on, but someone's right to say something doesn't trump my right to tell them they are wrong.
- 9864250 4y ago
  > The solution is easy: stop lying about being a "platform" if you want editorial control. The "platform" argument is based on a misreading of an American law. Whether or not someone call themselves a platform is completely irrelevant. I don't lose my right to not disseminate your speech just because I may choose to disseminate somebody else's speech. > Wut? How does free speech infringe on free speech, exactly? If I want to host a community for a particular purpose, but the government forces me to host the community for another purpose, my right to free speech along with everyone who wanted to participate in my community has been violated. For example, maybe I wish to host a community for supporters of a particular politician, but the government says I also have to include the much more numerous opponents of that politician, maybe I wish to host a community for a marginalized group of people, but the government says I also have to include those who hate those people, or maybe I just wish to host a community that as many people as possible want to use so that they will look at my ads, but government says I also have to include people who make the community worse for everyone else. Regardless, the government has used force to control speech, and has in effect banned certain kinds of communities. That's not free speech.
  - sennight 4y ago
    > The "platform" argument is based on a misreading of an American law. ... and then you go on at length about the safe harbor provision without specifically mentioning the safe harbor provision because that would undermine your point. It has already been litigated, a platform that caters to a special interest is able to do so - so long as that is what is actually going on. You want to eject anyone making threads about non-car related topics on your car-centric board? Cool, you enjoy platform protection. You want to ban users expressing opinions contrary to whatever your agenda is on the platform you've described as "the free speech wing of the free speech party"? That is a problem.
    - nradov 4y ago
      Which litigation are you referring to exactly? Can you cite some specific US federal case law?
ben_w 4y ago
> That would not protect free speech, it would infringe on it. By American standards (according to my limited understanding of the presumably simplified version I hear from American YouTube lawyer Legal Eagle), but those standards aren't universal. Is a corporation really supposed to have free speech, or just natural people? That said, I also expect British legislation related to the internet to be a bag of wishful thinking sprinkled with unicorn dust and marinated in snake oil.
- 9864250 4y ago
  A corporation is made up of people. You cannot take away their free speech without infringing in the free speech of individuals. I have never even visited the US, and I still support free speech. It's not a uniquely American concept.
  - sirsinsalot 4y ago
    >A corporation is made up of people. You cannot take away their free speech without infringing in the free speech of individuals. As an employee there's things I can not say as a private individual, but I can certainly say those things in one guise or another. Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequence. In the above example, the consequence is of joining a business that redacts my free speech.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      By your choice, yes. That’s not the government restricting your speech. Imagine a group that gets together to form a company where they all mutually pledge that “anything goes”. What rights to free speech does that resulting company have? What rights to speech does the New York Times company have?
      - sirsinsalot 4y ago
        Whatever rights are decided in law. A company isn't a person, they can have different and discriminatory laws applied to them, rightly or wrongly. This is sort-of a side-effect of limited liability.
sirsinsalot 4y ago
Not really, they're welcome to have in their ToS: "We will ban accounts for anything we don't like, at our discretion, at any time and for any reason without disclosure". Job done.
- skissane 4y ago
  Until some judge decides such a clause is legally void and must be disregarded, since otherwise it would turn the legislation into a dead letter
  - sirsinsalot 4y ago
    If we're dealing in the hypothetical then sure. But forcing businesses to disclose their policy in their ToS will prevent this false narrative of "free speech" used to whitewash a politicised and editorialised approach to business. Just tell people that your "platform" isn't really a platform, it's a mechanism of control outside the bounds of the law.
  - Mindwipe 4y ago
    > Until some judge decides such a clause is legally void and must be disregarded, since otherwise it would turn the legislation into a dead letter It's not a judge's job to stop legislation turning into a dead letter if it's incompetently drafted, which this is. It's to reflect the laws and intersections of them as written. This bill is going to go down hard in judicial review, because the people writing it and the lobbyists arguing for it are cretins.
    - skissane 4y ago
      > It's not a judge's job to stop legislation turning into a dead letter if it's incompetently drafted, which this is. That really comes down to whether the judges given the decision want to save it or sink it. Even if the legislation is poorly drafted, if they want to save it, they’ll find a way to read it which saves Parliament’s intentions. If they want to sink it, they can exploit its poor drafting to render it toothless. I have no idea which path British judges will choose to go down. Unless you can claim some special insight into their thinking, I doubt you really do either.
itsoktocry 4y ago
>free speech rights of users who want a well-moderated community I can't even wrap my head around this argument. Is the speech of the people who want a moderated community restricted? It may be other things, but it isn't a "free speech" infringement on these people. Free speech is about "speech" first.
- sirsinsalot 4y ago
  A common trope of people unwilling to take responsibility for their own feelings is to blame the world. If they read something they don't like, it's the fault of the platform. It couldn't possibly be that they should take responsibility for their own offence and close the tab or log out of the service. Or even, maybe, engage in self reflection to try and deal with their feelings and move on.
- lucumo 4y ago
  One detail where this could come into play is when some bad actors shout down other discussions. Online this can happen when spammers just post hundreds of viagra ads, or when people get doxed for unpopular opinions. As an aside, free speech absolutists always ignore the inconvenient existence of spam. The absolutist position would definitely support the complete takeover of forums by spam, but I have yet to see an absolutist openly accept that.
  - SyzygistSix 4y ago
    "Free speech" is actually the freedom to express ideas. Viagra ads are not really expression.
    - lucumo 4y ago
      Of course they are. No less than any other "recommendation".
    - ben_w 4y ago
      Sure it is — the idea mainly being expressed is that it is good and you should spend money on it.
Chris2048 4y ago
> Forcing someone to host someone else's speech is both an infringement on their right to free speech No one is forcing this. It's kind of like how you can either have a restaurant that serves all races, or not have a restaurant.
avianlyric 4y ago
I don’t see how it’s an infringement of free speech at all. A companies TOS form a contract between the user and the company, this law is just requires that companies follow what’s written in a contract they will fully entered into. To claim that this is an infringement of speech is to claim that there’s no situation where a court can force someone to perform, as required by a contract they entered into. In other words, it’s to say that any court enforcing a civil contract is defacto infringing upon that persons right to free speech. Clearly that’s ridiculous because it would totally undermine the value of any signed contract.
- throwarayy42521 4y ago
  If that was the case, the law would have no real effect, as pretty much every TOS already says that any content can be removed at the site's discretion.
  - avianlyric 4y ago
    You seem to be under the illusion that this is a well written law, that actually achieves its creators objectives. All of the evidence so far points in quite the opposite direction.
TexanFeller 4y ago
"forcing someone". If that someone is a corporation it isn't clear they're a someone at all. I miss when people objected to corporate personhood.
ycombigator1 4y ago
It depends what is effectively a public square. Having a community moderated by its members is not the same as a huge corporation (which has control over one of a very limited number of effectual public squares) denying a user the right to express an opinion it simply doesn't like - in the same way that (UK) businesses are not allowed to discriminate (e.g. deny gay cake decorations by a religious cake decorator). Corporations are legal entities in and of themselves, that exist for specific purposes. They are not people.
nradov 4y ago
I appreciate the philosophical and legal concerns over compelled speech. If the government forces a private company to host and serve unwanted content then that does infringe on their free speech rights. However, in US federal law we have carved out a narrow exception for "common carriers". A telephone company can't disconnect your calls just because you're making offensive political statements or spreading medical misinformation. Some politicians and legal scholars such as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas have suggested that Congress extend common carrier legislation to also cover social media platforms. https://www.npr.org/2021/04/05/984440891/justice-clarence-thomas-takes-aims-at-tech-and-its-power-to-cut-off-speech https://www.npr.org/2021/04/05/984440891/justice-clarence-th...
- owisd 4y ago
  I think the common carrier argument might work if the major platforms just showed you posts from the accounts you follow in reverse chronological order, but when they’re algorithmically promoting and recommending specific posts it’s more akin to readers’ letters in a newspaper, which doesn’t have any common carrier rule, they’re not obliged to print your letter and can be held accountable for the contents of letters they do print.

sennight 4y ago

> Forcing someone to host someone else's speech... The solution is easy: stop lying about being a "platform" if you want editorial control. > ...the free speech rights of users who want a well-moderated community... Wut? How does free speech infringe on free speech, exactly?

sirsinsalot 4y ago
They're conflating "free speech" with "freedom to not read or see things I don't like". They forgot you can close your browser tab if you don't like something, or stop using a service if the content isn't something you like. ie, making their problem everyone else's.
cauch 4y ago
> Wut? How does free speech infringe on free speech, exactly? I think the idea is that you don't really have free speech is some group of people are afraid to speak, which is what you have when it's not well moderated. It's, I think, the argument in the center of "cancel culture is bad for free speech". Cancel culture don't stop people before they talk, and don't legally condemn anyone, but they force some people to not say what they have on their mind because the consequences will be unpleasant for them. In fact, I would even say that people who are critical against cancel culture but are also arguing that free speech should not be moderated are just hypocritical: cancel culture is what you get (amongst other things) when there is no "moderation".
- sirsinsalot 4y ago
  Freedom of speech isn't freedom from being told en mass to "shut up" and being made to move along somewhere else (or everyone else blocking or moving elsewhere away from you) Rightly so. Freedom of speech isn't freedom of reach.
  - cauch 4y ago
    Not sure I see what you mean. First, I did not say "freedom of speech is ...", but "you don't really have freedom of speech if ...". It's a bit like saying "you don't really have freedom of movement if you have a law abolishing the borders but at the same time another law that says that citizen will have their legs amputated". Of course, "freedom of movement" isn't "freedom of having your legs", but the point is that the GOAL of freedom of movement can be, in practice, impaired if you apply some rules that impair it. The problem here is that "move along somewhere else" is impacted by this law: apparently (not 100% but some sentence in the text seems to say that), this law can say that every "somewhere else" can be forced to accept the mass of "shut up" people. So, there will be nowhere to go where they can speak freely, which, in practice, will force them to just not being able to exercise their freedom of speech right. I really don't get people who are pro freedom of speech, but at the same time have no much problem will people being coerced, in one way or another, to not speak. Either they are hypocritical (and want to be able to impose their speech without caring about the speech of others), or they've released the substance for the shadows (they are putting values on an empty concept instead of focusing on the goal).
    - sirsinsalot 4y ago
      Because though all voices should be spoken, I personally get to decide what I hear and how loud, and get to choose how I respond. Across an entire population it has a democratic effect when freedom of speech is in full effect without being restricted or controlled by government for means of shaping the outcome. If I say "Islamic fundamentalism should be the norm" I will fully expect to be boo'd at, shouted down, blocked, shunned and made unwelcome. That tells me my views are not welcome. I can choose to stay, and keep using my voice, but it'll be counter productive. So i'll make a space where I can say that Islamic fundamentalism should be the norm, and find like minded people. And if I find enough, we might start a party and get votes. Enough people vote and my islamic fundamentalist government runs the country. Or, people just keep telling me I am an idiot and that's OK too. I have big issues with forcing (vs being made uncomfortable by other people's free speech) to move on, but someone's right to say something doesn't trump my right to tell them they are wrong.
9864250 4y ago
> The solution is easy: stop lying about being a "platform" if you want editorial control. The "platform" argument is based on a misreading of an American law. Whether or not someone call themselves a platform is completely irrelevant. I don't lose my right to not disseminate your speech just because I may choose to disseminate somebody else's speech. > Wut? How does free speech infringe on free speech, exactly? If I want to host a community for a particular purpose, but the government forces me to host the community for another purpose, my right to free speech along with everyone who wanted to participate in my community has been violated. For example, maybe I wish to host a community for supporters of a particular politician, but the government says I also have to include the much more numerous opponents of that politician, maybe I wish to host a community for a marginalized group of people, but the government says I also have to include those who hate those people, or maybe I just wish to host a community that as many people as possible want to use so that they will look at my ads, but government says I also have to include people who make the community worse for everyone else. Regardless, the government has used force to control speech, and has in effect banned certain kinds of communities. That's not free speech.
- sennight 4y ago
  > The "platform" argument is based on a misreading of an American law. ... and then you go on at length about the safe harbor provision without specifically mentioning the safe harbor provision because that would undermine your point. It has already been litigated, a platform that caters to a special interest is able to do so - so long as that is what is actually going on. You want to eject anyone making threads about non-car related topics on your car-centric board? Cool, you enjoy platform protection. You want to ban users expressing opinions contrary to whatever your agenda is on the platform you've described as "the free speech wing of the free speech party"? That is a problem.
  - nradov 4y ago
    Which litigation are you referring to exactly? Can you cite some specific US federal case law?

ben_w 4y ago

> That would not protect free speech, it would infringe on it. By American standards (according to my limited understanding of the presumably simplified version I hear from American YouTube lawyer Legal Eagle), but those standards aren't universal. Is a corporation really supposed to have free speech, or just natural people? That said, I also expect British legislation related to the internet to be a bag of wishful thinking sprinkled with unicorn dust and marinated in snake oil.

9864250 4y ago
A corporation is made up of people. You cannot take away their free speech without infringing in the free speech of individuals. I have never even visited the US, and I still support free speech. It's not a uniquely American concept.
- sirsinsalot 4y ago
  >A corporation is made up of people. You cannot take away their free speech without infringing in the free speech of individuals. As an employee there's things I can not say as a private individual, but I can certainly say those things in one guise or another. Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequence. In the above example, the consequence is of joining a business that redacts my free speech.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    By your choice, yes. That’s not the government restricting your speech. Imagine a group that gets together to form a company where they all mutually pledge that “anything goes”. What rights to free speech does that resulting company have? What rights to speech does the New York Times company have?
    - sirsinsalot 4y ago
      Whatever rights are decided in law. A company isn't a person, they can have different and discriminatory laws applied to them, rightly or wrongly. This is sort-of a side-effect of limited liability.

sirsinsalot 4y ago

Not really, they're welcome to have in their ToS: "We will ban accounts for anything we don't like, at our discretion, at any time and for any reason without disclosure". Job done.

skissane 4y ago
Until some judge decides such a clause is legally void and must be disregarded, since otherwise it would turn the legislation into a dead letter
- sirsinsalot 4y ago
  If we're dealing in the hypothetical then sure. But forcing businesses to disclose their policy in their ToS will prevent this false narrative of "free speech" used to whitewash a politicised and editorialised approach to business. Just tell people that your "platform" isn't really a platform, it's a mechanism of control outside the bounds of the law.
- Mindwipe 4y ago
  > Until some judge decides such a clause is legally void and must be disregarded, since otherwise it would turn the legislation into a dead letter It's not a judge's job to stop legislation turning into a dead letter if it's incompetently drafted, which this is. It's to reflect the laws and intersections of them as written. This bill is going to go down hard in judicial review, because the people writing it and the lobbyists arguing for it are cretins.
  - skissane 4y ago
    > It's not a judge's job to stop legislation turning into a dead letter if it's incompetently drafted, which this is. That really comes down to whether the judges given the decision want to save it or sink it. Even if the legislation is poorly drafted, if they want to save it, they’ll find a way to read it which saves Parliament’s intentions. If they want to sink it, they can exploit its poor drafting to render it toothless. I have no idea which path British judges will choose to go down. Unless you can claim some special insight into their thinking, I doubt you really do either.

itsoktocry 4y ago

>free speech rights of users who want a well-moderated community I can't even wrap my head around this argument. Is the speech of the people who want a moderated community restricted? It may be other things, but it isn't a "free speech" infringement on these people. Free speech is about "speech" first.

sirsinsalot 4y ago
A common trope of people unwilling to take responsibility for their own feelings is to blame the world. If they read something they don't like, it's the fault of the platform. It couldn't possibly be that they should take responsibility for their own offence and close the tab or log out of the service. Or even, maybe, engage in self reflection to try and deal with their feelings and move on.
lucumo 4y ago
One detail where this could come into play is when some bad actors shout down other discussions. Online this can happen when spammers just post hundreds of viagra ads, or when people get doxed for unpopular opinions. As an aside, free speech absolutists always ignore the inconvenient existence of spam. The absolutist position would definitely support the complete takeover of forums by spam, but I have yet to see an absolutist openly accept that.
- SyzygistSix 4y ago
  "Free speech" is actually the freedom to express ideas. Viagra ads are not really expression.
  - lucumo 4y ago
    Of course they are. No less than any other "recommendation".
  - ben_w 4y ago
    Sure it is — the idea mainly being expressed is that it is good and you should spend money on it.

Chris2048 4y ago

> Forcing someone to host someone else's speech is both an infringement on their right to free speech No one is forcing this. It's kind of like how you can either have a restaurant that serves all races, or not have a restaurant.

avianlyric 4y ago

I don’t see how it’s an infringement of free speech at all. A companies TOS form a contract between the user and the company, this law is just requires that companies follow what’s written in a contract they will fully entered into. To claim that this is an infringement of speech is to claim that there’s no situation where a court can force someone to perform, as required by a contract they entered into. In other words, it’s to say that any court enforcing a civil contract is defacto infringing upon that persons right to free speech. Clearly that’s ridiculous because it would totally undermine the value of any signed contract.

throwarayy42521 4y ago
If that was the case, the law would have no real effect, as pretty much every TOS already says that any content can be removed at the site's discretion.
- avianlyric 4y ago
  You seem to be under the illusion that this is a well written law, that actually achieves its creators objectives. All of the evidence so far points in quite the opposite direction.

TexanFeller 4y ago

"forcing someone". If that someone is a corporation it isn't clear they're a someone at all. I miss when people objected to corporate personhood.

ycombigator1 4y ago

It depends what is effectively a public square. Having a community moderated by its members is not the same as a huge corporation (which has control over one of a very limited number of effectual public squares) denying a user the right to express an opinion it simply doesn't like - in the same way that (UK) businesses are not allowed to discriminate (e.g. deny gay cake decorations by a religious cake decorator). Corporations are legal entities in and of themselves, that exist for specific purposes. They are not people.

nradov 4y ago

I appreciate the philosophical and legal concerns over compelled speech. If the government forces a private company to host and serve unwanted content then that does infringe on their free speech rights. However, in US federal law we have carved out a narrow exception for "common carriers". A telephone company can't disconnect your calls just because you're making offensive political statements or spreading medical misinformation. Some politicians and legal scholars such as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas have suggested that Congress extend common carrier legislation to also cover social media platforms. https://www.npr.org/2021/04/05/984440891/justice-clarence-thomas-takes-aims-at-tech-and-its-power-to-cut-off-speech https://www.npr.org/2021/04/05/984440891/justice-clarence-th...

owisd 4y ago
I think the common carrier argument might work if the major platforms just showed you posts from the accounts you follow in reverse chronological order, but when they’re algorithmically promoting and recommending specific posts it’s more akin to readers’ letters in a newspaper, which doesn’t have any common carrier rule, they’re not obliged to print your letter and can be held accountable for the contents of letters they do print.