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You misunderstand what free speech under the First Amendment is. It stops prior restraint from the government on political speech. It does not stop post restrai

You misunderstand what free speech under the First Amendment is. It stops prior restraint from the government on political speech. It does not stop post restraint, and has zero to do with you posting things using resources from public companies. It's a governmental restriction, not a company, employer, parent, or societal restriction. Note the First Amendment prohibits Congress from passing a law restricting the free speech of the press. Social media companies are more like press than anything else - and the courts give them the same first amendments you have. They do not have to post your content if they don't like it, in the same manner you don't have to let them put yard signs on your property expressing things you dislike. >Letting billionaires decide what is “misinformation” is not. They're not stopping you from free speech. They're not letting you post anything you like on their property. You can speak all you want, you can organize, make flyers, start competing companies. And billionaires are certainly not some monolithic group - for any one piece of information or misinformation there's plenty of billionaires on all sides of it.

goodSteveramos 4y ago
I shouldn't need a billionaire to take up my cause before I'm allowed to advocate for it on social media. Freedom of political speech is not a law or constitutional amendment. Its a fundamental cultural value of Americans. Im sick of people trying to kill it off in all but name by paradoxically citing the limitations of that amendment.
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  I am really confused as to why folks think Zuck is making editorial decisions. Facebook is not one person, and it makes its content decisions based on the brand and type of experience they think their customers want. Social media is not a right, nor is it even a specific thing. Facebook is a brand and a service for communicating to people you know in a family friendly way. They have no obligation to be a troll amplifier or to facilitate ideologies they feel are offensive to their target demographic and advertising base. That’s against the entire point of their for profit advertising based business, and would be materially harmful. Unlike common carriers you don’t rent time on Facebook to communicate. You agree to their T&C and their advertisers fund their service for you to be entertained by in exchange for the advertising. They never represented themselves as a free for all political outlet, and anyone who thinks otherwise just accepted “free signup” as “free speech” and clicked through the T&C that is written to protect their business. The social media you refer to is abstractly the internet in general, and while your cause is considered toxic to business you may have a hard time finding a ready made platform with hundreds of billions of dollars invested in it for your spew, but you will always be able to find a way to host an endpoint and distribute your content. But no one is obligated to amplify it for you, especially not for profit enterprises who are creating a branded experience for their customers.
- SideQuark 4y ago
  >I shouldn't need a billionaire to take up my cause before I'm allowed to advocate for it on social media. You don't. However those platforms have other users, and do not exist without money, which means either you pay a fee to use them or advertisers pay. Advertisers don't want to pay if idiots are going to post crap. They are businesses that don't exist with control over content. If one could work otherwise, then one would, but over and over groups that try implode and learn why there are nuances and tradeoffs. Watching Musk tank twitter is a perfect example of how he cannot come close to getting it right. I don't understand how people think they have a right and expect others to foot the resulting bill for them. >Freedom of political speech is not a law or constitutional amendment. It absolutely is a law, with boundaries defined by law. >Its a fundamental cultural value of Americans. Precisely because we have had it as a law for a long time. Other cultures vary, with some more free to the point Americans would lose their mid with prudish abandon to much more restrictive. None are inherently, magically, absolutely right. There are tradeoffs, and cultures are the result of people living in one pattern for a long time. Property rights in the US are also laws and cultural. Why right do you have to post stuff on others property? Little to none. The First Amendment is not the only right people have after all. And you fail to address that the First Amendment also prohibits Congress from preventing press free speech, which laws have adjusted to include things that did not exist when the Founders added the Amendments. >Im sick of people trying to kill it off in all but name by paradoxically citing the limitations of that amendment. They're not. You have more ability to reach more people with more opinions than mankind has ever had. How many people before social media had the ability to get millions of followers? You can post nearly anything on a website you make, which is easy to do. You can then gather followers and a platform. No one owes you that platform. The ability to reach others has never been so easy.

goodSteveramos 4y ago

I shouldn't need a billionaire to take up my cause before I'm allowed to advocate for it on social media. Freedom of political speech is not a law or constitutional amendment. Its a fundamental cultural value of Americans. Im sick of people trying to kill it off in all but name by paradoxically citing the limitations of that amendment.

fnordpiglet 4y ago
I am really confused as to why folks think Zuck is making editorial decisions. Facebook is not one person, and it makes its content decisions based on the brand and type of experience they think their customers want. Social media is not a right, nor is it even a specific thing. Facebook is a brand and a service for communicating to people you know in a family friendly way. They have no obligation to be a troll amplifier or to facilitate ideologies they feel are offensive to their target demographic and advertising base. That’s against the entire point of their for profit advertising based business, and would be materially harmful. Unlike common carriers you don’t rent time on Facebook to communicate. You agree to their T&C and their advertisers fund their service for you to be entertained by in exchange for the advertising. They never represented themselves as a free for all political outlet, and anyone who thinks otherwise just accepted “free signup” as “free speech” and clicked through the T&C that is written to protect their business. The social media you refer to is abstractly the internet in general, and while your cause is considered toxic to business you may have a hard time finding a ready made platform with hundreds of billions of dollars invested in it for your spew, but you will always be able to find a way to host an endpoint and distribute your content. But no one is obligated to amplify it for you, especially not for profit enterprises who are creating a branded experience for their customers.
SideQuark 4y ago
>I shouldn't need a billionaire to take up my cause before I'm allowed to advocate for it on social media. You don't. However those platforms have other users, and do not exist without money, which means either you pay a fee to use them or advertisers pay. Advertisers don't want to pay if idiots are going to post crap. They are businesses that don't exist with control over content. If one could work otherwise, then one would, but over and over groups that try implode and learn why there are nuances and tradeoffs. Watching Musk tank twitter is a perfect example of how he cannot come close to getting it right. I don't understand how people think they have a right and expect others to foot the resulting bill for them. >Freedom of political speech is not a law or constitutional amendment. It absolutely is a law, with boundaries defined by law. >Its a fundamental cultural value of Americans. Precisely because we have had it as a law for a long time. Other cultures vary, with some more free to the point Americans would lose their mid with prudish abandon to much more restrictive. None are inherently, magically, absolutely right. There are tradeoffs, and cultures are the result of people living in one pattern for a long time. Property rights in the US are also laws and cultural. Why right do you have to post stuff on others property? Little to none. The First Amendment is not the only right people have after all. And you fail to address that the First Amendment also prohibits Congress from preventing press free speech, which laws have adjusted to include things that did not exist when the Founders added the Amendments. >Im sick of people trying to kill it off in all but name by paradoxically citing the limitations of that amendment. They're not. You have more ability to reach more people with more opinions than mankind has ever had. How many people before social media had the ability to get millions of followers? You can post nearly anything on a website you make, which is easy to do. You can then gather followers and a platform. No one owes you that platform. The ability to reach others has never been so easy.