The fundamental paradox of free speech is that protection of speakers from consequences of their free speech necessarily imposes on others' free speech, while n

The fundamental paradox of free speech is that protection of speakers from consequences of their free speech necessarily imposes on others' free speech, while not providing that protection also imposes on the speaker's free speech. No matter how you want to draw that line, you end up hurting somebody. SCOTUS has essentially "solved" the problem by deciding that the government just can't ever decide how to draw the line. If you look at the history of free speech cases, SCOTUS almost invariably decides to permit the speech, pushing the bar for illegality further and further back. Private parties suing each other for violating free speech is essentially non-justiciable (okay, there's defamation, but the grounds for defamation are very extreme in the US so as to be almost never applicable, as Twitter will find out multiple times in the next few months). If you're running a social media site, well, you similarly have to face these conundrums. But if you're reliant on advertisers for your income, you'll also find that you can't just nope out of it. Mike Masnick has a good guide on just how difficult it is for these companies (https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/02/hey-elon-let-me-help-you-speed-run-the-content-moderation-learning-curve/ https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/02/hey-elon-let-me-help-you...), which I'm sure Popehat would endorse. At the end of the day, you can't win. You have to piss off somebody. And, personally, I'm not going to side with the faction that wants to deny my right to existence.