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At what point will it be universally understood that "free speech" is only legally binding when a person is speaking with the government. The government cannot

At what point will it be universally understood that "free speech" is only legally binding when a person is speaking with the government. The government cannot limit a person from speaking outside of libel and slander. (Note the successful Dominion lawsuits against Fox News, you can't say _anything_ you want if it materially harms a person or a legal entity). A private corporation like Twitter/X, Facebook, and now Bluesky can implement any moderation policies they want, and it will never violate "free speech" laws. Elon Musk can filter and restrain the speech he doesn't like (mostly liberal speech and external links that he can't monetize) and Zuck can do the same. Bluesky only moderates illegal activity itself like CSAM. All other moderation is done by the community, and each person chooses who to follow, block, or mute who they wish. The government could enact regulation to limit corporate moderation (debatable, but a given with the current SC) but it would be a very extreme step to restrict the individual from moderating their own timelines on Bluesky. It's hinted that Carr might try to regulate Bluesky, but the outcome wouldn't match his expectations. You see, Bluesky is an open network. It would be simple for every user to implement their own data server and only communicate on the open network. The government would have no way to control that network outside of radical national firewall filtering like China's Great Firewall.

suchire 2y ago
Given how little the US invests in public education, probably never
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  >Given how little the US invests in public education, probably never While I understand the sentiment, this isn't factually true: from figures I've seen, the US actually spends more per student in pre-college schooling than any other nation. It's a lot like the US healthcare system: the US spends (much) more per-capita, but gets much worse results overall. The problem isn't the level of funding, but how it's used and who runs it. Another factor is US education is that the funding is largely from local sources and locally controlled, so if you live in a wealthy county, you might have (relatively) very good schools, while kids in poor counties will have poorly-funded schools. This is mostly a problem unique to the US because it loves keeping power at local levels so much.
  - Freedom2 2y ago
    'Invests' doesn't necessarily have to mean about money, like you assume.
  - red-iron-pine 2y ago
    > The problem isn't the level of funding, but how it's used and who runs it aka rent-seeking behavior from entrenched corporations and interests.
anon291 2y ago
> private corporation like Twitter/X, Facebook, and now Bluesky can implement any moderation policies they want, and it will never violate "free speech" laws Simply not true in the state of California where most of these companies are based. According to the CA supreme Court, you have a right to free speech on private property that is regularly available for public use. By that metric all of these companies are blatantly violating the constitution of their home state.
- hn_acker 2y ago
  > According to the CA supreme Court, you have a right to free speech on private property that is regularly available for public use. According to both sides of the aisle on the US Supreme Court, a social media site is not a public forum [1]. [1] Supreme Court Signals Loud And Clear That Social Media Sites Are Not Public Forums That Have To Allow All Speech https://www.techdirt.com/2019/06/18/supreme-court-signals-loud-clear-that-social-media-sites-are-not-public-forums-that-have-to-allow-all-speech/ https://www.techdirt.com/2019/06/18/supreme-court-signals-lo...
  - anon291 2y ago
    This would be the CA Supreme Court. The CA constitution has explicit protections for public speech on private property, per the CA Supreme Court.
    - hn_acker 2y ago
      How broad is that CA Supreme Court ruling? The CA Constitution can't override the First Amendment rights that social media sites have to decide what user content to remove from their servers [1]. [1] https://www.techdirt.com/2024/02/22/social-media-isnt-a-shopping-mall/ https://www.techdirt.com/2024/02/22/social-media-isnt-a-shop...
      - anon291 2y ago
        Absolutely they can and do. Many malls have been forced to allow demonstrators due to it. California's constitution would apply to California companies hosting people in their spaces. It would absolutely apply between California users and Californian companies
rahimnathwani 2y ago
At what point will it be universally understood that "free speech" is only legally binding when a person is speaking with the government. Well this isn't the case. I'm writing this comment and directing it at you and other non-governmental actors who use HN. So I am not 'speaking with the government'. But the law protects my speech from interference by the government.
rahimnathwani 2y ago
Bluesky can implement any moderation policies they want, and it will never violate "free speech" laws. What if Bluesky were to set up a hotline which the federal government can call to have any post censored, and makes it known to government actors that it will act promptly if they want anything removed? Would that be legal for Bluesky, assuming no coercion from any government actors?
- hn_acker 2y ago
  > What if Bluesky were to set up a hotline which the federal government can call to have any post censored, and makes it known to government actors that it will act promptly if they want anything removed? > Would that be legal for Bluesky, assuming no coercion from any government actors? Under your assumption of no coercion, yes, it would generally be within Bluesky's First Amendment right of association (by which I mean, association to the content, not to the government) for Bluesky to voluntarily remove content from its servers (or refuse to relay content from other servers) brought to its notice by the federal government for no compensation. There are other ways for governments to meddle that would make specific instances of "call to have any post censored" unconstitutional. If a government official were to secretly pay or otherwise compensate Bluesky for removing posts, then the benefit to the government official of having the posts removed would violate the Emoluments Clause if the official is a member of Congress, might violate a corruption law, and might violate the oath of office if there was one (but I don't know an oath of office has any legal weight). Also, in practice, such a secret payment scheme would create a power imbalance favoring the government official in a way that would make achieving "no coercion" very difficult if not impossible.
Jensson 2y ago
> At what point will it be universally understood that "free speech" is only legally binding when a person is speaking with the government That is not what "free speech" means, that is what current US free speech laws does. Free speech itself include all censorship from big organizations, regardless if it is a government or not, the important part is if you have large organized censoring then its against free speech. So it is totally valid to say you want to protect free speech by limiting the ability for large corporations to censor people.
- ChicagoDave 2y ago
  Free speech is a legal term. We all know there is a push to invent some new definition that says jerks must be heard, but if you look at the migration out of Twitter, you can see that a lot of people aren't interested in that new definition. If you come to Bluesky, your actions dictate your following.

suchire 2y ago

Given how little the US invests in public education, probably never

shiroiushi 2y ago
>Given how little the US invests in public education, probably never While I understand the sentiment, this isn't factually true: from figures I've seen, the US actually spends more per student in pre-college schooling than any other nation. It's a lot like the US healthcare system: the US spends (much) more per-capita, but gets much worse results overall. The problem isn't the level of funding, but how it's used and who runs it. Another factor is US education is that the funding is largely from local sources and locally controlled, so if you live in a wealthy county, you might have (relatively) very good schools, while kids in poor counties will have poorly-funded schools. This is mostly a problem unique to the US because it loves keeping power at local levels so much.
- Freedom2 2y ago
  'Invests' doesn't necessarily have to mean about money, like you assume.
- red-iron-pine 2y ago
  > The problem isn't the level of funding, but how it's used and who runs it aka rent-seeking behavior from entrenched corporations and interests.

anon291 2y ago

> private corporation like Twitter/X, Facebook, and now Bluesky can implement any moderation policies they want, and it will never violate "free speech" laws Simply not true in the state of California where most of these companies are based. According to the CA supreme Court, you have a right to free speech on private property that is regularly available for public use. By that metric all of these companies are blatantly violating the constitution of their home state.

hn_acker 2y ago
> According to the CA supreme Court, you have a right to free speech on private property that is regularly available for public use. According to both sides of the aisle on the US Supreme Court, a social media site is not a public forum [1]. [1] Supreme Court Signals Loud And Clear That Social Media Sites Are Not Public Forums That Have To Allow All Speech https://www.techdirt.com/2019/06/18/supreme-court-signals-loud-clear-that-social-media-sites-are-not-public-forums-that-have-to-allow-all-speech/ https://www.techdirt.com/2019/06/18/supreme-court-signals-lo...
- anon291 2y ago
  This would be the CA Supreme Court. The CA constitution has explicit protections for public speech on private property, per the CA Supreme Court.
  - hn_acker 2y ago
    How broad is that CA Supreme Court ruling? The CA Constitution can't override the First Amendment rights that social media sites have to decide what user content to remove from their servers [1]. [1] https://www.techdirt.com/2024/02/22/social-media-isnt-a-shopping-mall/ https://www.techdirt.com/2024/02/22/social-media-isnt-a-shop...
    - anon291 2y ago
      Absolutely they can and do. Many malls have been forced to allow demonstrators due to it. California's constitution would apply to California companies hosting people in their spaces. It would absolutely apply between California users and Californian companies

rahimnathwani 2y ago

At what point will it be universally understood that "free speech" is only legally binding when a person is speaking with the government. Well this isn't the case. I'm writing this comment and directing it at you and other non-governmental actors who use HN. So I am not 'speaking with the government'. But the law protects my speech from interference by the government.

rahimnathwani 2y ago

Bluesky can implement any moderation policies they want, and it will never violate "free speech" laws. What if Bluesky were to set up a hotline which the federal government can call to have any post censored, and makes it known to government actors that it will act promptly if they want anything removed? Would that be legal for Bluesky, assuming no coercion from any government actors?

hn_acker 2y ago
> What if Bluesky were to set up a hotline which the federal government can call to have any post censored, and makes it known to government actors that it will act promptly if they want anything removed? > Would that be legal for Bluesky, assuming no coercion from any government actors? Under your assumption of no coercion, yes, it would generally be within Bluesky's First Amendment right of association (by which I mean, association to the content, not to the government) for Bluesky to voluntarily remove content from its servers (or refuse to relay content from other servers) brought to its notice by the federal government for no compensation. There are other ways for governments to meddle that would make specific instances of "call to have any post censored" unconstitutional. If a government official were to secretly pay or otherwise compensate Bluesky for removing posts, then the benefit to the government official of having the posts removed would violate the Emoluments Clause if the official is a member of Congress, might violate a corruption law, and might violate the oath of office if there was one (but I don't know an oath of office has any legal weight). Also, in practice, such a secret payment scheme would create a power imbalance favoring the government official in a way that would make achieving "no coercion" very difficult if not impossible.

Jensson 2y ago

> At what point will it be universally understood that "free speech" is only legally binding when a person is speaking with the government That is not what "free speech" means, that is what current US free speech laws does. Free speech itself include all censorship from big organizations, regardless if it is a government or not, the important part is if you have large organized censoring then its against free speech. So it is totally valid to say you want to protect free speech by limiting the ability for large corporations to censor people.

ChicagoDave 2y ago
Free speech is a legal term. We all know there is a push to invent some new definition that says jerks must be heard, but if you look at the migration out of Twitter, you can see that a lot of people aren't interested in that new definition. If you come to Bluesky, your actions dictate your following.