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These were my thoughts exactly. There's nothing incongruous about saying "I think Jews are dirty and evil but I respect your right to believe otherwise." He imp

These were my thoughts exactly. There's nothing incongruous about saying "I think Jews are dirty and evil but I respect your right to believe otherwise." He implies that hate speech infringes on the free speech of others in some way, which is a leap I don't feel is backed up. I find his living room analogy to be not only a poor fit, but a dangerous idea. "Would we, for the sake of free speech, allow this person to remain in our living room?" Replace "living room" with "country" and you've got a common anti-dissent argument.

frossie 17y ago
Not only that, but the whole living room analogy is unillumating. Whose living room is Facebook? Mine? The Nazis'? The founders'? The real issue is this: we have traded many of our public spaces for commercial spaces, and then we are surprised to find that we can't do whatever we want in them. For example, you cannot hold a political protest in a mall (or, as in the well-known case, even wear a political t-shirt in a mall). Your mall might act like the town square used to be in your town; but it is a completely different beast legally. The reality is that online speech, where that happens on commercial/private entities like Facebook or Twitter or whatever is not like speech in your town square. Facebook is a private entity and they have the right to allow or not allow whatever they feel like on their systems. If they want to ban breastfeeding pics and allow skinhead pics, that is their business. There's no point pretending that they owe you something just because you use their site. The first amendment and similar protections where they exist in other countries protect you from the government. They don't have anything to say about commercial Internet entities. [Edit following TrevorJ's comments below: To be fair, the law is starting to struggle with some of these issues, see for example some suggestions raised here: http://www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/issues/v7n3/sichok73.html http://www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/issues/v7n3/sichok73.html In this context I am pretty sure that constitutionally, Facebook is no different than a mall - if we could resolve the issues of free v. commercial and controlled speech in malls, sponsored public events etc., I am sure that Internet-based activities would be fall into that quite neatly]
- TrevorJ 17y ago
  This is a really good point, I had not thought of that argument. Very very true. Facebook is NOT the public square.

frossie 17y ago

Not only that, but the whole living room analogy is unillumating. Whose living room is Facebook? Mine? The Nazis'? The founders'? The real issue is this: we have traded many of our public spaces for commercial spaces, and then we are surprised to find that we can't do whatever we want in them. For example, you cannot hold a political protest in a mall (or, as in the well-known case, even wear a political t-shirt in a mall). Your mall might act like the town square used to be in your town; but it is a completely different beast legally. The reality is that online speech, where that happens on commercial/private entities like Facebook or Twitter or whatever is not like speech in your town square. Facebook is a private entity and they have the right to allow or not allow whatever they feel like on their systems. If they want to ban breastfeeding pics and allow skinhead pics, that is their business. There's no point pretending that they owe you something just because you use their site. The first amendment and similar protections where they exist in other countries protect you from the government. They don't have anything to say about commercial Internet entities. [Edit following TrevorJ's comments below: To be fair, the law is starting to struggle with some of these issues, see for example some suggestions raised here: http://www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/issues/v7n3/sichok73.html http://www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/issues/v7n3/sichok73.html In this context I am pretty sure that constitutionally, Facebook is no different than a mall - if we could resolve the issues of free v. commercial and controlled speech in malls, sponsored public events etc., I am sure that Internet-based activities would be fall into that quite neatly]

TrevorJ 17y ago
This is a really good point, I had not thought of that argument. Very very true. Facebook is NOT the public square.