This article, as indicated in the title, is about "free speech", not the first amendment.
Something can be a free speech issue without being a first amendment issue. You're attacking a position that the author never took; the article even explicitly mentions that a private company is allowed to do this.
Maybe it's my terminology that's wrong, but when someone uses the term 'free speech', I assume they are talking specifically about a first amendment issue. Because if they weren't talking about the 1A, why would they use those specific words? It's always going to muddy the waters and at least imply potential legalities to at least some readers.
Also, even though the words 'free speech' having meaning outside of a legal context, all of those contexts have better words already that don't introduce legal ambiguity. Maybe it's not a free speech issue, but it is an issue with censorship, or overly aggressive moderation, or they could claim unfair prejudice or even corporate oppression. Just don't say 'free speech', because there are always better words to use with less legal or moral ambiguity.
Maybe it's my terminology that's wrong, but when someone uses the term 'free speech', I assume they are talking specifically about a first amendment issue
In other words, free speech doesn't exist outside the USA?
And of course facebook will also block all the armed services and police, because guns are bad, yes? Or are guns ok, but only if the state wields them?
While this isn’t a free speech issue, I have to say I’m a bit surprised in how quickly FB censorship jumped the shark. It started out bding targeted to content that “everyone” agreed was inappropriate, and now is simply pushing the Democratic agenda. Really ought to serve as a cautionary tale for anyone who supports “reasonable” restrictions on speech. The slippery slope isn’t just theoretical.
Can you back that argument up with evidence? Far from seeing Fb pushing the "Democratic agenda", I'm still seeing a Facebook rife with things like official Paul Nehlen pages filled with openly anti-Semitic comments.
From my vantage point it looks like you have to literally be selling fake dietary supplements on the back of a conspiracy theory about the Sandy Hook kids being crisis actors to get yourself kicked off Facebook.
> According to Facebook’s policy, it does not allow ads promoting sales of firearms, silencers, other weapons like knives and fireworks, and ads promoting the brandishing of firearms.
Guns are not only legal, but Constitutionally protected. What explanation for banning them other than pushing a Democratic pro-gun-control agenda? Imagine the furor if Facebook banned ads for contraception or abortion services.
I hope Facebook keeps going further and further in the direction of echo chambers, to the point that people stop seeing it as a source of news or anything but a very slanted view of the world.
Ideally we could have a forum that actually encourages free speech (including anonymous and pseudonymous speech, extremely rude but not outright threatening speech, and paid shills). If we can't have that, many platforms each with their own agenda is much better than one dominant platform with a bias towards one side of the political spectrum.
Part of the reason this happens is people say things like that and don't chose to be the change they want to see in the world. Voat had plenty of friendly, decent spaces run by decent people (and plenty of horrible ones). The difference is that it allowed everything. It was just a place to talk. Not a place that decided what could be talked about.
That said, if you're the type of person that cannot stand to see people saying things that you find distasteful then yeah, you better stick to Facebook.
It depends on whether, and to what extent, Facebook is a monopoly.
If we privatized every public square in the country, and they were all owned by a single corporation that would set arbitrary rules for their use, would that be a free speech issue?
This makes me wonder what would happen if Google went down the same path. Gun range? Sorry you're being removed from Google Maps.
In the same vein I understand private companies can decide what happens on their platform. It's just this odd morality police structure that seems to be growing stronger and stronger.
Map information doesn't say anything about a company other than it exists, so it seems there's no speech issue on the part of the company. If Google chooses to suppress, rather than accidentally omit, there might be a commercial issue, though.
It would be tough to prove, though. Maps are rarely guaranteed to be accurate at all times.
Depends on whether it was provably intentional or an accidental omission. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
If the current government has it's way, we may soon find out anyway and that will be an interesting day.
Unfortunately, it means I'm also inconsistent in how the right of free speech is applied. I don't like the idea of people being denied access to abortions. At the same time, I despise and detest anyone who tries to hide behind the color of religion to deny services to people in need of abortion services or even just denying services to LGBTQ people who just want a damn cake.
I haven't worked out a consistent framework of thought except to say "I hate assholes, people who are intentionally assholes and to hell with the people who support them."
Why shift the goal posts? this is a clear case of policy driven censorship.
If Google starts to remove all controversial or touchy subjects from it's search results the end result won't be pleasant.
People rely on Google as their main and often single source of information if it's not on Google it may as well not exist.
Now if Google should have so much power that's a different question but because they (and the rest of their club) already do how they handle free speech and protected speech is a very hot topic and mucking it with 1st amendment issues is a cheap trick to sweep it under the rag because at this point in time their policies match your own views.
Societies tend to oscillate between progressivism and conservatism, Gen Z appears to be one of the most conservative generations in recent history so what happens when Google is filled with these guys instead of millenials? If you allow Google of Facebook to remove content that objectively isn't even remotely related to hate speech or anything that should be controversial like a gun range you essentially open the window for them to do the same thing to things you care about down the line.
Eventually Facebook or Google will touch an issue that you care about and would like to censor it and at that point you would have no ground to stand on.
And while we can debate about positive and negative freedoms all day long alluding to the rest of your post one thing we can agree with is that to be able to have a discussion we need to preserve the freedom of speech and freedom of speech also includes that everyone should have a platform to voice their views.
And i somewhat find the last sentence of your comment ironic:
>"I hate assholes, people who are intentionally assholes and to hell with the people who support them."
You do realize that that LGBT couple admittedly went to multiple places until the found one that would not serve them, and then made a whole fuss about it which was blown out of proportion because specific bakery apparently did not do custom cakes at all you had to order from a specific set of cakes and design and that's it.
They offered them a cake from the available selection but the couple wanted a custom one so they were refused.
Now considering they went to other places until they found that one and considering that it's questionable that they were refused service in the first place would you consider them to be assholes? and I don't mean the bakers...
If you don't like what Facebook allows you to say, luckily we have the option to talk and advertise in different channels. Sometimes in the real world, where as long you're not saying anything illegal, you can say what ever you like.
The time is fast approaching when all of these internet data funnels will have to choose whether acting as editors and publishers is worth the cost of facing the liability for everything they publish. The only reason the internet has worked, more or less, to this point is that you could stand up a service where other people could speak, and not be bankrupted as a consequence of what they say. That time is nearly over.
> The time is fast approaching when all of these internet data funnels will have to choose whether acting as editors and publishers is worth the cost of facing the liability for everything they publish.
Yes. You have to wonder how many millions of dollars in copyright claims Facebook would face per day if they were treated as a publisher (like a newspaper, which controls content and is responsible for it) rather than a common carrier (like the phone company, which does not control content and is therefore not responsible for it).
They should be made to decide which of the two they want to be.
Funny that this discussion, extremely relevant to tech and start-ups, has now been flagged on hacker news. It looks like our town square has a biased censorship problem too.
Hacker News isn't a town square. Hacker News' entire premise is preferring intellectual quality over quantity in comments, and aggressively moderating towards that end, which is the antithesis of what the free speech of a town square represents. It's a symposium that doesn't check the door.
True enough at it's inception. But a look at the front page will disprove it today. It's just that some perspectives on some topics are more equal than others.
>in comments
There's no debating that re: comments. But it's not relevant to this topic or my comment about the topic (which is high quality, relevant, and tech).
Of course meta comments like these are exactly what are justifiably moderated and removed. You could argue this one was flagged because it might lead to these kind of comment threads, cutting it off before it could start. But it wouldn't start if the flag wasn't confirmed.
>True enough at it's inception. But a look at the front page will disprove it today. It's just that some perspectives on some topics are more equal than others.
The intent behind the culture hasn't changed since its inception, though. New users have arrived expecting a greater degree of freedom of exchange and a freer hand than they will ever be permitted.
>There's no debating that re: comments. But it's not relevant to this topic or my comment about the topic (which is high quality, relevant, and tech).
Unfortunately, this forum is designed so that it takes only a few flags to sink a story entirely, and I believe flags are weighted by karma. So the opinion of a minority of high-karma users or a larger set of lower-karma users outweighs that of the masses, and even an objective view of a story's relevance, by design. Cultural integrity and overall quality control is considered more important.
My point being that what is considered a "biased censorship problem" here is Hacker News working as intended.
29 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 95.9 ms ] threadFree speech, as codified in the first amendment, restricts what the GOVERNMENT can't do, not what a private company can do.
Their microphone, their mute switch.
Something can be a free speech issue without being a first amendment issue. You're attacking a position that the author never took; the article even explicitly mentions that a private company is allowed to do this.
Also, even though the words 'free speech' having meaning outside of a legal context, all of those contexts have better words already that don't introduce legal ambiguity. Maybe it's not a free speech issue, but it is an issue with censorship, or overly aggressive moderation, or they could claim unfair prejudice or even corporate oppression. Just don't say 'free speech', because there are always better words to use with less legal or moral ambiguity.
Unfortunately, the government is not the only threat to free speech.
My opinion is that pretty much any other Western country gets free speech more right than America.
It absolutely is a free speech issue. It's not a First Amendment issue, but First Amendment issues are only a subset of free speech issues.
From my vantage point it looks like you have to literally be selling fake dietary supplements on the back of a conspiracy theory about the Sandy Hook kids being crisis actors to get yourself kicked off Facebook.
> According to Facebook’s policy, it does not allow ads promoting sales of firearms, silencers, other weapons like knives and fireworks, and ads promoting the brandishing of firearms.
Guns are not only legal, but Constitutionally protected. What explanation for banning them other than pushing a Democratic pro-gun-control agenda? Imagine the furor if Facebook banned ads for contraception or abortion services.
Ideally we could have a forum that actually encourages free speech (including anonymous and pseudonymous speech, extremely rude but not outright threatening speech, and paid shills). If we can't have that, many platforms each with their own agenda is much better than one dominant platform with a bias towards one side of the political spectrum.
That said, if you're the type of person that cannot stand to see people saying things that you find distasteful then yeah, you better stick to Facebook.
If we privatized every public square in the country, and they were all owned by a single corporation that would set arbitrary rules for their use, would that be a free speech issue?
In the same vein I understand private companies can decide what happens on their platform. It's just this odd morality police structure that seems to be growing stronger and stronger.
It would be tough to prove, though. Maps are rarely guaranteed to be accurate at all times.
If the current government has it's way, we may soon find out anyway and that will be an interesting day.
Unfortunately, it means I'm also inconsistent in how the right of free speech is applied. I don't like the idea of people being denied access to abortions. At the same time, I despise and detest anyone who tries to hide behind the color of religion to deny services to people in need of abortion services or even just denying services to LGBTQ people who just want a damn cake.
I haven't worked out a consistent framework of thought except to say "I hate assholes, people who are intentionally assholes and to hell with the people who support them."
If Google starts to remove all controversial or touchy subjects from it's search results the end result won't be pleasant.
People rely on Google as their main and often single source of information if it's not on Google it may as well not exist.
Now if Google should have so much power that's a different question but because they (and the rest of their club) already do how they handle free speech and protected speech is a very hot topic and mucking it with 1st amendment issues is a cheap trick to sweep it under the rag because at this point in time their policies match your own views.
Societies tend to oscillate between progressivism and conservatism, Gen Z appears to be one of the most conservative generations in recent history so what happens when Google is filled with these guys instead of millenials? If you allow Google of Facebook to remove content that objectively isn't even remotely related to hate speech or anything that should be controversial like a gun range you essentially open the window for them to do the same thing to things you care about down the line.
Eventually Facebook or Google will touch an issue that you care about and would like to censor it and at that point you would have no ground to stand on.
And while we can debate about positive and negative freedoms all day long alluding to the rest of your post one thing we can agree with is that to be able to have a discussion we need to preserve the freedom of speech and freedom of speech also includes that everyone should have a platform to voice their views.
And i somewhat find the last sentence of your comment ironic:
>"I hate assholes, people who are intentionally assholes and to hell with the people who support them."
You do realize that that LGBT couple admittedly went to multiple places until the found one that would not serve them, and then made a whole fuss about it which was blown out of proportion because specific bakery apparently did not do custom cakes at all you had to order from a specific set of cakes and design and that's it.
They offered them a cake from the available selection but the couple wanted a custom one so they were refused.
Now considering they went to other places until they found that one and considering that it's questionable that they were refused service in the first place would you consider them to be assholes? and I don't mean the bakers...
Yes. You have to wonder how many millions of dollars in copyright claims Facebook would face per day if they were treated as a publisher (like a newspaper, which controls content and is responsible for it) rather than a common carrier (like the phone company, which does not control content and is therefore not responsible for it).
They should be made to decide which of the two they want to be.
True enough at it's inception. But a look at the front page will disprove it today. It's just that some perspectives on some topics are more equal than others.
>in comments
There's no debating that re: comments. But it's not relevant to this topic or my comment about the topic (which is high quality, relevant, and tech).
Of course meta comments like these are exactly what are justifiably moderated and removed. You could argue this one was flagged because it might lead to these kind of comment threads, cutting it off before it could start. But it wouldn't start if the flag wasn't confirmed.
The intent behind the culture hasn't changed since its inception, though. New users have arrived expecting a greater degree of freedom of exchange and a freer hand than they will ever be permitted.
>There's no debating that re: comments. But it's not relevant to this topic or my comment about the topic (which is high quality, relevant, and tech).
Unfortunately, this forum is designed so that it takes only a few flags to sink a story entirely, and I believe flags are weighted by karma. So the opinion of a minority of high-karma users or a larger set of lower-karma users outweighs that of the masses, and even an objective view of a story's relevance, by design. Cultural integrity and overall quality control is considered more important.
My point being that what is considered a "biased censorship problem" here is Hacker News working as intended.