edit: it seems people have misunderstood my comment to take a position. I' m taking issue with the idea that "free speech doesn't need limits" followed by a listing of limits applied to free speech. If we can't agree that there even exists such limits and that perhaps they're necessary any discussion below is fruitless.
I think parent was pointing out that the question of "where should the line be drawn and who should draw it" has already been settled. Those things are already illegal, so we don't need to impose further restrictions on speech in order to prevent those things.
> I think parent was pointing out that the question of "where should the line be drawn and who should draw it" has already been settled. Those things are already illegal, so we don't need to impose further restrictions on speech in order to prevent those things.
I'm skeptical that such a line can ever be truly "settled." Sure, it can be settled in a particular social and technological context, but when those latter things change, the line may need to be adjusted.
See Trope 9: "This speech may be protected for now, but the law is always changing."
TLDR: yeah, the law can change, but it's highly unlikely because "the United States Supreme Court has been more consistently protective of free speech than of any other right, especially in the face of media sensibilities about "harmful" words"
> See Trope 9: "This speech may be protected for now, but the law is always changing."
It's worth noting that no legally forbidden censorship has been happening with regards to the recent insurrection against congress.
> TLDR: yeah, the law can change, but it's highly unlikely because "the United States Supreme Court has been more consistently protective of free speech than of any other right, especially in the face of media sensibilities about "harmful" words"
But that's not a fixed fact of nature, it's a reaction to a particular social and technological context.
For instance, if someone discovers an idea instantly turns 10% those who hear it into murderous zealots (sort of like the poem in "The Tyranny of Heaven" by Stephen Baxter), that idea is going to censored hard and the Supreme Court will be like "yup, ban it."
Likewise, if some social change or technology renders the legal regime that the Supreme Court has created a cause of serious dysfunction, then Supreme Court is going to have to change that regime to accommodate. Idealism's great, but not when it doesn't work.
> no legally forbidden censorship has been happening with regards to the recent insurrection against congress.
Yes, this is true as far as I am aware as well. But I find myself in a conundrum; had this "inciting" speech taken place in the town square or a public park, much of it likely could not have been censored because it would have been protected by the 1st amendment and the last 100 years of case law. Where, then, is the town square and public park of 2021?
Despite the fact that the legal protections of public speech haven't changed much in decades, the practical protections of public speech (as I discuss in greater detail in [1]) have indeed been eroded, because social media platforms and, apparently, web hosting and device makers are now the arbiters of the vast majority of speech. Free speech that only applies where virtually noone can hear you is a very limited free speech indeed.
The town squares and public parks are still there.
The existence of Twitter, Facebook, etc. have accustomed people to the ability to air their opinions globally free of charge, however that is a very novel phenomenon. It's hard for me, having come of age in the 1980s/1990s, to see this as an inalienable right.
Of course they are still there! But the conversations increasingly aren't taking place there. If free speech is essential to a liberal democracy, we're moving to a place where the majority of speech takes place in non-free-speech areas, and that does not bode well for the health of our democracy.
> Of course they are still there! But the conversations increasingly aren't taking place there. If free speech is essential to a liberal democracy, we're moving to a place where the majority of speech takes place in non-free-speech areas, and that does not bode well for the health of our democracy.
You have a right to speak, but not a right to reach.
The majority of speech always took place in areas with some kind of limits. For instance: in some guy's tavern or in the pages of a local newspaper.
Furthermore, what's happening to Parler could also be conceived as a kind of self-defense exception: the factions it embraced have recently attempted to literally attack (in the name of a selfish demagogue) the heart of the liberal order that enables free speech, and they cannot be tolerated if toleration is to survive.
> If free speech is essential to a liberal democracy, we're moving to a place where the majority of speech takes place in non-free-speech areas, and that does not bode well for the health of our democracy.
The majority of conversation in democracies has always taken place in private venues that were free to control who had access and did absolutely do so based on political viewpoint.
That these private spaces are now virtual rather than physical doesn't change the essence of that fact.
>the question of "where should the line be drawn and who should draw it" has already been settled
I think it should at least be a line open to challenge without being accused of being brainwashed. If that line cannot be questioned, we're skating on dogmatism. There are very few good reasons for a special guarantee of free speech (versus, say, a special guarantee to be able to eat fries) which stand up to closer scrutiny.
The only convincing reason for a constitutional guarantee to freedom of speech is mistrust in the government, but again, that depends where you draw the line. Food regulation is arguably just as important in our lives, but few mistrust the FDA as to call for its abolition, or propose a constitutional amendment banning all regulation of foods.
This isn't a matter of what the law is, it's a matter of what the law should be - whether it's a constitutional law or not.
no it is not. Saying “covid is a hoax” should be protected by free speech because it is an expression of (stupidly false) opinion. Saying “we storm Capiton at 8:00am on Jan 6” is a call to violent action, not an idea, thought, or opinion and obviously must be taken down ASAP
> no it is not. Saying “covid is a hoax” should be protected by free speech because it is an expression of (stupidly false) opinion.
But I shouldn't be obligated to let someone put a sign saying that on my lawn, nor should I be obligated to remain friends with someone who is pushing that lie.
Most of the people who are complaining about free speech being limited are really arguing for things like the above.
You preventing signs on your lawn are fine, you preventing specific messages on systemically important communications infrastructure you happen to own is not. It’s the same reason that AT&T was heavily regulated back when it carried 90% of telecom traffic and before it was ultimately broken up via antitrust.
You running a corner store the way you want is fine, you running the only store in the country the way you want is not.
> You preventing signs on your lawn are fine, you preventing specific messages on systemically important communications infrastructure you happen to own is not. It’s the same reason that AT&T was heavily regulated back when it carried 90% of telecom traffic and before it was ultimately broken up via antitrust.
You know, you don't need AWS to run a website, right? Similarly, newspapers have often been local monopolies, but as far as I know, they've always been able to decline to publish a letter to the editor.
Whoever wants to stick a sign on my lawn is going to come up with some rationale to force me to do it, but that doesn't mean it holds any water.
We got to the latter because of years and years of the former.
"You're allowed to talk people into believing that they need to violently rebel, but you're not allowed to actually do the rebelling" is not a particularly reasonable position.
I'm working on a blog, where users will post about their experience with a particular drug and its side effects. Since, I am paying for hosting and I created the blog, I will NOT allow any pseudo science. Am I limiting free speech? No.
There is a good reason twitter, facebook, youtube does remove certain content. They have the right to remove whatever they want.
All speech is free speech. Avoid hyperbole here because it doesn't help. Your examples both kinds of speech that people think should be limited, trying to discard one as not speech rather than focusing at hand on what speech should be limited does nothing but rile up those that disagree with your examples.
If someone publishes fake news about vaccines, it takes a lot of effort then for people to keep explaining to other people how this is not true. It is harmful to society, and unfair - it takes less time to invent a new hoax than to fact-check it.
Just like loitering on the ground is considered an offence, so should be publishing fake news. It doesn't hurt one person, but it hurts society.
There also are objective criteria for determining if something is fake or not - so it is possible to create laws that forbid it and don't limit a freedom of opinion.
Why is everyone debating on whether they should be limits on free speech when that is irrelevant? Free speech is something provided by the government, not by private companies. Any private company, such as a restaurant, can throw you out for any reason outside of discriminating against a protected class.
What seems to be under attack here is the right of individual companies and people to decide who they wish to work with. Everyone who is criticizing big tech for choosing not to work with certain people is forgetting that that same principle can be applied to them. Do you want to be forced to work with companies you abhor?
> What seems to be under attack here is the right of individual companies and people to decide who they wish to work with. Everyone who is criticizing big tech for choosing not to work with certain people is forgetting that that same principle can be applied to them. Do you want to be forced to work with companies you abhor?
You mention protected classes in your first paragraph, but then act like it's self-evident that it's bad to "force people to work with (and serve) people they abhor". What else is the concept of a protected class if not this?
It's clear that we already don't have full freedom of association, and the question is where the line should be drawn. When people talk about big tech regulation, it's undergirded by many of these platforms' unique amount of market power. This isn't a novel concept; utility companies are an example of a natural monopoly: benefiting from scale, considered critical infrastructure, and legally prohibited from cutting off power to its customers, even if they don't like their politics. The topic under discussion here is whether the "new public square" (or things like payment infrastructure!) are considered critical enough to society that we want to protect access to them.
I'm constitutionally (not "Constitutionally") disinclined against ill-considered regulation, and most of the conversation by government about tech regulation is pants-on-head stupid. But the dissonance between the two paras in your comment are a good indication that this discussion isn't nearly as simple as you're framing it.
> The topic under discussion here is whether the "new public square" (or things like payment infrastructure!) are considered critical enough to society that we want to protect access to them.
That's one core question. Another is whether it should be up to these companies to police their own platforms. Inciting violence is illegal. They're banning people and platforms inciting violence.
"Repeal section 230" seems to be about making these companies responsible for policing their own platforms. When people incited violence/genocide on Facebook in Myanmar, some people held Facebook partially responsible. Now, there are people are inciting violence on Facebook in the US, and it's still an open question whether Facebook should be held liable.
When people incited violence/genocide on <radio> in Myanmar, some people held <radio> partially responsible. Now, there are people are inciting violence on <radio> in the US, and it's still an open question whether <radio> should be held liable.
There are important differences, but the parallels between the Rwandan genocide and the growth of talk radio in the US in the 90's have always struck me as interesting.
That being said, I think that the new public square argument is strong, and if we're going to have internet monopolies, then they probably need to be regulated similarly to the utilities.
Alternatively, they can be broken up. I don't think the current state is sustainable over the longer term.
I agree that this is a limit on corporations’ free speech. Monopolistic corporations do have a well founded legal limit to their free speech rights.
For example, it’s a form of free speech for Microsoft to decide how they write their own software. One of those decisions was to bundle a free web browser in with their OS and tie the OS function tightly together with that browser. Microsoft Corporation was almost broken up by the government because they did that.
The issue that Greenwald is raising is similarly rooted in anti-trust;
> If one were looking for evidence to demonstrate that these tech behemoths are, in fact, monopolies that engage in anti-competitive behavior in violation of antitrust laws, and will obliterate any attempt to compete with them in the marketplace, it would be difficult to imagine anything more compelling than how they just used their unconstrained power to utterly destroy a rising competitor.
Freedom of speech is not absolute. Just like individuals’ free speech rights have limits such as incitement to violence, corporations also have limits to their “free speech” rights based in anti-trust law and anti-racketeering laws in how they can attack potential competitors.
It isn't really free speech, you are right. It is more of an anti-trust issue, that a couple companies could get together to completely ban another one. We should consider if too much power has been concentrated in the hands of a few tech companies, if essentially their content moderation policies can so easily be misinterpreted as free speech issues.
That the outcome here is banning a community that was apparently mostly used for hate speech (never actually checked it out) is... maybe a red herring? I mean, they obviously didn't build these massive companies with the primary goal of banning niche hateful websites.
If we were to, say, break up social media and internet infrastructure giants, then this sort of website would probably be able to persist by hopping from host to host until they found one without any morals. But could consider if losing the ability to perform this kind of deplatforming would be worth it, in exchange for a much more competitive marketplace.
Keep in mind that sites like parler are not actually banned. They could simply hook up their own computer to the internet and run their site if they wished. No one has some natural right to be able to use a convenient service like AWS. And if AWS refuses to do business with you, there are hundreds of other hosting companies that you can choose from.
Ultimately, if not one of the hundreds of hosting companies out there wants to work with you, that should be a very strong indication that the community is not something we want. But if you really really want this community anyways, just hook up your computer to an internet connection and host the site yourself.
> Free speech is something provided by the government, not by private companies
It is not provided by the government. Congress is prohibited from passing laws that abridge freedom of speech; Congress is not the fountain that free speech springs from.
It is perfectly relevant to discuss freedom of speech in contexts where someone else might be doing the abridging besides the U.S. Congress.
So when a politician or pundit cherry-picks one sentence out of a larger statement and spins that to imply something other than what the speaker meant, perhaps even the complete opposite of what he meant, is that "fake news" or is that "opinion?" And who decides?
edit: it seems people have misunderstood my comment to take a position. I' m taking issue with the idea that "free speech doesn't need limits" followed by a listing of limits applied to free speech. If we can't agree that there even exists such limits and that perhaps they're necessary any discussion below is fruitless.