Hacker News Reader

This does make me wonder if it makes it impossible for those companies to be considered "common carriers" or able to enjoy "safe harbor" laws. By acting to censor legal (however distasteful) content, they could be considered to be policing what their customers do (asserting a custodial role) or refusing based on moral grounds (c.f., Indianapolis "111 Cakery") and subject to a discrimination suit.

View on HN

Yeah, the 111 Cakery case I'm kind of personally conflicted about. On the one hand, I hope it's clear that refusing service to people because of their race is clearly not okay, and I (personally) think it's good that our society treats sexual orientation the same way. On the other, I know that our society didn't treat sexual orientation the same way until recently, and that a lot of politically-powerful groups would probably add some strange protected classes if they could (cf. my home state of Louisiana's "Blue Lives Matter" law). So the power to create protected classes is not one I really think should be used lightly.

There may be no good answer other than to keep fighting for what's right and against what's wrong and hope that the arc of the universe is bent in the correct direction.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com