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Comment by devrandomguy | Hacker News Reader

That argument becomes weaker as responsibilities and power are transferred from the government to the private sector. How many of the rules that we follow are currently dictated by a corporation, rather than a government? Do we not want checks and balances on all rule-makers?

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Then why shift such responsibilities to the private sector in the first place? If they must be regulated as stringently as the public sector (especially in terms of things like free speech) then they should be public goods.

I think it's much more viable to translate some of these privately owned aspects of the internet to publicly owned institutions. Then you obtain the free-speech allowances you desire without burdening a private company with further regulation and restrictions.

This isn't the only solution of course though. But just claiming that these goods are so important doesn't necessarily mean they should be treated like government entities. They're not - that's not how the laws here work.

I don't believe that government is seriously hindered by free speech, but rather by it's lack of profit-incentive and by the perverse incentives of our current implementation of democracy. We should expand the free speech rights, and other basic human rights, to cover all people in all situations.

Actually, that profit incentive thing is debatable, I take that back. A for-profit government could be quite horrifying.

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