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Comment by minikites | Hacker News Reader

"Free speech" usually refers to government interference to speech, why should a business be required to make what they see as a bad business decision?

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OP is saying they want to support a private business that voluntarily shares the government's mandate on free speech, even when they are not required to.

I'm saying it's a somewhat nonsensical viewpoint, imagine substituting another governmental protection. Do you support businesses that oppose quartering soldiers in the homes of citizens? "Free speech" applies to the rights granted/enforced/protected by government and businesses are operating on a different level than that.

The OP (and myself) consider freedom of speech is an ethical right that everyone should support. I live in the UK, we don't have a first amendment, but I still support freedom of speech.

The viral video in Baidu this week is of a student activist in Hong Kong who supports freedom of speech, and her speech (independence for Hong Kong) is explicitly illegal.

After we let people speak, and we dislike the speech, we can can then mock, disagree with, and poke fun at it, using our own freedom of speech.

>Do you support businesses that oppose quartering soldiers in the homes of citizens?

Given the option I'd pick them over a alternative.

I suppose I'm still not conveying my point (or I'm misunderstanding the points of others).

Either way (pro-quartering/speech or anti-quartering/speech) a business has no impact on those rights. A business can't decide to quarter soldiers in your house. A business can't "restrict" free speech (unless that business is a complete monopoly in that market, a separate issue) as a user can easily find another registrar or start their own registrar to meet their needs.

Put another way, if your local theater won't allow you to show "Triumph of the Will", that's not a restriction on your speech, because you can start your own theater.

>Put another way, if your local theater won't allow you to show "Triumph of the Will", that's not a restriction on your speech, because you can start your own theater.

Legally we agree, but I can also choose to not support those businesses.

Countering your hypothetical with another hypothetical:

How would you feel if Twitter decided to ban all people of color from being able to use the platform?

Is that something you're totally cool with, because companies can't possibly affect your rights to free exercise of speech, or is it something you'd prefer they not do?

"Free speech" as a concept extends far behind and beyond the First Amendment, which is the US statute you're alluding to.

There's nothing nonsensical about a person believing in absolute free speech as a core value and supporting businesses that share that value.

Just because you don't share a value doesn't make it "nonsensical".

Please share your definition of "absolute free speech", as the government has defined many exceptions and regularly limits the speech of citizens. Would your definition exclude those exceptions?

This comment seems unrelated to the parent comment, as the parent makes no mention to government interference nor to any imagined requirement for a business to serve others.

I understood "free speech" in the parent comment to mean an unwillingness to censor for any reason except those related to legal matters.

It is one thing to say "we won't accept any supremacist or terrorist organization" outright; it is another to say you'll take anyone and then actually subject them to an arbitrary and unpublished terms of service.

There's a big difference between the right to free speech and the principle of free speech.

Easydns has chosen to follow the Non-aggression principle which is a limited free speech moral stance.

https://www.easydns.com/terms-of-service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle

OP simply wants to support those who truly believe in free speech. Not one who, in OPs opinion, has simply crowned themselves as free speech champions until pressured.

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aeasydns.com+free+spee...

For the same reason that there is net neutrality. So that the few unelected officials don't decide what the mass is allowed to see.

*always refers to government interference to speech

Are you sure you're not thinking of "the first amendment" rather than "free speech"?

Of course I'm talking about the first amendment, the only protection of free speech that exists in the USA. Any time someone brings up free speech and it's involving non-government entitites is just kidding themselves that they believe they have a "right" to express their views however they want.

So, because of the first amendment, we do have a "right" to express our views however we want. Because of the freedom of association, people and companies have the right to refuse to associate with us.

Irrespective of the first amendment, any given individual or company is free to respect the principle of free speech as much or as little as they like. I choose to respect the principle more than you. Thanks to free speech, we both have the express our disagreement. Because YCombinator respects free speech to some extent, they have furnish us a platform that allows us to publish these opinions.

Treating speech as a boolean is naive. There are a range of protections ranging from popular opinion, free speech devotees, all the way up to the first amendment.

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