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Comment by kylnew | Hacker News Reader

likewise thanks for not reducing my response to a comic though we might disagree

I actually agree that with the second part of your initial comment in that a private company can enforce the rules of speech that it sees fit.

What I was getting at, is that there seems to be this knee-jerk reaction recently where when someone mentions freedom of speech and a private platform in the same sentence, it's like a trope that lets people say "a-ha! this isn't a freedom of speech issue as it's not government, disregard all of this!".

It seems that people treat freedom of speech solely like a legal doctrine, when it's a broad concept that has legal implications in jurisdictions worldwide. I guess it's fair to say that the conversation will always sway towards what legal protections are offered or infringed, but that shouldn't prevent us talking about how private companies and individuals choose to explore it.

Maybe what we need then is a term separate from 'Freedom of Speech', which is inherently tied to the constitution, so that people can break away from what you see as a parrot-like response and engage in the greater debate of 'Should we be listening or not?' regardless of government involvement. It would make for a much larger and more rich discussion, I'm sure.

I just don't like the idea that private companies have some obligation to be bi-partisan; because that's the way some people are throwing around the term "Freedom of Speech" like it's this ticket to say whatever you want to anyone you want.

That goes to the core of the problem though. The term isn't at all inherently tied to the constitution. It's an American-centric trope. I'm neither American nor live there so the constant clawing of the phrase back to that is tiring.

I'm Canadian myself and it's not my constitution either. If you're going to get mad when people react to that term then maybe ask yourself if you could sway more opinions by finding an alternative way to express the same thing.

To me this is the same as a UX problem. Don't get mad at the user for the way they interpret your interface.

I don't know where you read that I'm getting mad. I pointed out that your interpretation of what freedom of speech actually isn't anywhere near where it is when it's discussed as a principle, and went on to highlight that that interpretation is often used to shut down conversation.

To say that it's a UX problem is to lend credence to the idea that all interpretations are equal. My assertion is that the narrow legal interpretation is a recent phenomenon that's nowhere near as 'equal' as talking about it as a concept.

Even the article on Freedom of Speech on wikipedia states that it's a principle, and then directs the user to other articles on legal implications of freedom of speech by jurisdiction.

Not that wikipedia is an absolute authority, but it acts as a demonstration that the language people generally use when talking about freedom of speech is that it's a principle and a set of ideas.

The fact that there are legal implications in jurisdictions doesn't mean that we have a UX problem with the word, nor does it mean that we need "new word" in order to talk about it from the angle in which it's most commonly approached anyway.

It won't let me reply a thread deeper any longer but I hear what you say and understand your perspective. Apologies, I wasn't trying to accuse you of being mad; I honestly thought you were trying to express yourself that way given the frustration you have with the 'XKCD-like' responses. That said, it's still been a much more amicable argument than many on the internet. I actually think you are mostly right, and probably more well informed on the subject matter than I. I'd still be interested to see this whole discussion framed in a creative way that avoids the term 'freedom of speech' entirely because for better or worse, it's just one of those polarizing terms that seems to degrade conversation more than aid it.

Hey, the internet isn't the best place to hash out a common understanding anyway as we'll spend most of the time trying to level out our terminology before proceeding. But likewise, thanks for the perspective.

I think you're definitely getting at my point. There's the recognition of your inherent freedom of speech in the Bill of Rights, but it is not derived from the piece of parchment, just recognized by it. And if the US Federal Government can't impede that right, why should some random corporation that's never even turned a profit be able to?

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