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Comment by tbabb | Hacker News Reader

There is a big philosophical and legal difference between a population of companies each executing editorial/moderating power over content published on their own platforms and a central government doing the same thing over arbitrary content on arbitrary platforms.

Who is doing the editing is extremely important. If a newspaper declines to publish a white supremacist screed in their op-ed column, that is not censorship. The screeching racist can always try and publish somewhere else, or publish themselves (online or in print), or yell in the streets. But if the government intervenes and tries to force/prevent any of those things from happening, that's censorship and it's unconstitutional. Completely different ballgame. It drives me up the wall that people think those cases are "equivalent".

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Not the right word I think. Of course it censorship Its just not government censorship, and thus not a protected mode of free speech. Not equivalent of course, but still censorship all the same.

Free speech is an American value, not just a few words in the Constitution. I'm sympathetic when folks object to private censors. As an American, I'm offended as well.

In your view, is a newspaper obligated to publish a racist screed every time someone sends one in?

A newspaper has editors and a viewpoint. An online platform for folks to post their own articles does not. Its akin to the post office having an editorial board?

All of these self-styled platforms have already taken editorial actions under the guise of enforcing their TOS, it’s called moderation. Unless what you’re sending is illegal, the post office doesn’t get to pick and choose what it sends; Twitter, Facebook, Google and the rest do. If you want to send porn through the USPS, you can, but try that with FB.

The “platform” excuse is dead on the first real legal challenge. It’s past time for these publishers to be held to the standards other publishers have been held to for decades or longer. They can’t cry “free speech” on one hand while acting like publishers on the other. When it was just galling hypocrisy fair enough, but they’re big enough and have supplanted enough “traditional media” that their time has come.

Unlike the post office, both a newspaper and Google's primary competitive service is organizing and prioritizing information. Would you suggest that the government mandate how they do that?

The post office is more analogous to the transport layer, in which case you'd be making a solid case for net neutrality, and I'd agree with you there. The post office having an editorial board would be like Comcast having an editorial board.

If the new media and the tech companies were controlled by right wingers, you would be singing an entirely different tune. Namely the "Free Speech" tune, exactly as performed in Berkeley in the 60's.

The problem isn't with excluding "X" screeds. The problem is with dishonest actors who happen to have corporate power who label everything they disagree with as "X." The problem is with arbitrary corporate media power which can have an effect commensurate with government violation of the 1st amendment, but which skirts the law because it's "private."

In the 1960's the government sought to suppress the speech of students and large segments of the populace, then that populace sought to fight back using Free Speech. Now, in the 21st century, corporate media and tech power seeks to suppress the speech of large segments of the populace online. The question isn't whether or not it's the government. It's the question of whether or not coercive power is going against the will of a segment of the populace. It's the question of force vs. argument.

Fox news is what you describe-- a huge corporate power with control over the views accessible to millions of people. I hate Fox news and wish for them to stop existing, but you won't catch me arguing that the government should shut them down or tell them what to say.

I'm glad you stand on principle. There are many on the left who would gladly shut down Fox news, future consequences be damned.

The issue is not the government shutting down media. It's with big tech shutting down small mom & pop media. If it's wrong for the government to censor, we shouldn't let the authoritarians skirt the constitution by gathering the commensurate power (in the form of a monopoly) to do just as much.

"Or tell them what to say." Is there anyone who actually thinks that what some random YouTuber says is the official word of YouTube? They probably exist and comprise only a sliver of a fraction of a percent of the population. Censorship on a media platform should not be a form of speech. The fact that this is such a sticky issue probably indicates that another category is needed.

> Is there anyone who actually thinks that what some random YouTuber says is the official word of YouTube?

If the government tells YouTube which YouTube videos to suppress, no matter how "unimportant" the "random YouTuber", then the government is restricting both the YouTubers' speech, and YouTube's right to prioritize information as it sees fit. Just the same as if the government told newspapers which articles were allowed to appear on the front page, or which op-eds it could select.

Let's turn your criticism right back around: Would that kind of regulation be tolerable to you if we were talking about conservative publications/websites, and it were a liberal government telling them what to do?

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