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Comment by kadendogthing | Hacker News Reader

I thought it'd at least be a few responses before someone went for the typical "got'em" style of response that inevitably relies on Missing the Point, but I guess not.

I don't need to prove that to you. Even in your own odd request, you didn't even make the feeble attempt to pretend that you're running a popular media platform. We are talking about extremely popular platforms that inherently give credence to any view points espoused on those platforms, view points that can have far reaching effects. To give you a very specific area that we're touching on, it's internet demagoguery.

Editorialization is not censorship, nutter.

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I don't in any way expect that Twitter has reviewed a tweet for content and approves of the content therein. Equally so for Facebook et al.

The platforms ubiquity makes them the Hydes Park / Public Square of the modern age- if anything they should be regulated to be content neutral rather than be encouraged to silence certain viewpoints.

That's just not true though when you consider that these platforms have algorithms that will determine which posts get more visibility than others (trending is the most obvious of these). I don't think this would be even half as much of a debate if we had an electronic platform that could actually be the modern public square of the US, but instead we have only private entities attempting to provide this, and they are decidedly not protectors of free speech (that would be our government). The extension of this is that even if the government did provide such a platform, there would likely still need to be rules because as much as you like to think we have unfettered free speech, you still can't stand in the middle of the public square and call for the death of another individual or you can't shout "FIRE" in a movie theater when there is none.

If we actually had a government run system, we could ensure things like accountability for your ideas that you self publish in such a public square because the government itself would have the servers that contain the data. The constitution would limit the government from censoring this platform, but it wouldn't limit the government from implementing more effective methods of processing abuses of free speech such as libel by having an immediate record of what was said. My main point here is that it's easier to agree on what if any free speech limitations should apply if there isn't this proxy layer of "Well corporations can do whatever they want with their servers" and "Well these laws don't apply to what they said because nobody is speaking in the domain that freedom of speech applies to"

> If we actually had a government run system

We do! Buy a domain, point to your home server, and go to town. Any unlawful messages you spew will be met with seizure of your domain and/or servers, but otherwise you're free to promote or discuss any ideas you see fit.

If you're talking about a government-run social network, that's an interesting idea. I was actually talking about this with someone a few days ago, but with regard to a government run (or government funded) news/journalism publication that reported on facts (as opposed to felings and clickbait).

I think these government-run services would eventually become victim to people's calls for them to be removed...either they are too biased, or not biased enough. A social network in particular...I cannot imagine a social network built and run by the government that ANYBODY would actually want to use.

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