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Comment by endisukaj | Hacker News Reader

The right to free speech protects you from being persecuted by the government. Patreon and any other private company reserve the right to choose their customers (and workers) based on what they say. This has always been the case. There are countless examples, even in the past, where companies have fired employees for saying things they shouldn't have.

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The issue is Jack Conte said behavior that isn't on "Patreon the platform itself" wouldn't be policed by Patreon.

And here we are.

Free speech as a concept has been around for a lot longer than the US government.

The problem is if free speech is effectively banned from the internet due to the internet being controlled by a handful of private companies, do we still have free speech?

Let's stay on topic here; being banned from Patreon doesn't limit his speech at all.

But what happens when Patreon, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, Twitch and PayPal all work together to create collective censorship? Is your speech being limited if you're functionally blocked from the meaningfully accessible parts of the internet?

Yes, these are all private companies. In fact someone already tried to create an alternative Patreon (called Hatreon, iirc) that was shut down by Visa. Allowing censorship by private companies doesn't work if private companies control who gets to exist on the internet.

No, your speech is still safe even if Comcast cuts off your service. The internet does not equal freedom of speech. Just because the barrier of entry to Twitter or Facebook is considerably easier than appearing on CNN they are companies that can have rules regarding who they allow on.

If people are being arrested for what they are saying then that's censorship and something to be worried about.

What happens is what's already happening: These platforms start becoming less and less diverse echo chambers where only Silicon Valley approved opinions and world views are allowed, and people who do not hold those opinions or views go off and find alternative services, further isolating people from each other, into their own ideological rabbit holes.

We're talking about Patreon here. These guys are effectively selling their opinions; their supporters want to give them money so that they keep producing their opinions.

What happens if I try to exercise my speech by selling little racist caricature dolls? Walmart, Target, KMart and 7-11 would refuse to stock them. Is my free speech being limited if I'm functionally blocked from the meaningfully accessible parts of our capitalist system?

No, and it would be ludicrous to suggest that grocery stores owe me shelf space.

(Facebook, Reddit and Twitch are a different animal altogether; Comcast, Time Warner, etc. are yet another leve lremoved.)

As I see it, a functional democracy requires tolerance of unpopular opinions not just by the government but also by society at large. I don't agree with these sorts of statements, but I believe that censoring them is harmful to society.

> a functional democracy requires tolerance of unpopular opinions not just by the government but also by society at large

If you insert "some" before "unpopular", I'm with you. If you require "all" before "unpopular", then no, I disagree - e.g. people who believe "LGBTQ people should be done away" with, well, that's an "unpopular opinion" that should not be tolerated and, in fact, should be made anathema for anyone to express.

That's because it has other properties besides being unpopular.

What other (I'm assuming redeeming since if they're not redeeming, why would we care?) properties could the opinion "LGBTQ people should be done away with" have?

This runs into the paradox of tolerance[1]. Net, when the things being censored are say, advocating for genocide, the harm they can lead to is much greater than not having people advocating for genocide.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

No, the 1st Amendment attempts to protect this valuable thing in the same way that the 21st Amendment protects your booze supply.

Free speech is a much bigger, and older, idea. And can be seriously threatened by many small changes in our public culture, which need not have anything to do with Washington.

Just because one form of free speech is enshrined in The First Amendment, doesn't mean that other forms aren't also good.

The danger is related to the centralized power of aggregators becomes close to the power that governments have over a single part of society.

But then what do you think of the McCarthy era, when private companies (Hollywood majors) wouldn't touch someone who was suspected of communism, making it impossible for them to find work?

By your standards it's all OK, because it's not the government?

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