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Comment by corporate_shi11 | Hacker News Reader

This is an attack on free speech.

"Just use a different service!" people will say. Great, until other services also terminate your account.

Yes these are private companies, but a very small number of them have tremendous control over what people see and hear online. The ideal of free speech overcomes the ideal of private corporate autonomy for me, and I believe it does for most.

The nature of social media and online services requires we rethink regulation. People should not be kicked off of platforms and services unless they are using those services to break the law.

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You don't have a right to some one else's property. That company has a right to refuse service to any non protected class it sees fit. Kinda like if Mailchimp was a baker ;). Can't just change the rules since the baker is bigger.

Just because Mailchimp can, doesn't mean they should.

“Free speech” is a constitutional concept that defines how the government is allowed to interact with citizens.

Freedom of speech does not exist for private institutions and companies.

I would direct anyone who has a problem with this to the Mailchimp terms of use and acceptable use policy, which state:

> Mailchimp may refuse service, close accounts of any Members, and change eligibility requirements at any time.

Additionally, here’s a link to the acceptable use policy, which excludes a number of generally legal but undesired uses: https://mailchimp.com/legal/acceptable_use/

In my mind, extremist views don’t need to be defended by businesses and companies. In fact, refusing service to those extremists is a great way to moderate our society. A great way for Stefan to not get kicked off of platforms would be to stop spreading white supremacy.

To give you an identical analogy, if a couple of people told the bartender that I was harassing and hitting on them, the bartender could kick me out of the bar. I don’t have a right to a trial or due process. I don’t have the right to explain myself or present evidence. I have to accept that. But generally, that won’t happen to me if I just act like a well-adjusted human being.

Free speech is a principle. The first amendment states that the US government shall not violate this principle. The principle and the amendment are separate things.

Free speech is a theory that doesn’t describe anything that actually exists, and it’s used as a crutch to support weirdly political points of outrage.

You can’t say what you want without consequences anywhere in life.

This makes me think of “How To Win Friends and Influence People.” Saying exactly what’s on your mind will rarely get you the ideal outcome you are after.

> Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech

Read just a little further.

> the exercise of these rights carries "special duties and responsibilities" and may "therefore be subject to certain restrictions" when necessary "[f]or respect of the rights or reputation of others" or "[f]or the protection of national security or of public order (order public), or of public health or morals".

> Freedom of speech and expression, therefore, may not be recognized as being absolute, and common limitations or boundaries to freedom of speech relate to libel, slander, obscenity, pornography, sedition, incitement, fighting words, classified information, copyright violation, trade secrets, food labeling, non-disclosure agreements, the right to privacy, dignity, the right to be forgotten, public security, and perjury.

The real world is messy and rights can't be absolute because each could encroach on others. We try to find the right equilibrium.

All of what you say is true. And I believe that social media platforms deplatforming people according to arbitrary judgements or public pressure is unacceptable in a free society. It deviates from the "right equilibrium".

> reputation of others

This sounds like slander or libel. It also seems that is what is being done to Molyneux, not by him.

> protection of national security or of public order (order public)

This sounds like making threats. Is Molyneux making threats against people or calling for actual violence?

> of public health or morals

Blasphemy or obscenity laws? I thought that we were past these things in the west.

> The real world is messy and rights can't be absolute because each could encroach on others.

Is Molyneux infringing on the rights of other or are others trying to infringe the rights of Molyneux?

It wouldn't be very hard to argue scientific racisms very purpose is to encroach on the rights of other races. By painting them as lesser and dehumanizing them.

Considering he is an anarchist, I don't think he is trying to encroach on the rights of anyone.

Hate speech is anti-free speech as a principle. Hate speech, which Moleyneux is known for, is actively trying to step on the free speech of others.

Can you point me to where he is trying to step on the free speech of others? That seems like what you are doing. By saying his ideas are hate, you are trying to stop him from saying them.

"Hate speech" is one of the most abused terms in political discourse today, so often being used by people as a mere political cudgel.

Ignoring that for a moment, how is Moleyneux preventing others from reaching an audience, which would be the definition of stifling speech? It seems the only groups actually responsible for doing that are the social media companies so fond of deplatforming people because of either capricious and arbitrary enforcement of standards or public pressure campaigns.

Why don't you just come out and admit it: you don't like what Moleyneux has to say, and you are happy he is being deplatformed. Simple as that.

I don't like what Moleyneux has to say either, but capricious deplatforming makes a mockery of free speech.

Great, I would like to see people deplatformed for advocating illegal immigration and racism against white people. Such people are rampant on social media, yet I doubt many of the same people eager to get Moleyneux deplatformed would be as passionate about deplatforming those offenders.

The point is that if we are willing to accept arbitrary deplatforming - which is necessarily the case if we accept deplatforming at all - then speech can be arbitrarily stifled by a few executives, or a few angry mobs. This is intolerable.

Your analogy to the bartender is not appropriate, because we are talking about platforms which explicitly facilitate speech and outreach to millions. Presence in a bar is quite different.

When people bring up the technicalities of freedom of speech it really helps if all the technical aspects is mentioned. Freedom of speech, as part of the US constitution, only defines how governments may behave. For private institutions and companies located in the US there is a very related law called anti-discrimination. When a company refuse service based on religious, political or other protected classes (defined by federal law and each individual state), people may think in terms of free speech but the technical correct term is then anti-discrimination.

In the EU however the term freedom of speech can be used as the EU declaration of human rights does not define governments.

To give an identical analogy, a bartender can not kick you out if they notice that you are Jewish. They can kick you out if you are harassing people, but they can end up in court having to explain themselves and present evidence that the refusing of service was not done on the basis of disagreeing with peoples views and beliefs.

> The ideal of free speech overcomes the ideal of private corporate autonomy for me, and I believe it does for most.

Then don't use services that behave in a way you disagree with. I know that you tried to write off that answer in your first sentence, but in my opinion it's the best solution in terms of balancing competing rights.

What good alternative to MailChimp would you suggest?

I'm not familiar with that industry, but it seems to me there are several players in it. Also, depending on your needs, you may be able to operate your own email marketing campaign without using any of them.

The principle of "Free speech" exists mainly to protect people who want to criticize their government and for people to have debates.

And there are plenty of hot button issues that are certainly debatable. Taxes, abortion, death penalty, universal healthcare, gun rights, etc. I could go on and one. Nobody should ever be silenced or deplatformed for having an opinion on any of these things.

But racism, bigotry, and white supremacy? No. That's hate speech, and IMO, shouldn't covered under the principle of free speech. You can attack ideas in your speech all you want, but you can't attack people for attributes they were born with. Try to be coy all you want about how they're only words, but words incite violence, even without being explicitly violent.

I think you are missing the point. Racism, bigotry, and white supremacy are all things Stefan is against.

How much of his stuff did you listen to before you came to this conclusion?

"But racism, bigotry, and white supremacy? No. That's hate speech, and IMO, shouldn't covered under the principle of free speech."

There are serious scholars such as Arthur Jensen who have studied the origin of black/white differences in IQ test scores and concluded that a large fraction of the difference is genetic in origin. One can read "Thirty Years of Research of Race Differences in Cognitive Ability" (2005) by Jensen and Rushton https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/Rushton-Jense... . To what extent there are racial differences in IQ is a scientific question, not a moral question.

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