Can you really? Here in Sweden, if a business owner refuses service to people based on political opinions or similar they are in for a world of hurt. I imagine it’s the same in most of the western world.
In Parler's case, the issue isn't that they are conservative. The issue is that they refuse to take any responsibility for the hate and violence on their platform. John Matze had every opportunity to take responsibility for the content, but he was vocal that he would not do anything about it.
If I were running a cloud provider company, I wouldn't want anything to do with this behavior either. Who cares whether the users lean right or left - hate and violence are unacceptable.
The US tends to bias towards letting market pressures take care of this sort of thing, and then stepping in if there are enough high-profile cases of failure.
There are also a bunch of edge cases that I think most people would be ok with. There are conservative-only dating sites. I wouldn't be allowed on the platform, but that doesn't really bother me. If there was a republican-only grocery store, that gets sketchy. And if there was a democrat-only government program, that would clearly be illegal.
It depends on the context.
Political affiliation is a protected class for employment in some states[0].
Political affiliation is a protected class for accommodations such as grocery stores in DC[1] and Madison, Wisconsin[2].
[0] https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/discrimin...
[1] https://ohr.dc.gov/protectedtraits
[2] https://library.municode.com/wi/madison/codes/code_of_ordina...
There are other laws that prevent business owners from denying people entry or removing somebody from their store or similar (see Supreme Court decision NJA 1995 s. 84). They can’t even prevent people who have historically stolen from them from coming in and spending time in the store. But apparently they don’t have to do business with them. I thought they did.
That surprises me. "Political opinion" is not a protected class [1] in most jurisdictions in the US, and I assume that the same holds for whatever the local equivalent is to protected class. Especially considering that a lot of European countries also have laws that prohibit Holocaust denial--which are unconstitutional in the US per the 1st Amendment.
[1] Protected class, in US discrimination law jargon, is an attribute that you cannot legally use to discriminate against. The usual protected classes are sex, race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, age, sexual orientation, and gender identity, although there is some variation from jurisdiction to jurisdiction (e.g., military service is protected in my state).
There are other laws that prevent business owners from denying people entry or removing somebody from their store or similar (see Supreme Court decision NJA 1995 s. 84). They can’t even prevent people who have historically stolen from them from coming in and spending time in the store. But apparently they don’t have to do business with them. I thought they did.
We need to stop pretending like everyone's viewpoint is equal and we shouldn't exclude people for what they believe. Violent racists should be ostracized and pushed out of society. People who choose to have those kinds of beliefs are a constant threat to the safety of people around them.
Now obviously it's a blurry line, but again, the neo-Nazis storming the capital and their ilk are just way over the line. Just because it's blurry doesn't mean we have to pretend it doesn't exist out of some sense of fairness.
> We need to stop pretending like everyone's viewpoint is equal and we shouldn't exclude people for what they believe. Violent racists should be ostracized and pushed out of society. People who choose to have those kinds of beliefs are a constant threat to the safety of people around them.
I will hard disagree with this every day of the week. To me this is a clear example of how ideology has taken the place of religion in today's society. It's no longer enough for you to be civil and respect the laws, but even having the wrong thoughts is considered criminal, just like lust and envy are considered sinful in religion.
We're heading in a dark direction if we're re-adopting the same principles and perspectives that were behind McCarthyism, let alone used to burn witches and conduct the Inquisition.
And this would be an issue if we were actually talking about government action, but we are talking about private individuals deciding who they will associate with. When the government gets involved then you have reason for concern, but if this is private parties engaging in commerce you have absolutely no leg to stand on.
(cue the desperate, too-cute-by-half arguments "but are they REALLY inciting violence?")
It's a bad faith argument, yet it's everywhere. I'd think HN would be better than that, yet here we are, having the same fight every time free speech is the topic.
Also note that the parent mentioned "government action" whereas the GP is referring to a business taking action. The distinction is incredibly important, yet so many free-speech purists respond to corporate action as if it was a government action.
Less sarcastically, do you agree that the amplification of thought and rhetoric possible using social media isn't something that was considered 500 years ago? i.e. having wrong thoughts isn't dangerous, but having 75 million followers and pushing your wrong thoughts on them is dangerous. It isn't thoughts any longer - it's an action.
Speech is a kind of action, isn't it?
Well then it's a good thing being kicked out of a bar isn't "prosecution".