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Comment by skuthus | Hacker News Reader

>the billionaires running the digital tools all decide to ban me, I am silenced.

How so? Are you incapable of using non-digital media to communicate? Are you incapable of creating your own digital platforms for communication or using alternative, less popular means to do so? Are you prevented from going to city hall, council meetings, political rallies, or voting? Your speech as it relates to your rights granted in the constitution remains completely intact. Your rights are unaffected by your access to certain digital platforms.

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I support banning Parler, but this argument becomes more transparently untrue by the day. The internet is speech now. Visiting city halls and council meetings doesn't affect elections or policies, voting is useless without being part of an organized bloc, which can no longer happen without the internet, and Parler was one of several alt-right attempts to make their own platform--control of the internet is centralized enough that making a platform for non-technical users against the will of the megacorporations is not possible.

If you don't believe free speech absolutism should be allowed, say so, but free speech and this level of corporate dominance are not compatible.

I agree that corporations should be curtailed in both their size and power. This would resolve the paradox of speech being free, but it's platforms being controlled by a few large organizations. However, to say that free speech is absolute is absurd, because absolute free speech in this context would require the limitation of rights of organizations and owners too.

> However, to say that free speech is absolute is absurd, because absolute free speech in this context would require the limitation of rights of organizations and owners too.

I agree, but that's a common position here.

>Visiting city halls and council meetings doesn't affect elections or policies,

Oh how I wish this were actually true sometimes. Try going to any zoning board meeting.

If you are on the no fly list of an airline, aren’t you free to buy your own B787, get a pilot license, get the relevant airport slots and authorisations and go fly by yourself anywhere you want? I mean in theory yes.

precisely. A better way to look at it is that you are free to travel by other means. The burden is convenience.

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