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Comment by goatcode | Hacker News Reader

It's a private company. They can do that if they want.

I agree that the argument you’re making is flippant, but it was used by a lot of well-known people to support their argument of Facebook and Twitter censorship. What I find more interesting is that when that same argument is used in other situations, such a small businesses deciding to open during the lockdown, it is routinely down voted and shouted down.

>> It's a private company. They can do that if they want.

> What I find more interesting is that when that same argument is used in other situations, such a small businesses deciding to open during the lockdown, it is routinely down voted and shouted down.

The key concept is that it would be a violation of Facebook's First Amendment rights to forbid them from banning their users (i.e. force them to carry their messages). It would be compelled speech/compelled association.

Your example about businesses defying covid lockdowns is a completely different thing. Being a private company is not a license to do whatever you want: Facebook still has to comply with the law, as do those businesses.

If you're looking for something that looks like a contradiction, the one you're looking for is antidescrimination law: why can Facebook ban users of type X because it's a private company, but it's illegal for a wedding cake maker to refuse customers of type Y? If you're looking at it simply as a legalistic First Amendment thing, the situations look they should be the same. If they're not, it's because it's not a simple First Amendment thing, and other principles and context have to be balanced with First Amendment principles.

> it's because it's not a simple First Amendment thing

Or maybe governments don't always follow the law. That's a possibility too.

> Or maybe governments don't always follow the law. That's a possibility too.

It is, but I think it's way more common for people to be broadly ignorant of the law and legal concepts except a few little bits about some rights that they believe very strongly and rigidly.

It's sort of like software requirements: things usually seem simplest at the beginning, when you know the least. Then you learn more and the requirements get complicated match the actual needs. Then sometimes you get some cowboy who comes in later, makes a flash judgement on little understanding that things should be simpler, and then either breaks everything or re-discovers the lessons you already figured out.

I'm tired of this BS argument.

When you reach full monopoly on a market you have to be regulated.

FB has no right to dictate what can be said publicly. This is the role of governments.

> FB has no right to dictate what can be said publicly. This is the role of governments.

I don't mean to be a pedant, but its literally as old as time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code

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

All TV stations have an editorial guide, this defines what can and can't be said. Sure you can push at the boundaries, but stray to far and you'll be pulled off air.

All newspapers have editorial standards as well.

This is why there was such an explosion in 'zine culture in the late 80s early 90s.

censorship by private individuals has always been there, we forget that in the last 10 years we've been able to literally say and do anything we want on the internet with little to no repercussions.

Yes, and we determined TV to be archaic, rigid and top-down. We tried to build something better. Now we are trying to not become as shitty. That is literally the point.

All TV, all newspapers, OK but where are all the Facebooks? That's the difference.

They do have the right to dictate what can be said publicly, on their platforms. They can’t dictate who listens to you, but speaking and listening are not the same thing. The old analogy of “you are welcome in my living room until I decide you are not” applies here.

If you are finding it difficult to reach people, the onus is on you to find a way to reach an audience, not on them to provide it for you.

That adage was from a time before a single company's "living room" could swallow the town square and part of the postal service in nearly every town across dozens of countries.

It doesn't matter. Personal liberty, freedom of speech (which implies freedom from compelled speech) and freedom of association (and even, arguably, property rights) are scale invariant. And everyone seems to have forgotten that those rights apply to the owners of sites and platforms as well.

Speaking of tired BS arguments...

>When you reach full monopoly on a market you have to be regulated.

Facebook doesn't have anything like "full monopoly" on any market. They don't have a monopoly on the internet, they don't have a monopoly on social media. They don't have a monopoly on human communication. They're not even the most popular social media platform among some demographics.

>FB has no right to dictate what can be said publicly.

They're not dictating what can be said publicly, they're dictating what can be said on their platform which, yes, they have the right to do.

I agree. But if FB is going to do something stupid I would like to see them engage in their stupidity without playing favorites.

Until the government begins pressuring them to suppress speech (like holding hearings and threatening to make laws). When that happens the First Amendment comes into play.

Legally they can. That doesn't mean they should.

I think he was being ironic.

I hope he was being ironic.

Would my being silly satisfy your hopes?

> Would my being silly satisfy your hopes?

Now that you brought it up, it would make for a better discussion if you dialed down sarcasm.

Don't be snarky. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Otherwise the conversation devolves into this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25852297

Cool, thanks for the tip my man!

It depends on what your definition of is is, or something like that.

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