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Comment by vbezhenar | Hacker News Reader

> Freedom of speech/expression is a right of every individual on this planet

I'm not aware of any country with unlimited speech. Definitely not US or EU countries. I'm not observing huge pushback from US citizens, business and other countries when Facebook and Twitter tried to silence Trump and some other conservative leaders. There are topics that are forbidden by law to discuss in EU, for example to deny Holocaust. Those are examples of lack of freedom in so-called "free" countries. So obviously freedom of speech is not universal approach and some limitation of that freedom is an accepted norm.

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This is simply tu quoque - clearly there are limits to free speech in every country but where possible the right to free expression should outweigh the the state’s desire to silence political opposition.

Twitter was a pretty good example of this actually - protecting people’s right to hear from the President (despite him saying and doing many things that would have got regular users banned) right up until the point where he led an insurrection on the Capitol. I don’t think you can argue anything other than Twitter taking their responsibility to free speech incredibly seriously - to the point where they were often accused of being complicit to juice user metrics. And perhaps do some research into Joel Kaplan before you claim the same of Facebook.

Clearly this is not in the same realm as Holocaust denial (which is incidentally also legal in roughly half of the EU countries).

> This is simply tu quoque

Not the original poster, but I don't think it is.

The problem is that, since all countries acknowledge that there should be limits on speech, it's inappropriate for one country (or company, for that matter) to decide what should be the limit in another country.

If it were black and white, there'd be a much stronger case. But this is a company saying "our shade of grey is preferable to yours".

I obviously don't agree with what the Turkish government demanded, but I'm unconvinced that this in particular is a strong argument for a foreign company to decide to overrule local law. And I really think that should be a very high bar.

The issue is that once you go down that road, you preclude discussion of any issues by one country / company if that country also imposes limitations.

You need to pick a principle somewhere - and I’m not sure ‘we’ll simply block access to any material the host government finds objectionable’ is going to be one that’s going to lead us toward a better world.

> Freedom of speech/expression is a right of every individual on this planet

I do think that it's slightly more nuanced. On certain issues there is no freedom of speech. This is when it is determined that the opinions expressed are detrimental to the human race and largely false. Nazi beliefs are in this category. They are so harmful to the public that individual freedom is quashed. incitement to murder is another. You certainly don't have freedom to say everything you like. That would lead to anarchy.

Edit: the only true freedom is freedom of belief. You are free to believe anything you like. However you may not always be allowed to pass on those beliefs. The press are given gag orders all the time, it's not the most fundemental human right.

>This is when it is determined that the opinions expressed are detrimental to the human race and largely false.

Then any speech that threatens power structures will be determined to be detrimental, and banned.

The only way to protect speech is to protect speech, even if you dislike it. That's why the ACLU, before they were coopted as they are today, defended nazis in illinois.

Don't be short sighted, be long sighted. Today its nazis, 60 years ago its was activists. Same rules.

I'm not saying that it's a clear cut issue. I think there are definite cases when freedom of speech causes more harm then good. If someone will preach that we must kill every single person with 8 fingers, for example, we will curtail his freedom with very little consideration.

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