Imagine if email providers were not allowed to filter. Your email would be totally unusable.
Enacting no filters beyond what's illegal would make most of the internet unusable. Like imagine if HN had no moderation? It would lose its original purpose.
So what do you mean support free speech exactly? Allow people to freely post porn, scams, lies, death threats?
The US already limit companies "Right of Association" by virtue of things like Providers of Last Resort (that's the extent of my knowledge on this topic in the context of America) so it's not an alien concept.
Do you feel that the electricity company should be able to cut off your power supply because you made a blog post they don't agree with? How about your mobile phone provider? And if not, why are online services treated any differently?
These platforms are being used by white nationalists and other extremists to normalize their hateful ideology and encourage violence against anyone with different gender orientations, nationality, ethnicity, or religious beliefs.
Gab and Parler have zero interest in free speech as a human right. They want unlimited free speech for acceptable groups (mostly white straight Christians) and no rights for anyone else.
Users on those platforms have posted their intent to hurt and kill others, that content was never moderated, and those users carried out acts of violence. Companies who don't want to be associated with that have disconnected their services ahead of the inevitable legal action to shut the services down.
Literally no one in the US has had their electricity or phone cut off because of a "disagreeable blog post." It's a ridiculous example to bring up in the sea of information about what's going on in those forums.
But why do should people be forced to associate with neonazis against their will? Expressing neonazi and white nationalist propaganda does not make one a a protected class so businesses are free to refuse to provide them service. Does McDonald’s have the right to refuse service to cater a klan rally?
I'm not actually sure where I stand on the issue in it's totality, I try to prevent myself from giving a knee-jerk response simply because the example being used is emotionally inflammatory. I do feel it's more a gradient than a binary issue though.
Edit: Upon re-reading, I misinterpreted this question sorry. The example you supplied might be as apt, but it's just one end of the spectrum. I also can't help but feel that it's like comparing my local Cafe (Switch Cafe in New Brighton, if you're interested) to McDonalds and calling it a free-market success story.
> But why do should people be forced to associate with neonazis against their will?
Why should a company - which is not a person, and something I think is being overlooked in this discussion - be forced to associate with anyone against their will? As I previously mentioned, there are several industries that can't refuse their service and there are several classes to which no industry may refuse their service. If we are looking for justification, I suggest we use the same logic applied in those cases.
> Does McDonald’s have the right to refuse service to cater a klan rally?
Obviously. I'm not sure where this is leading though, so I'll wait before commenting further.
While the ideology is terrible, hateful, close minded, harmful, etc, we tolerate their right to speech because no one knows when you might be the next “Neo Nazi”. A flick of the switch politically, and TPTB might find that LGBT speech is hateful. Perhaps people new to the tech industry don’t remember a time when being a computer nerd was anti-social, and clashed with the norms of society. Sure there are consequences to this ideology. People can get hurt and people’s lives can be impacted. But that is the price to live in a free society. Speaking to your last question, I think McDonalds should absolutely have the right to refuse service to a Klan member. But if I was in charge of McDonalds I would serve them. Because IMHO the outcome of a society where speech is no longer free, either by corporate cancel culture or government regulation, is not a society I want to live in.
And that “perhaps people new to...etc” is a nice backhanded appeal to authority and it falls flat.
Edit: hacker news has rigorously enforced comment guidelines, why is that okay? Why is it not bad per what you say: > “ Because IMHO the outcome of a society where speech is no longer free, either by corporate cancel culture or government regulation, is not a society I want to live in.”
Ultimately, as a business owner, it’s not my (our?) job to direct culture. In fact it is kind of disturbing someone with enough money could change society to their whims. I’m here to create value for myself and the people around me. Political crusades are best left outside the professional/corporate environment.
Once you have that epiphany you can see that creating value for yourself and the people around you is a form of directing culture and vice-versa.
You don't need to actually own a platform to leverage it for your side in a culture war, you only need to know how to exploit it. If you want your platform to be neutral, you need to monitor and moderate it carefully: if you don't choose what culture permeates your platform, others will be glad to choose for you, and I think it's foolish to think it'll be any better.
It could also mean that nazis like your bar.
I've seen this argument get politicized too much to the point of it being emotional. Like your nazi reference.
Social platforms should be moderated according to law. Whatever users legally & lawfully discuss in your platforms should not restricted. And this kind of applying pressure towards platforms worries me. They are merely tools. Let the law deal with this issue and leave free speech alone.