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Comment by AnimalMuppet | Hacker News Reader

HN is what it is because it is not free speech absolutist. Posts get flagged. People get banned. This keeps spam and shills down to a level that signal can stand out from the noise.

So in theory, people here may be "free speech absolutists", but in practice, we enjoy the environment that the moderation here enables. At some level, we know via experience that free speech absolutism is not where we want to live.

And yet, the "censorship" has a pretty light touch. It doesn't censor for viewpoint (in the ideal), but for false or misleading comments, or for personal attacks. (Yes, I know, HN doesn't always live up to that ideal.)

It could be that HN's theory is coming around into alignment with it's practice. We're seeing in the wider world that free speech absolutism can cause problems, and that heavy-handed censorship also causes problems. Speaking broadly, what HN is realizing is that we want a wider world that is more HN-like.

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I'm a "free speech absolutist", meaning: you can't be imprisoned or physically attacked for what you say.

HN is a private space. It can have its own arbitrary acceptance rules, and that has nothing to do with free speech.

I'd be fine with prison for phone spammers who ignore the "do not call" list. You could argue "free speech", but there's more to it than that - they're invading my space and time when I don't want them.

You can say anything you want, as long as you do not infringe on my rights, such as by consuming my resources (time, telecom services, fax paper, etc) when I explicitly said not to (via a Do Not Call listing, etc.)

It's similar to a No Trespassing sign; you can picket on public property (free speech), but doing that on private property (when marked with a sign that fit certain criteria, in most states) might get you arrested and charged with a crime.

In the U.S., the rights of the individual generally trump "public interest".

> No one will argue free speech for that, because you're now consuming someone else's resource (time, mobile minutes, etc) when they explicitly told you not to.

All of the arguments for “free speech” against platform content policies are exactly arguing for consuming someone else's reseources against their expressed direction, so it's provably false that that is sufficient to prevent people from arguing for entitlement based on “free speech”.

In that case, the rights of the (private) service provider are in tension with those of the (also private) individual, so it's a matter for legislation and the courts. Congress has passed laws protecting the speech of the individual within certain types of service providers, i.e. telecom/ISP/website publishers.

> Congress has passed laws protecting the speech of the individual within certain types of service providers, i.e. telecom/ISP/website publishers.

Telecoms, yes, ISPs and Websites, no. FCC adopted regulations under statutory authority it saw as allowing, but not requiring, thatnfor ISPs, but later retracted them. Websites have liability protection for hosts for user content specifically to encourage host moderation of user content, rather than creating an entitlement against such moderation.

You can’t be banned or have your posts deleted. Thats absolute free speech.

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