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Comment by valine | Hacker News Reader

How can this possibly hold up in court? Doesn't "big tech" have a right to free speech?

> Doesn't "big tech" have a right to free speech?

If corporations had an unlimited right to free speech, the Civil Rights Act wouldn't be constitutional. Clearly though, it is, so the courts have found that some limits on private businesses ability to discriminate is legal.

I guess the question will come down to whose free speech rights are more important, the end-users' or the corporate entity's?

The 1st amendment in the US constitution prevents the government from stifling speech. Being banned on privately owned and operated social media is not a violation of your right to free speech.

The US Constitution only prohibits the government from inflicting cruel and unusual punishment. It says nothing about preventing a privately owned and operated company from doing so.

Yes. The constitution doesn't include Section 230 either. Other laws besides the constitution also regulate the activities of privately owned companies. This doesn't have anything to do with the government not being able to abridge the free speech of its citizens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._R...

Depends what they want to claim to be. If they write, or if they orchestrate an ongoing discussion so that they de facto decide what is said, then they are "speaking".

They can do that, but not while claiming to be a platform.

Platform or publisher.

This is completely wrong. There is no distinction between platform or publisher in Section 230, no matter how often people repeat this ridiculous take.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...

That's just a law. It's not in the Constitution.

Depending on how people see Big Tech, the law may or may not be changed. And the kinds of arguments FB, et al., make to defeat this law will affect how people see Big Tech.

Sure, but people are currently making lots of comments thinking the law, as written, makes some distinction between publishers and platforms. Which it doesn’t.

> Hello! You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 Of The Communications Decency Act

Did I mention Section 230 Of The Communications Decency Act?

Well no I didn't.

The concept is broader than any law. And you should not be getting legal advice from Mike at techdirt anyway.

That's really cool, but we're not talking what the law is, but what it should be.

What does free speech entail when a literal handful of unelected people control the modern public square?

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