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Comment by penultimatename | Hacker News Reader

Compelling counter argument.

Why would the First Amendment's freedom of association change because a group is too large or loud in the public sphere?

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Where does the First Amendment mention freedom of association?

While the United States Constitution's First Amendment identifies the rights to assemble and to petition the government, the text of the First Amendment does not make specific mention of a right to association. Nevertheless, the United States Supreme Court held in NAACP v. Alabama (1958) that freedom of association is an essential part of freedom of speech because, in many cases, people can engage in effective speech only when they join with others.

from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association

Freedom of speech implies freedom of association: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association#United_...

The fact that Freedom of Association is implicit in the First is not in question. All that's well litigated, and well understood.

Which is why one can have country clubs with, for example, racial exclusivity clauses. I'm not saying a like the idea of racial exclusivity policies. I'm only saying the First clearly grants private organizations a right to practice racial exclusivity.

The First Amendment explicitly differentiates on scale, as in "the people" versus "the government". When companies get large enough to wield power as de facto government, then it makes sense to demand that they too respect our natural rights.

I've never heard of a court ruling that construed "the government" in the Constitution, an amendment, or a law as synonymous with a private company based on size or power.

That's a massive leap that isn't codified in law and the consequences of intermingling the two concepts has massive implications.

I never said it was declared in law, nor currently interpreted by the courts as such. I was talking about what ought to be, because legally analyzing "what is" is trivial.

I don't think Twitter is to the size where it constitutes de facto government power (although Faceboot seems much closer). I'm just saying that asserting that anything that isn't the bona fide government cannot effectively oppress natural/human rights is a poor idea.

> When companies get large enough to wield power as de facto government, then it makes sense to demand that they too respect our natural rights.

How do you encode "large enough" in the law? And are you suggesting Twitter is wielding power equivalent to that of a government?

I didn't propose any specific legal encoding of "large enough", because yes, such a thing is hard to nail down and fraught with arguments.

I am pointing out that if we view freedom of speech/association as a natural/human right, it is possible for entiti(es) that are not the bona fide "government" to be oppressing that right.

This is trivially demonstrable by interpreting any existing society as an anarcho-capitalist paradise where there is no government, just one large company you're forced to contract with to obtain vital necessities.

For a real world example within our society, take a look at the list of songs censored by Clear Channel in the wake of September 11, 2001. There was no bona fide government edict declaring this, just opaque corporate power ultimately wielded by the same people marching us to war in most other forums.

I think most people view freedom of speech as a right in a broad sense, particularly with respect to the government, but are also okay with a violation of it in certain contexts, like in a private domain. It seems to me that a bar owner kicking out a loud or inflammatory patron is an example of "oppressing that right", but most people understand this and have no problem with it because the alternative -- a world where the bar owner is forced to let the patron say anything they want on the bar owner's property -- is worse.

There's a significant difference between private enterprise and government. For example, no matter how much a business doesn't like you, they can't jail you based on their own set of rules (laws).

I don't disagree with your first paragraph, because of the assumption that there are other bars to go to.

If there are not other bars to go to, and if instead of bars we're talking about vital services such as food, housing, or communication that have been monopolized or oligopolized, then that assumption no longer holds.

I don't think Twitter itself is anywhere near that type of critical. But in general it's ignorant to write off "private enterprise" as if it something that is entirely distinct from "government". And this goes doubly in the US where "private enterprise" ends up shaping much of society.

Sure, I absolutely agree that private enterprise can be a problem and can become intertwined with government. But the topic of this thread is Twitter, and more broadly, Big Tech, and I am not convinced that they are a serious problem in the way that telecom or rail monopolies were. I'm not even sure they are monopolies at all -- there's plenty of competition, even if people choose not to use it. A major difference that I see is that to start a competitor in, say, telecom infrastructure requires a massive amount of capital. To start a competitor with Twitter requires very little capital in comparison, although to succeed requires reaching some network effect.

If an argument about vital services is to be applied, I think it is much better applied to something more foundational to the internet, such as domain name registrars or ISPs.

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