Which is a good addition.
How do you even define something as political? Eg. Saying X group of people should stop being killed by police is, to some, a validation of humanity, but to others a political issue to be argued at the ballot box?
What about marriage, which is based in laws, but some say should be a religious issue? Is that protected?
What about hate speech? Thats very much bad, until someone claims they're just politically conservative, so now its protected?
That's not how westerners feel about gender any more.
What about terrorist recruiters? People in the US who try to garner support of others but don't actually do the terrorism.
How and when you got there is irrelevant. I'd want the same protections for people I vehemently disagree with because it's the right thing to do (and aligned with the consitution).
> How do you even define something as political?
I imagine this will be made more concrete but based on some political affiliation (party registration).
> What about marriage, which is based in laws, but some say should be a religious issue? Is that protected?
Strawman...?
> What about hate speech?
You can choose to ignore and disregard (like most people do) these types. They're fringe for a reason. In cases of actual threats taking place (as opposed to things that don't suggest action being said that people don't like), there is already a legal framework in place for handling that.
Nah. I disagree. In Germany, its illegal to be nazi-sympathizing. As someone who disagrees with Nazi ideology, I think that sort of law (and societal environment) is healthy and don't think we should protect that.
If that happened in the US then some small group would still be waving the nazi flag as a source of pride the way that some still wave the confederate flag. I don't see a need to protect such extreme awfulness.
> I imagine this will be made more concrete but based on some political affiliation (party registration).
So any topic that is related to a party platform is political? If Bernie keeps tweeting about amazon is amazonian discussions now protected political speech?
> Strawman...?
No its a very real topic. "Gay" marriage is an important issue in many countries. Its becoming less relevant in the political sphere of the US lately, but its not crazy to imagine republicans trying to re-litigate the issue.
Gay people don't think of marriage as particularly political, its just a right they expect to continue having. Religious zealots want to strip that right away, and litigate it in courts. Discussions of the right to marry are classified by some as political discussions.
This is a real topic real people actively discuss and does come up in political discourse.
> as opposed to things that don't suggest action being said that people don't like
Hate speech is not just speech "that people don't like".
Also why should platforms be forced to host speech that is hateful? As is often mentioned here on HN, you have a right to speak, not to an audience. Why should platforms not be able to avoid or dispell people that say things that no one wants to hear?
Well, yeah, they were throwing people in gas chambers over there—context matters. Here, you might get a small group of assholes wearing armbands and shaving their heads. And, because they're nazis, they're likely gigantic pussies who aren't going to do anything (and if they do, guys like me will just shoot them). It's moot.
> So any topic that is related to a party platform is political?
Is that what I said? No. And I'm making a guess.
> "Gay" marriage is an important issue in many countries.
You didn't say anything about gay marriage, you said marriage.
> Hate speech is not just speech "that people don't like".
Yes, it is. Unless someone takes physical _action_, "sticks and stones" applies. What's also troublesome about "hate speech" is who gets to define it. Once that cat's out of the bag, all hell breaks loose (what we've seen the past few years is the prototype). People should be free to speak and deal with the social consequences of that speech just like they have for hundreds of years.
> Also why should platforms be forced to host speech that is hateful?
Because they're taking advantage of other protections offered by the U.S. government and operating a U.S. based company which operates under U.S. law (and by extension, the constitution). If they're that concerned about preventing a few assholes from saying stupid stuff, they should move their servers out of the U.S. I'd rather see those companies going after real crimes like scams, pedophiles, etc—not people getting their feelings hurt.
Ultimately, banning speech further excites extreme behavior because those people don't have an outlet. It's far more likely that they'll be corrected (or simply ignored) by others if they're uncensored than they would if they were censored.
Notice how for the first ~15-20 years of the internet, there was no nazi panic? They were around. Nobody paid them any mind. They didn't accomplish anything (and were on no trajectory to do so). Does that mean they're good? Of course not. But I'd rather they have their skinhead jamboree on a forum rather than go after gay people on the street for being "those people who took our speech away."
This is not true at all and would be dystopian if it were. I don't even know where to start with the idea that it can be illegal to sympathize with something or other, in any state that has some basic respect for the rule of law. Show me the paragraph that bans being "nazi-sympathizing" or the court case where someone got convicted for being "nazi-sympathizing". Not some court case where someone who was "nazi-sympathizing" got convicted for something else, something concrete, but a case where someone got convicted for just his sympathies.
Will I be allowed to have a gun free workplace, for example, when I am required to hire people who believe in sovereign citizen movements? Will we be forced to permit people to carry guns in workplaces because of their political positions and values?
LGBT rights can also be defined as a political position. Same with being pro-Union. Will we be protecting doctors who believe in holistic medicine at major hospitals, and nurses who discourage all vaccinations?
The limit of what is an opinion vs a political opinion does not exist. Therefore this protects everyone and nobody at the same time.