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Comment by pschastain | Hacker News Reader

This is not an attack on free speech, this is free market economics at work. Spotify is free to promote and profit from whomever they please, and other creative artists are free to take their work elsewhere. Market demand will determine the outcome.

The First Amendment states "Congress shall make no law ..."; it says only what the *gov't* can and cannot do

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Privatized censorship is censorship. We were discussing censorship. We are not discussing your particular government. This may surprise many Americans but people are not always talking about the US government.

This chain is about "free speech", not censorship, and "free speech" alludes to the first amendment of the US constitution. You're replying to somebody talking about free speech, who was replying to somebody likewise talking about free speech.

You seem like you just wanted to condescend some Americans - a very tired trope on this site.

Derailing free speech with US-centric legalisms is a tired trope on all sites.

But if you use the word too liberally, it loses its meaning. Corporations have always editorialized their content. Now that's censorship?

Or to put it more simply: would you consider parents who tell their children not to curse or risk punishment censorship? Or how about at school? How about requiring a dress code at a restaurant or school? Is this all censorship?

We have to be clear. Corporations editorializing has always been called editorializing, even when they do so at the government's behest, which has happened historically when the government feels publishing something could threaten national security or might create a panic. Or when a journalist is trying to curry favor with a politician. It's only censorship when a government authority figure threatens punishment.

Are TOS censorship?

Even more relevant in this case because Spotify is based in Sweden.

Your argument means that this is not a violation of the first amendment.

It's not an argument about free speech. The first amendment and free speech are different things.

You either believe in free speech or you dont. It shouldn't matter who is infringing on it

If you have a blog, can you give me login details to publish whatever I like on there?

Yes of course because I believe in free speech and any form of access control on broadcasting means is CENSORSHIP like in the PRC. /s

Spotify uses Cloudflare, right? I think Cloudflare should just block the pages.

Or maybe we petition those hosting Spotify servers & ISPs to ban the pages.

Actually, should spotify be resolvable by any DNS server hosted by a company?

Huh, or maybe there is a line to draw in the sand that isn't so strict? Nah /s

This argument hinges on whether one believes internet access is a right, and if it is, what form that right takes.

Neither is a settled question, though the world community tends to be leaning towards "yes" as the answer to the first and is busying itself with the mucky process of answering the second.

UN answered those questions in 2016.

https://www.article19.org/data/files/Internet_Statement_Adop...

handeave-handwave That document is a good start, but it mostly says human rights that are violated are still violated if they are violated with the Internet. There are a lot of subtle questions of rights collision it doesn't address, to which I was referring (including how freedom of speech and freedom of press interact when the speech is through someone else's service).

... And that's considering only the UN member nations. 70+ nations are not UN members and a statement like this has no bearing on them.

This is a straw man. Something closer would be. You have a blog. You like the content I create. So you form a contract with me to development content and put it on your blog. Part of the contract is that you are the exclusive distributor of my content. You then decide you don’t like the content I’m putting out and cease to distribute my content.

In that scenario, the content creator’s free speech hasn’t been affected. They can publish their content on their own blog or anywhere else still.

Spotify directly says that they are not a publisher. Platforms that mute certain voices are censors

The third way is believing there is practical value to restricting governments from disallowing their citizens to speak freely because a people who cannot speak freely tends to become revolutionary over time as their true desires grow divorced from the government's understanding of them.

That's miles away from thinking paying people to proliferate lies about how vaccines work is cool.

Do you believe in the right to yell "fire!" in a crowded theater when there isn't one?

The White House openly called for private actors to censor speech.

See https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/psaki-big-tech-should-c...

There is a difference between calling out misinformation and censoring free speech.

It's even in the article you posted, biased that it may be.

The government is not saying you can't publish misinformation, but that a responsible actor should acknowledge when it's publishing it.

Misinformation is a meaningless word. Authorities are wrong all of the time. Misinformation requires belief in a heterodoxy. Heterodoxy is ascientific.

And when the U.S. Surgeon General calls for Joe Rogan to be censored? [0]

[0]: https://www.outkick.com/u-s-surgeon-general-calls-for-big-te...

It's optional whether it's followed. They're not threatening Spotify, and if Spotify chooses to listen to them it's their choice

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