The only complications have always been situations where private enterprise dominates or impedes on public discourse.
The problem is that in the real world you can't silo off dicks like that. Bad opinions (e.g. racial hatred) can spread through the society and cause tremendous damage.
If you're going to argue for zero content moderation, the only good faith way to do so is to first admit that this could be a problem, and secondly admit that you have no problem if Twitter became like 8chan. If you just pretend like these kinds of things aren't possible, I can only conclude you're arguing from a position of ideology.
I struggle to think of examples, and the worst ones are things that might be described as "sounds kinda racist but the person who wrote it is probably not the cross-burning type".
Sure, I could find it if I went looking. But I don't.
You could argue that this is because of some kind of benevolent filtering, and I'll grant that dang (of HN) does a great job. But I think it's mostly because I don't delve into the kinds of places where that would happen.
So I'm honestly just not sure what you mean when something will devolve into 8chan. I've heard of that but I don't know anyone on there, so I don't even really know what it is or how the devolution might happen. Mechanically, what would take place? Would I follow a friend, and then start getting weird flat-Earth stuff because of their second cousin?
> Mechanically, what would take place?
You would likely get three things:
- Informal networks of political extremists with a recruitment platform of global reach. Similar to r/genzedong in extremism, but far worse. Think ISIS, The Base.
- A tool that authoritarian regimes can use to exercise influence over open societies via coordinated misinformation and sowing division. This centralized effort to divide Western societies via coordinated social media manipulation is already being done.
- A society overtaken by conspiracy theories, with unpredictable consequences. Empirically, sunlight isn't the best disinfectant.
I make these claims by observing the local gradient and extrapolating.
> It means nobody is allowed to police public discourse
No, it means the government cannot restrict speech.
> Freedom of speech, also called free speech, means the free and public expression of opinions without censorship, interference and restraint by the government. [0]
Most people assume “free speech” means “nobody” can restrict it, but it is in fact only “by the government”.
For example, you do not have freedom of speech at my house. I am free to demand anyone who says the word “blue” on my property to immediately leave.
You also don’t have free speech on the public comment section of my blog. I can delete (or not approve) any comments that don’t adhere to a list of approved words, or are not sufficiently praiseful of my views.
There are some state and federal laws that protect free speech at private companies, but they are mostly around employment as you can read about in the article.
That’s why I think OC is stating that the definition of “free speech” is important. Are we talking about US law, or about an abstract concept that “nobody can restrict public discourse” that doesn’t exist in reality?
> The only complications have always been situations where private enterprise dominates or impedes on public discourse.
Not true. There are many, many complications to free speech.
> Categories of speech that are given lesser or no protection by the First Amendment include obscenity (as determined by the Miller test), fraud, child pornography, speech integral to illegal conduct, speech that incites imminent lawless action, and regulation of commercial speech such as advertising. [1]
These types of speech can be legally restricted, punished and censored. This list was not created in 1776, it was created over time because the line isn’t clear. What’s always been clear though is that there have always been complicated edge cases concerning free speech.
The issue is so complicated it’s been litigated in the Supreme Court possibly hundreds of times [2].
Keep in mind that the Supreme Court only takes on a case if it presents a novel problem or if they thought a previous Supreme Court mad an egregious error in judgement. So the sheer volume of cases means that there continue to be many unique, complicated facets to “free speech”, not all of which involve private enterprise. Protesting, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom to petition, compelled speech, false speech, etc. all can be complicated issues concerning individuals or public institutions.
[0], [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_Uni...
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Suprem...
That’s by design.
The government creates a framework within which you can then create your own private experience.
The free market, freedom of choice, freedom of association, etc. is the balancing act to self-regulate private party practices.
If we start centralizing and standardizing free speech requirements from the government all the way down to your blog, we’d be putting all our eggs in 1 basket. The government does not restrict repetitive speech for example, yet you’d now be powerless to regulate spam. You’d also be powerless to moderate HN or any other topical social community, as off-topic speech is protected at the federal level.
The variety in free speech rules is a feature not a bug.
It won't happen, unfortunately, since "free speech" has become an article of faith in the US. Yet there are democracies where this works well; the choice isn't between freedom and slavery, the US or North Korea.
Yes, but there are very valid reasons to curtail speech at a private level that don’t make sense at a national level like curating content, creating unique social spaces, topical content, etc.
Constraints make things interesting sometimes. Like Twitter’s original character limit, or Google Shorts clip length, or HN’s moderation policies. They restricted speech in order to create a unique experience that people liked. My freedom to post pop culture gossip is restricted on HN and I’m OK with it.
With bottom-up free speech rules, you can create this interesting landscape of private content.
With top-down free speech rules, a government can’t react quickly enough to accommodate all of these entrepreneurial reasons for privately restricting speech.
If I want to create a positive social network where every post has to have a positive sentiment analysis as determined by an AI, then why do you need to have the ability to share your negative thoughts on my private platform that I pay for? You already have the ability to do that in a public square, or on your own private website.
What does society gain by forcing me to accept all legal speech on my private site? It sounds like a recipe for stifling innovation.
{tearfully removes Eiffel 65 from karaoke party playlist}
The second consideration is what recourse private owners have to disallowed speech. It's not jail or execution. Typically just dismissal.
I do not understand the argument that a platform is not allowed to police itself.