Hacker News Reader

Comment by salt-thrower | Hacker News Reader

Freedom of speech is literally just “the government can’t throw you in jail for expressing an opinion.” It’s always been only that. Media companies (TV, newspapers, radio, now social media) have always “deplatformed” people who they disagree with or consider dangerous. There is nothing new in any of your examples.

If you agree with the views of deplatformed influencers, you can start your own blog about it. That’s free speech. They get to live their lives as normal, and companies are not obligated to give them a louder megaphone.

View on HN

That is the lowest possible bar for free speech, which as a philosophical principle goes way further. Here's a good talk from Hitchens on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2uzEM0ugY

I'm not a free speech person, but since I think you're unwittingly falling for a strawman I think I can help.

Contrapoints also made a really good response (against) hitchens you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMIDAUdQ56E

McCarthyism, music censorship, Jim Crow, the MPAA, sodomy laws--the United States has always engaged in "cancel culture" and it has never been fully partisan.

Freedom of speech is also a social principle - not just the First Amendment. That's been lost in the debate and is much more important than the legalese.

There's an influx of right-wing people who are trying to rebrand "free speech" as being able to say reprehensible things with zero _social_ consequences. So you're unfortunately trying to reason with the wrong person. Their belief is that all speech in all forms should be free from any consequences, social, legal, or otherwise.

And what is your point? Let them face consequences. That is not a justification for suppressing such speech.

What is "suppression" in this case? What are the "consequences" in this case?

What a lot of people call "cancel culture" is exactly that, though. For example, when a comedian says something that insults a class of people who are customers of the comedian's sponsor and the sponsor projects lost revenue from that class of people, they stop funding that comedian's work.

That's both "cancel culture" and the consequences of free speech.

To clarify, I'm referring to entities that tout themselves to be a platform for providing customers to express their opinions. For your example, I think a better analogy would be a venue owner that publicly advertises their space to be rented out for events and/or performances. In such case, the owner should have no right to refuse the comedian from hosting a show even if they find them objectionable.

It's an interesting problem. If a venue owner rents to anyone, they're obligated to rent to everyone?

I can see this being complicated. One venue owner won't want to host a show because of the race/religion/ethnicity of a comedian. That would be a problem. But what if a band has a reputation for riling up crowds until they riot and tear places apart? Is it a problem for the venue owner to refuse to let them have a show? What if the potential violence isn't as direct, like the venue is threatened with a boycott if a person is allowed to hold a political rally there? Should they be allowed to deny that rally?

To clarify, you think they should face the consequence of their speech that is owners of platforms not wanting to associate with them, and you think such authors loosing their platforms is not suppression of speech? Or just one of those?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com