Hacker News Reader

Comment by josephh | Hacker News Reader

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

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?

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

Reply on news.ycombinator.com