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Comment by marcopolo3333 | Hacker News Reader

A common thread I see is a lot is people conflating freedom of speech and having a platform (more specifically an online one). Forcing private entities to host speech they don't want to goes against what I define as freedom of speech. Everyone should be entitled to speak and have their own ideas, no individual or company should be force to spread them.

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> Forcing private entities to host speech they don't want to goes against what I define as freedom of speech.

What if a private entity owns the town square?

Then build a town square that is publicly owned, we as society decided to wave our hands of the responsibility of making a publicly owned the internet for the convenience of allowing big tech do it for us. The solution is not force private companies to host speech. It either create a publicly owned town square on the internet or collectively stop valuing/using these platforms so much.

> It either create a publicly owned town square on the internet or collectively stop valuing/using these platforms so much.

Great. How do you intend to accomplish this, practically speaking?

I suggest a tax cut for myself. The benefits will trickle down to society and they'll build a new public square.

I think you need to familiarize yourself with the scenario more closely:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama

Regulating corporations is common and I suspect you fully support regulation in many circumstances (such as utilities). It seems bizarre to me why people think speech should somehow be exempt.

There’s always a corporation that can potentially silence you. Even if you managed to build your own entire network from scratch, on which to host this ‘town square’, you could be shut down by banks or power companies refusing to do business with you.

Meanwhile, the size of mob needed to get something/someone deplatformed seems to be getting smaller as deplatforming tactics continue to be optimized.

It's not about conflating freedom of speech and having a platform. It's about discrimination by businesses. We have laws in place preventing businesses from discriminating. A shop cannot say "we don't allow black people here" and hide under the excuse of "oh but there's plenty of other shops you can go to". A platform should not be able to saw "we don't allow X people here" and hide under the excuse of "oh but there's plenty of other platforms you can go to".

> Forcing private entities to host speech they don't want to goes against what I define as freedom of speech.

What if the private entity is suppressing speech at the behest of the government?

That's obviously over the line, like a landlord searching your apartment as a 'polite favor' for the police who don't have a warrant and can't order him, but ask him nicely.

This is a bad-faith argument implying exactly the opposite of the post you are responding to. No one was forcing anyone, a large company caved in to outcry and a protest to which one (1) person showed up IRL.

This isn't reddit.

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