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Comment by timdev2 | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious when that happened. I hear people say it all the time. But I'm old enough to have grown up before the commercial internet, and I don't remember there being any widespread conception of "free speech" apart from limitations on state censorship.

For instance, I suspect if some antisemitic nuts in say, the 1960s, had wanted to buy a full page ad in the NYT with some elders-of-zion type conspiracy ad, complete with hook-nosed caricature of a jewish banker, and the NYT refused to run the ad, nobody would have raised any objection on "free speech" grounds.

Can you think of any examples of extra-legal "free speech as a popular concept", pre-Internet?

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> limitations on state censorship

That's still what we're talking about. The state has just gotten better at outsourcing the work, so people who aren't paying close attention don't even recognize it as such. Hence my invocation of "the cathedral", as opposed to narrowly "the government".

I read "cathedral" as being exclusive of the state. Reading it as inclusive confuses me even more, I think.

If the state outsourcing censorship, then the state alone is culpable. I think we can have some legitimate and interesting arguments about where the line ought to be drawn. For instance, if a private entity asks the state for guidance about content moderation, is it (or ought it be) legal for the state to provide it?

But that entire discussion falls well within the contours of the established legal framework. So I'm not sure what concept you were referring to originally.

"Cathedral" is cf "The Cathedral and The Bazaar".

> For instance, if a private entity asks the state for guidance

This is not how it happens. There are many mechanisms for the cathedral to e.g. influence discourse on twitter. None of them involve Twitter overtly and formally asking the government for advice.

Sure. My point is that when you consider the range of such possible mechanisms, no matter where you draw the line between permissible and impermissible, we're still talking about what it's okay for the state (not private entities) to do.

It's probably my fault, but I find myself unable to read between your lines and tease out your point.

The point is that your model of "freedom of speech" being usefully definable as a narrow legal constraint is about 50 years out of date with respect to the current censorship meta.

"Government can't throw you in jail for saying naughty stuff" is no longer useful - the tactics involved have moved past that.

Just how expansive a concept are your advocating? If you're only saying that aside from not throwing you in jail, government shouldn't coerce (or even incentivize) private parties to censor in ways the government would be prohibited from censoring, then I think you're right. But it's still not clear to me what concept of "free speech" you're actually advocating for.

Correct, that is an accurate characterization of my belief. Compare to your original comment:

> I think what you mean is that people are calling for internet platforms to kick out certain groups. This is in no way a call against freedom of speech.

The problem is that the causal factor causing e.g. twitter to evict people is not that "people are calling" for this action. The widespread coverage of certain people clamoring for censorship is only part of the legitimation process, not the actual reason twitter is performing the censorship. The actual reason twitter is performing the censorship is due to govt/elite pressure to do so.

So when you say "people are calling" for censorship, that's just what it looks like today when the US government censors people. They launder their actions through NGOs, civil rights lawsuits, selective prosecution, etc. so that people can diffuse any accusations of malfeasance with "well it's not the government doing it, so who cares"? It's untrue, and at some level it's irrelevant, but rhetorically it works.

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