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Comment by Maursault | Hacker News Reader

> While PayPal is technically a private company that can work with basically whoever it wants for whatever reason, its centralized role as an online payment processor makes this a weirdly potent free speech fight.

> He did share correspondence with me where prominent free speech attorneys told him, in an apparent contradiction to my claims, that he had no viable legal recourse to getting his account reinstated.

Though somehow money is speech, the author never supports his claim how PayPal, which is not a government actor, can violate free speech. The First Amendment does not prohibit private individuals, companies and employers from restricting speech.

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Oh not this old canard again.

The US constitutional guarantee of freedom from government interference in speech is just one aspect of the matter. If private companies own every method of articulating your views, and are preventing you from doing so, then you aren't free to speak.

> If private companies own every method of articulating your views,

They aren't. We're nowhere even close. To the point where I can't even envision how that could happen.

Perhaps in some sort of fantasy libertarian future where everything has been privatized, including the streets and sidewalks. But that's certainly not anything like now.

If you want to envisage such a future for a dystopian novel or something like that, just imagine this wild fantasy:

1. Imagine a world where all the major online spaces - twitter, reddit, facebook, tumblr, HN, tiktok, instagram, youtube, twitch, slack, and discord and so on are privately owned. As are skype, zoom and google meet. Imagine a world where you can't even send e-mails if private companies don't like your 'sender reputation'.

2. Then imagine a world where all Radio and TV channels, newspapers and billboards are owned by private corporations. Maybe they're even owned by a tiny number of corporations, with specific political leanings.

3. Then fantasise that universities and similar venues for public speaking are a law unto themselves, and are within their rights to choose who they invite to speak.

4. Imagine a world of rising land values and increasing urbanisation, where only the absolute richest people could hold an event of any scale on land they own themselves.

5. Then imagine a world where public squares and parks in cities increasingly in private ownership. Perhaps city hall is sold to an investment firm who lease it back to the city. As it's private land, private security can move anyone on for 'unacceptable behaviour'.

6. There's still a risk some free speech would happen on public roads - we probably can't transfer those to private companies. We'll have to use the state's power here and arrest them - but don't worry, it's not a free speech issue. They were, uh, obstructing ambulance traffic. Or we could just make it legal for motorists to drive into people and let nature take it's course.

Thank goodness such an absurd fiction could never happen in real life :)

And let's not forget that the government are influencing which items get suppressed by the social media companies: https://theintercept.com/2022/10/31/social-media-disinformat...

This list doesn't come close to being a place where "private companies own every method of articulating your views".

I believe you want to force a large company to accept an advertisement on any topic whatsoever, at a "reasonable price", and that that there should be no First Amendment right of free association which allows them to deny that advertisement.

If not, do you want to force them to post that same information at no cost?

Yes, you'd still be entirely free to articulate your views in the privacy of your own bathroom, so I suppose it's technically true private companies don't control every way of articulating your views.

I wasn't being that pedantic.

Your list didn't include federated systems like Mastadon or IRC. It didn't include open source systems like Zulip that you can host yourself.

I don't use one of the big email providers, so I do get bounces when an organization thinks my ISP is untrusted. But that's not "can't even send e-mails if private companies don't like your 'sender reputation'" only "can't send e-mails to some people". And those people decided to use that system in part because they want the email provider to filter out some of their email.

We are not in a world where "all Radio and TV channels, newspapers and billboards are owned by private corporations." Member-supported radio and TV, and college radio, are still things, as is community/public-access cable.

Further, how do you want to change it? Do you want a government station which is required to be open access so anyone can broadcast anything?

Universities and similar venues for public speaking have always had the right to choose who they invite to speak. This is what freedom of association means.

Also, they are not a "law unto themselves". There are limits on the types of speech they can prohibit - a public university is restricted by civil rights laws, as is a private/non-publicly funded school which allows public rental of a space.

How do you want to change it? Do you want them colleges to be forced to accept any speaker on any topic, whatsoever?

We see events like the Gathering of the Juggalos, with 20,000 people, and wonder what you mean by 'only the absolute richest people could hold an event of any scale on land they own themselves.'

And I already commented on your "As it's private land" in my "fantasy libertarian future where everything has been privatized" - as something we aren't close to doing.

Yes, I totally agree that privatization of public spaces is something I don't like, though I'll point out the oddity of how the privately-owned public space at Zuccotti Park was a better site for the Occupy Wall Street protest than a public park, because the latter had curfews.

> And I already commented on your "As it's private land" in my "fantasy libertarian future where everything has been privatized"

Ah, that's actually a real example, from London https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/jul/24/revealed-pseu...:

"Outside City Hall on the south bank of the Thames, home to London’s democratically elected mayor and assembly, private security guards working for the More London estate (ultimately owned by the sovereign wealth fund of Kuwait) prevented the Guardian from carrying out any interviews.

Security officers intervened within moments of a reporter attempting to ask questions of members of the public, and immediately escorted him to the security office where it was explained that unsanctioned journalistic activity is banned on the site.

So the example of a city hall leased from an investment fund with private security moving people on for unacceptable behaviour is, unfortunately, not merely fantasy.

> Further, how do you want to change it?

Who says I want to change it? My beliefs don't include defending to the death other people's right to glorify the holocaust.

I recently lived through a pandemic where offline means of communication and assembly were severely curtailed - and everything from education to concerts to job interviews to doctor's appointments to courts to funerals to national legislatures ended up reliant on multinational tech companies' servers.

It seems to me, in other words, that almost all communication was in the hands of private companies.

If someone says they support free speech except when private companies are involved, IMHO they might as well say they support free speech except on days ending in Y.

Are we anywhere near close to selling out city halls in the way you describe, in such a way that "private companies own every method of articulating your views" is meaningful?

I specifically called out POPS as something I don't like.

FWIW, the HQ for the Greater London Authority has since moved, to a building owned by the Greater London Authority - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Hall,_London_(Newham) . (Confusingly, as I just learned, it's not a city hall, in that it does not serve a city.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privately_owned_public_space says "the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan promised to publish new guidelines on how these spaces are governed." - any progress?

> If someone says they support free speech except when private companies are involved, IMHO they might as well say they support free speech except on days ending in Y.

IMHO, those who support free speech without also supporting the right of free association ... are not actually supporting free speech. Hecklers do not have a veto right.

I would change it by having and enforcing significantly stronger anti-trust laws, restoring restrictions on media conglomeration, stronger personal privacy rights, including strict limitations on resale of personal information, and restoring postal banking for anyone to use. For starters.

Yet the result will still have all major online spaces be privately owned and nearly all Radio and TV channels, newspapers and billboards owned by private corporations.

Do you think it would still be so dystopian?

Could you elaborate more on real-world examples of your points #3 and #4?

Regarding #3 has many cases where a college has changed its mind on inviting a speaker, but every case I've read seems to be a valid exercise of a right of free association.

> They aren't. We're nowhere even close. To the point where I can't even envision how that could happen.

We are pretty close - Mastercard and Visa's (non-public) BRAM rules are pretty clumsy and arbitrary, and effectively do have a tremendous impact on global speech as they are effectively a duopoly. Their terms apply to essentially every business that requires any revenue, and therefore any platforms that people might want to speak on.

That is a problem. A terrible one. And they abuse it.

Yes, I well remember when the US pressured many big financial companies to stop financial transactions with WikiLeaks, and cut off something like 95% of their funding. (Bank of America also didn't like WikiLeaks' planned release of the bank's internal documents.)

I'll note that WikiLeaks is still around, and I believe they could always receive wire transfers. (As a less relevant point, WikiLeaks uses the money for ongoing acquisition and curation, and not only dissemination. The information was mirrored and available elsewhere.)

This therefore isn't an example of b800h's "private companies own every method of articulating your views."

Which other examples were you thinking of?

>They aren't. We're nowhere even close.

They are and have been for decades. One of the reasons of passing laws preventing businesses from engaging in certain forms of discrimination is because because businesses had enough power that to discriminate based on a protected factor could lock someone out from society. This is extremely noticeable in smaller communities where there might be only a single grocery store, but even in larger communities you'll find companies often working together and that they share common suppliers of certain goods or services who can lock you out of the majority of companies all at once.

Up until now we have tolerated it because the forms of discrimination we wouldn't tolerate have since been individually banned and there haven't been enough cases of coordinated denial of social involvement to prompt further legal action, but the power is there. I assume the threat of legal action further limiting the power of companies to discriminate has prevented the threat from going too far, and why companies will even walk back cases when enough popular support gets behind it.

I don't see the connection between "private companies own every method of articulating your views" and the civil rights movement.

What you describe seems more true of the labor movement, and especially company towns.

Yes but in this case they're specifically referring to free speech in a legal context.

They're referring to contract law, though. Free speech isn't the legal bit here.

Yeah, it's not a free speech issue.

It is, however, a consumer rights issue. It's obviously the case that some larger tech companies -- PayPal, Google, Amazon, Meta, etc -- can have a large impact on one's life if they decide to suspend or ban your account, but legal remedies are...limited. As happened here, often they don't even tell you why, and greatly limit or block your ability to appeal. This is a problem, not a free speech problem, but a consumer rights problem.

The first amendment is not the end-all and be-all of 'free speech'.

Heck, the literal phrasing is "Congress shall not abridging the freedom of speech". The fact that congress is mentioned means that others can also abridge the freedom of speech.

Note that 'abridge' means diminish in scope. If your boss says "If you say ducks are nice, you will be fired" that affects your freedom of speech. It isn't a first-amendment issue unless your boss is the government. But it remains someone inhibiting your speech.

Unless it's religious speech, which IMO, should cover all political speech because of anti-discrimination laws.

Note also that government employees are subject to greater control of their speech than ordinary citizens.

How many times does this utterly pointless discussion on the legality of platform censorship need to be had? No one is saying that what PayPal or any other big company is doing in terms of censorship is illegal, it’s usually just either that 1) they think it should be or 2) they feel it’s vaguely unamerican. Comment threads of this nature should be preeemptively removed by dang because they go absolutely nowhere.

Free speech is a value, not merely a legal concept.

Money is freely convertible to speech.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckley_v._Valeo

"The First Amendment does not prohibit private individuals, companies and employers from restricting speech. "

Constitutional rights are also civil rights, which are things companies may not violate.

In the case of freedom of speech, the First Ammendment doesn't establish a right for citizens, it establishes a prohibition to Congress:

"Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"

I really don't see how this can be taken to mean that a private company can't establish a rule abridging the freedom of speech.

Note that there is another part where I would agree that it establishes a positive right:

"Congress shall make no law [...] abridging [...] the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"

The language here does seem to assume that there exists a right peaceably to assemble, so you could argue that private companies also have to respect this right, even if the amendment only explicitly calls out Congress for this as well.

Another scorching hot take. By this logic, Rosa Parks should have started her own bus company.

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