[ntuch]

> publishers (what Facebook et al. are)

They're not publishers, so your argument falls apart in the very first sentence.

I don't recall a time in history when services (what Facebook et al. are) were allowed to police the content of communications made with their service. I don't recall AT&T, when they allow customers to communicate using their telephone lines, being allowed to police the content of those communications. I don't allow printer manufacturers being allowed to police the things people print.

Before you reach for the keyboard to type the words, "that's different" - no, no it's not. It's not different at all. Facebook offers a service. They aren't publishers. My analogy is closer to reality than yours. It just so happens that Facebook is technically able to police my speech, and so you've chosen to shrug and say it's okay. If AT&T had been technically capable of listening to my speech and policing it, what argument would you make that they shouldn't be allowed to do that? Whatever argument you come up with, I make the same argument for facebook.

> I'm for free speech, but

"...but I'm not really for free speech."

It's all or nothing. You either accept it as a principle because you understand that it's literally the most important principle, or you don't. In your case, you don't.

[ota001]

I am really glad you made this comment. I know that this won't bring any "value" into the conversation but comments like these give me the much-needed hope and optimism that not all is lost (yet) .. well, except people arguing against your point. FS, You can not be "half pregnant" same as there is no such thing as "limited free speech". You either are allowed to think and share your thoughts freely or you are(or will soon become) enslaved, mentally, physically. @people below: History is written by the victors, you should never forget this, esp. when you are tempted to use a shallow, uneducated. ad-hoc out-of-context history reference. How can you distill any conclusions from our history if you did not manage to overcome your mental bubble, did not do the grunt work and actually went over all available sources. if you did, regardless of your thought predispositions(I have no inclination on that part, believe me), it would at least teach you modesty(like in any other science field, the more you know the more modest / careful you are when referencing a subject of your expertise). Liked that AT&T analogy

[SimbaOnSteroids]

A publisher is anyone who distributes information and brands it under their label. AT&T is not this, AT&T is more akin to the power company. If you're a neon sign maker no one can force you to make a sign that says"Irish Need Not Apply". However if you have a sign that says the above the power company can't turn off your power for it. If you put a tag on the sign that says power by acme power company, then they can shut you off.

This is because by posting on facebook or appearing on google you are implicitly now a representative of them because they're branding is all over that homepage. If you say something that facebook really disagrees with and would rather not say they have every right to not say it.

It's why Cloudflare didn't drop the Daily Stormer until after DS started to try and say the CF was on board with their views.

[erikpukinskis]

I find this metaphorical argumentation incredibly boring. Either Facebook is a metaphor for the phone company, or it's a metaphor for a publisher. Who cares? Maybe we need a third category. Maybe we need to end common carriers entirely. We're obviously treading new ground here. Let's argue about proposed law, how it works, and cost/benefit analysis.

What law you would write and who it should apply to? You think Facebook should be mandated to host all non-illegal content, yes?

What about Flickr? What about Gardening.com? What about NoNazisAllowed.com? What would you propose as the legal standard for deciding who is a common carrier and who is not?

I don't have a horse in this race, but let's at least start the discussion with something concrete.

[rhcom2]

Why is it all or nothing? The other poster already brought up Germany, it isn't all or nothing there and they seem fine.

[majormajor]

The problem with your analogy is that it is tied to a very small window in history.

Has liberalism and free speech only existed in the time span where there's been regulated common-carrier type "services"?

Lets roll back the clock to before AT&T. Was there free speech and liberalism? Was any printer required to print anyone's manuscript? Was any newspaper required to be open to all opinions? Was any private person or organization required to spread those opinions across the world?

Historically, Facebook is much more like an open-to-the-masses publisher/distributor than you claim, with the difference resting more in economics (cost of publishing) than anything else. But that difference is hugely significant in practical terms - an unrestricted Facebook doesn't have much historical analog at all, hence the debate.

[SimbaOnSteroids]

I agree that it doesn't have much a historical precedent and its important to have this debate, I'm not sure where I fall on it myself if I'm being honest, but facebook does have historical precedent in its size, in the past we've busted up corporations that have grown to this size into smaller individual entities but idk how you'd do that with fb, you could spin off instagram or maybe spin off its video hosting services but this all gets really tricky really fast.

[guelo]

My prefered analogy is an online forum. Online forums have existed for about 30-40 years without much regulation. And what people have figured out in that time is that in order to run a successful community forum you need strong moderation, otherwise it'll be destroyed by the spammers and the assholes. Determining who the spammers and the assholes are is somewhat of an artform, moderators need flexibility to guide the community towards civil discourse, you can't have strict moderation rules. Asking for the government to regulate online forums is ridiculous.