[arkades]

There’s a difference between a state actor controlling the whole of the public arena and a private individual controlling their own privately-sponsored forum; the latter allows you to crack open a blog and flog whatever opinion you want, and the former does not. I admit there’s some gray area for something like google, which by virtue of its size and role as intermediary has censorship abilities approaching governmental levels.

Freedom of Speech is a restriction on the government, not a duty on the part of private individuals to let you come in and piss on their living room carpet.

[Sir_Cmpwn]

This argument is touted around a lot to justify censorship by private parties. Don't be misled - it is censorship. The law doesn't protect this kind of speech, which means they are legally permitted to participate in censorship, but it is censorship all the same. Yours is a common and poor argument for justifying this behavior. There are plenty of things which are both legal and immoral. I would prefer to participate in a transparently moderated community where the rules are clearly defined and aren't selectively enforced. This makes for a better community.

They don't have a legal obligation to behave this way, but that needs to stop being used as an excuse to shut down discussions on how to make the community better.

[_jal]

This ends up being a debate about word choice, and I normally hate that. But there is good reason to distinguish the two carefully, and the easiest way to do that is word choice.

I cannot, by definition, censor someone. I can ban them from my systems, kick them out of my home, refuse to listen to them and tell all my friends to ignore them, but I can't censor them, because I do not have the power of the state behind my decision. The difference is I can do all of those things, but nobody else needs to put up with my antics. If Dang banned you, you can still talk on thousands of other places.

I absolutely agree with you that this argument is used to shut down discussions, but that doesn't mean the distinction isn't important. Just listen to all the dishonest, deceptive bullshit we hear from politicians defending themselves by whining about the First Amendment when criticized, as if their right to speech is a right to be free from criticism. The problem being, of course, that people who don't necessarily know better fall for it and suddenly believe false things about how free speech works.

[Sir_Cmpwn]

>I cannot, by definition, censor someone. I can ban them from my systems, kick them out of my home, refuse to listen to them and tell all my friends to ignore them, but I can't censor them, because I do not have the power of the state behind my decision. The difference is I can do all of those things, but nobody else needs to put up with my antics. If Dang banned you, you can still talk on thousands of other places.

I would argue that this is definitely censorship. Just because you can go somewhere else doesn't mean you aren't being censored - you are being denied access to the HN audience. Somewhere else isn't going to have the same audience. And that audience isn't making the decision - a small number of moderators are. But you're right that this is just down to pedantic word choice, feel free to discard this thread of the discussion if you'd rather not push the matter further.

>I absolutely agree with you that this argument is used to shut down discussions, but that doesn't mean the distinction isn't important. Just listen to all the dishonest, deceptive bullshit we hear from politicians defending themselves by whining about the First Amendment when criticized, as if their right to speech is a right to be free from criticism. The problem being, of course, that people who don't necessarily know better fall for it and suddenly believe false things about how free speech works.

I'm not here touting free speech like it's a legal right I have as a submitter and an obligation HN has as a publisher. Instead I'm touting it as a damn good idea that makes for a better medium for discussion and suggeting HN embraces it anyway.

[_jal]

> feel free to discard this thread of the discussion if you'd rather not push the matter further

Think you're right. You completely ignored my point, so this is pointless. But the root issue is not different than, either through ignorance or deceptive calculation, claiming that copyright infringement is theft. It is a category error that negatively effects people's understanding of what's going on, so it matters.

[root_axis]

> This argument is touted around a lot to justify censorship by private parties. Don't be misled - it is censorship

It's not about justifications, it's about prerogatives.

> There are plenty of things which are both legal and immoral.

Despite what you seem to be implying, the operators of a privately run forum have no moral obligation to let anyone speak, regardless of how that might impact the quality of discussion in the community. It is totally fair for participants to criticize the moderation efforts, but just because the site is high profile doesn't mean that the moderators are any more morally obligated to permit comment than you are morally obligated to amend your fine article with my commentary.

[Sir_Cmpwn]

Morals are relative. I consider it a moral obligation - you may feel differently. Both are valid.

[arkades]

You seem to believe that it is a moral obligation of anyone with an audience/platform to provide that platform to anyone that wants to use it...? Specifically, you described “depriving (someone of an) audience” as the immoral act.

Just to recontextualize that: if I have a blog, am I immoral for not allowing comments? Am I immoral for not allowing guest bloggers? Do I have a moral obligation to allow advertisement?

This is odd. A moral obligation to use one’s private resources to provide an audience to all comers isn’t free speech; it’s not even a free marketplace of ideas. It’s appropriating someone else’s communications infrastructure.

[Sir_Cmpwn]

I think a blog is a different enough medium that it renders the comparison meaningless. Hacker News is a website that posts user submissions. I wouldn't make this argument about your blog, but I might make it about Medium.

[arkades]

But they’re not a site that posts user submissions. They’re a site that posts certain types of submissions: that’s what distinguishes them from reddit, 4chan, voat, etc.

A failure to maintain that identity would fundamentally change their offering and lose them their audience. You make it sound like a trivial expenditure of Nothing more than a little bandwidth.

And you haven’t meaningfully distinguished it from a blog. Blogs host comments; they host guest posts, and multiple authors. The degree to which they’re one voice or many depends on their individual structure - and none of that contradicts your core moral statement about the immoral act being not letting people have a free-for-all on your private platform. You make a distinction without rationale for why some private platforms are allowed to curate their offerings, and why others are /immoral/ for doing skz

[root_axis]

Well if all moral perspectives are valid then you should not use morality as the foundation of your argument.

[Sir_Cmpwn]

Well, I'm not presenting an objective argument. I am presenting a subjective opinion.

[root_axis]

All arguments are subjective so I'm not sure what that statement is supposed to convey except maybe "I am not concerned with the persuasiveness of my argument".

[tptacek]

It is in the same sense censorship when CNN refuses to run one's Youtube show in prime time.

[Sir_Cmpwn]

No, I would argue that it's different. CNN has a limited amount of time to fill and doesn't accept user submissions. HN has neither constraint, and gives users voting rights over some of the success of each post.

[tptacek]

So, you've decided that one organization's private constraints are important and another's aren't.

[Sir_Cmpwn]

I don't understand what you're asking. One organization (CNN) has these constraints, another (HN) does not.

[tptacek]

According to you. Does it seem natural that private organizations should be responsive to your conclusions?

[twobyfour]

So are you suggesting that if I (the grandchild of Holocaust survivors) ran a link aggregator site, I would have a moral obligation to let self-declared Nazis who want to exterminate people of my ethnicity use it as a platform to speak about their hatred of people like me?

Or that a rape survivor has an obligation to allow someone to post on their site that there's no such thing as rape and every woman is "asking for it"?

I deeply question your moral framework.

[Sir_Cmpwn]

No, and that's not what I'm asking of HN. I like communities that:

- Have well defined rules

- Enforce them equally

- Moderate transaprently

That's it. I'm not asking for an unfettered platform for free speech. If one of your rules is "no hateful posts targetting specific people or people groups", then it's a well justified decision to remove that post.

[twobyfour]

OK.... so if I enforce "no hateful posts targetting specific people or people groups", I have to ban the person who posts "the KKK are awful people and I think we should jail them" as I do someone who posts "people with dark skin are awful people and I think we should burn them"?

[Sir_Cmpwn]

No. It's a gray area. What matters is being transparent and receptive to discussion about it.

[1001101]

I'm somewhere between you and the parent. So much of the public square, figuratively speaking, is owned by private companies today. It's good to understand what the parameters are so you can know to what extent free expression and the free flow of ideas is occurring in a particular venue. Personally, I'm wary of just about any form of censorship, but I recognize it's a continuum, and not even I have my settings at 0.

[yahna]

It's still censorship either way.