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by Qw3r7 3136 days ago
I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.

Evelyn Beatrice Hall

Suppression of opinion implicitly violates the Bill of Rights.

6 comments

> Suppression of opinion implicitly violates the Bill of Rights

NO.

The Bill of Rights are enumerated protections FROM THE GOVERNMENT.

The concept of "Freedom of Speech" is different and more broad than the First Amendment to the US Constitution, but a private entity not protecting it is not a violation of the First Amendment or any other 9. Yes, the double-negative is important.

The Constitution remains amendable. We hear arguments frequently that the Second fails to sufficiently account for modernity. Perhaps the First does, too.
Sorry, this is my personal nitpick but suppression of opinion by facebook does not violate the bill of rights.
Suppression of opinion implicitly violates the Bill of Rights.

Facebook's content policies are not subject to the Bill of Rights, which constrain only the government.

I do not consider Nazi ideology an opinion. Their ideas are purely based on maintaining a power dynamic. There's no logic or legitimacy to their ideas, and thus they are not opinions. They change the ideology as needed to maintain power and promote their own strength.

For a historical viewpoint, simply look at how often the German Nazi party would change what classifies as being a Jew or "undesirable". It was only ever about putting fear into people and maintaining control. They had no real opinions on why these people were undesirable - those could be made up after the fact.

If Nazism was an opinion, I would be willing to defend it. But it's not, and it thrives when it's given the legitimacy as such.

EDIT: To try and tie this back to the topic at hand, are blatant lies still "opinions"? What about death threats and hate speech? My point is simply that we already make distinctions about what kind of speech is free, so I feel that Facebook instituting policies that align with these existing rules makes sense - even though I feel that they are becoming too large to be the de-facto source for information on the Internet.

simply look at how often the German Nazi party would change what classifies as being a Jew

Can you provide any links? My google-fu is failing me.

Friendly reminder that downvotes should be reserved for comments you don't want to see on the site, not for comments you disagree with.
Friendly reminder that PG said the opposite. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171
Even if I use a million sock-puppets to amplify my voice? I generally agree with the idea that one (physical) person's stated opinion shouldn't be squashed, but we are dealing with scale here.
I guarantee you they were not talking about violent threats or racial slurs.