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I believe democratically elected governments should have more power than corporations. Right now, corporations have complete and utter control over the most common and important communications method of our time. Think about what you're saying: corporations have the power to prevent you from saying anything online. Twitter and Facebook can ban you for your political opinions. Fine, you say: get your own website. Well, we've seen that your registrar, CDN, and hosting providers will also kick you off if they find your speech sufficiently offensive (or if enough pressure comes down on them to do so.) In the end, your ISP can do the same thing. Corporations own the commons we all use. Yes, the FA only protects you from government censorship, but the societal principle of free speech is not so limited. If you cannot speak because every commons is owned by a private corporation, or where any speech can be banned because a mob is threatening to protest you, you do not have free speech in any meaningful sense. I don't believe the solution to our problems is to blithely conclude that corporations can do whatever they want, it's their platforms, and that anyway, it's about "hate" (who gets to define that?) We need to look very seriously about how communication has evolved since the 18th century and what "freedom of speech" means now, and how to settle it in a way that at least leads to democratically elected institutions having the power to restrict it, rather than corporate overlords. I would also argue that repression of speech is a contributing factor to the rise of violence. As long as all speech is legitimized, there's a relief valve for despicable beliefs. The Nazi Party was born in an environment where political violence was already commonplace, and where nationalist rhetoric resulted in the nationalists being severely beaten. Consequently, only the most violent and committed people remained, who then organized their own violent mobs. Ultimately, the perception of being "repressed" by both mob violence and the state (the Nazi party was later banned) only lent support by people who felt for the "underdog" and radicalized supporters who felt that legitimate, nonviolent means would never be enough. |