[fein]

What would this other platform be that provides a similar reach?

Freedom of speech isn't just saying what you want while alone on your back patio.

Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc is the "digital public space".

Hell just take a look at what private companies are doing to the attempts at making alternatives: gab is threatened daily, and BitChute keeps getting bumped by payment processors.

[jamescostian]

> Freedom of speech isn't just saying what you want while alone on your back patio.

Freedom of speech isn't "You can say what you want on any platform and reach as many people as you want" either. Saying Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube are "digital public space" is akin to saying some sports stadium is a "public space" - yes, big crowds come to them, but they can still escort you off of the field. You can even just try protesting peacefully (in USA) and get a not-so-nice visit from the police.

NN can prevent things like an ISP blocking $SOME_PRESIDENTIAL_CANDIDATE_WEBSITE or $ABORTION_CLINIC_WEBSITE or $GUN_STORE_WEBSITE. Not having NN is more like electricity company blocking you from charging Android phones and requiring that you only charge iPhones, or vice-versa.

[fein]

> some sports stadium

You can actually go right outside that sports stadium and still have your message heard. If you're banned from Twitter, FB, and YT; you have effectively no voice on the internet.

The social media companies that have monopolized public discourse on the internet would be more akin to the whole city being owned by the stadium owners, and that specific scenario has been ruled in favor of the first amendment in the past.

[moorhosj]

==Freedom of speech isn't just saying what you want while alone on your back patio.==

It's also not going onto other people's property and doing whatever you want. Having a successful platform doesn't make them the government.

[fein]

> It's also not going onto other people's property and doing whatever you want.

It is when that property is considered the public space.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama

The internet should be regulated in the same way with defacto monopolies over "public" communications wrt. Twitter, FB, YT, etc.

[moorhosj]

At the bottom of your Wikipedia article there is a more relevant case:

"While the Marsh holding at first appears somewhat narrow and inapplicable to the present day due to the disappearance of company towns from the United States, it was raised in the somewhat high-profile 1996 cyberlaw case, Cyber Promotions v. America Online, 948 F. Supp. 436, 442 (E.D. Pa. 1996). Cyber Promotions wished to send out "mass email advertisements" to AOL customers. AOL installed software to block those emails. Cyber Promotions sued on free speech grounds and cited the Marsh case as authority for the proposition that even though AOL's servers were private property, AOL had opened them to the public to a degree sufficient that constitutional free speech protections could be applied.

The federal district court disagreed, thereby paving the way for spam filters at the Internet service provider level."

[fein]

> A more relevant case

So are we deliberately conflating spam with political discourse now? Seriously?

[moorhosj]

Not at all, no idea where you got that idea. The discussion is about the right of the government to force private companies to do things with their own property.

The AOL case is more relevant because it involves a private internet company and data crossing it's privately held servers, much like Twitter today.

The Marsh case involves a company acting like a government, then trying to stifle free speech. Twitter never acted like a government.

[fein]

The Marsh case handles a scenario in which a private company controlled the public space.

The big 3 of social media currently do the same thing, however in a digital sphere. Trumps twitter, for example, was ruled as a public resource and therefore he couldn't block users from his feed. So here we have a private property leveraged as a public gathering space.

Would you have the same opinion here if Twitter was banning minorities based on race? Is it still a private company that can do whatever they please?

[wvenable]

Only political discourse is free speech?

[fein]

The government does indeed criminalize spammers, so I'm not sure where your logic is going here.

[lovehashbrowns]

The AOL case wasn't merely about spam--you can't pretend that it was. Here's part of the opinion:

> By providing its members with access to the Internet through its e-mail system so that its members can exchange information with those members of the public who are also connected to the Internet, AOL is not exercising any of the municipal powers or public services traditionally exercised by the State as did the private company in Marsh. Although AOL has technically opened its e-mail system to the public by connecting with the Internet, AOL has not opened its property to the public by performing any municipal power or essential public service and, therefore, does not stand in the shoes of the State.