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by thisisweirdok 2682 days ago
You have a poor understanding of free speech. If you use someone else's service/platform, you have zero right to free speech (certain speech is protected, but it's very limited).

The freedom of speech is specifically protection from government censorship. E.G., If you're publishing a newspaper the government can't come by and tell you what to say in it. The newspaper can publish (or not publish) anything they want.
1 comments
sokoloff 2682 days ago
Replace “newspaper” with “Facebook” or “Twitter” in your post and where do you end up? I think GP might have a better understanding of 1st Amendment than you give them credit for.
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thisisweirdok 2682 days ago
No. Facebook the company can publish or not publish whatever they want. They can censor you all they want. It has nothing to do with free speech as outlined in the constitution (which again, protects individual people from government censorship).
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sokoloff 2682 days ago
Somehow I must have typed my thoughts unclearly in my response above, because I agree 100% with everything you say immediately above (19171197). Facebook can censor whatever they want (IMO, private decisions on what to publish are inherently themselves a form of speech) and therefore the government is barred from censoring Facebook's publishing rights on First Amendment grounds.

If you take my suggestion (in 19168078), you end up with: "The freedom of speech is specifically protection from government censorship. E.G., If you're publishing <a site called Facebook> the government can't come by and tell you what to say in it. <Facebook> can publish (or not publish) anything they want." (For clarity, I agree with this 100%.)

The original post to which you replied (with expressed disagreement) said "The thing about strong free speech laws is that it protects facebook and twitter's right to censor." I also agree with that post 100%. It's your interleaved post's (19167743) first sentence in response to that ("You have a poor understanding of free speech.") that I disagreed with, given that that poster appears to hold the same point of view that you do immediately above.

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thisisweirdok 2682 days ago
I guess? it's a weird stretch. There's nothing specifically protecting what a business decides to censor other than the fact that the government can't engage in censorship.
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icebraining 2682 days ago
But Facebook and Twitter are the ones publishing, not you as the user.
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sokoloff 2682 days ago
I agree 100%. That's why I suggested that then-GP (now GGGP https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19167303 ) was right/relevant.
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