Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by chris_mc 2628 days ago
>Militant leftists wanting to outlaw certain speech

Uhh, Mozilla didn't outlaw anything. Do you want to force Mozilla to put that extension on their site against their free speech rights? The only thing guaranteed by the first amendment is the federal government cannot prevent you from saying what you want. It says nothing about preventing you from using a 3rd party platform. Feel free to get a literal soapbox and preach your truth wherever you want in the real world, no one is stopping you.
1 comments
syshum 2628 days ago
It would not be against Mozilla "free speech" rights, it would be against their free association rights.

I want to hold Mozilla up to their public advertisements, and commitments they made to the public at large, these are a contract if you will to the public. Both because of their Tax Exempt status, and a truth in advertising issue.

If mozilla wants to exercise their right to free association as censorship platform, then they need to give up their Tax Exempt status, as well as cease all public advertisement around "Our mission: Keep the internet open and accessible to all.", Clearly this is only true to people that share the ideological worldview as Mozilla. AS such this is a false statement.

link
krapp 2628 days ago
There is no such thing as a "contract if you will to the public" nor do any "commitments" that Mozilla has made to the "public at large" (whatever those are supposed to be) constitute a contract in any legally binding sense.

>If mozilla wants to exercise their right to free association as censorship platform, then they need to give up their Tax Exempt status, as well as cease all public advertisement around "Our mission: Keep the internet open and accessible to all."

Firefox extensions are not the internet.

link
gspetr 2628 days ago
You're being unnecessarily literal, it's clear that the parent misspoke and meant social contract[0], not a direct, legal one.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract

link
krapp 2627 days ago
Losing tax exempt status and being barred from mentioning a mission statement sound like legal, not social consequences. My impression was that the parent believed Mozilla was breaking some actual law regarding truth in advertising or something by claiming their mission was to "keep the internet open and accessible to all" while also curating plugins.
link