[yoak]

It doesn't violate someone's right to free speech or any other right for a company to fail to provide a service to them. A company having to provide service to some particular entity only violates one set of rights - those of the company.

[roc]

Luckily, no-one's rights are at issue and no-one's going to be forced to do anything.

It's a simple question of whether people want to support a company that acts in ways they don't approve of. A boycott is simply voting with your wallet. There's no rule that it's only right or just to boycott if laws have been broken. I'd be surprised if more than a tiny minority of boycotts were based on corporate behavior that wasn't 100% legal.

[yoak]

I agree with everything you say here. I only take issue with claims that Amazon was violating someone's right to free speech. I no more think people shouldn't boycott Amazon if their dislike of Amazon's decision makes them not want to use their service than I do that Amazon should provide hosting to someone if they don't regard it in their interest to do so.

Calling it a violation of free speech waters down the impact of the phrase as it covers real governments doing it with real violence. I went to college during during the height of the political correctness bubble and was exposed to nuts who called holding a door open for a woman "rape." I couldn't imagine any more crass or insensitive action with respect to real rape victims.

[andrewcooke]

I'm not sure what your point is here? You're saying that you can define freedom of speech in a narrow way so that Amazon is off the hook. Great.

But that doesn't change what they've done - it just makes you look like a lawyer making excuses for the inexcusable.

[pyre]

It sounds more like this: "If Amazon is wrong for refusing service to someone that is hosting potentially-controversial content, then that implies that no hosting company can refuse service to such a person. I.e. that person is 'untouchable.'"

This seems to cross lines with the 'Affirmative Action'-type arguments: that in an effort to 'make up' for past wrong against black people we are making it impossible to refuse X (where X could be employment, etc) to a black person, even if the reason isn't because of their skin color.

{update} I was only attempting to clarify what I thought that the parent poster (gp to this post) was getting at.