[Aelius]

Your definition of "free speech" includes not taking action against truly malicious and slanderous and manipulative people like Alex Jones?

And there is no "who draws the line‽" argument here, Jones exists miles beyond what is ever ok.

[whatshisface]

>And there is no "who draws the line‽" argument here

That's exactly the argument, not everybody thinks Alex Jones went too far. In fact, I bet a lot of people who listen to Alex Jones would find something you supported to be miles beyond what is ever OK. That's part and parcel of living in a diverse, cosmopolitan society. Sometimes, other people's opinions are miles beyond OK, but that's still okay. ;)

[Aelius]

You seem to be willfully ignoring the demonstrable harm he causes. You're promoting a false balance. You're saying "Alex Jones robbed a bank, other people eat their coworkers' lunch, so who are we to judge?"

Absolute nonsense.

[SamReidHughes]

If demonstrable harm is your standard, please just announce you don't believe in free speech and move along. Everybody advocating for the wrong stance on politics creates demonstrable harm.

[Aelius]

Free speech means he can say (edit) legally protegted speech* on his own platform.

No company is obligated to provide that platform for him. When judging a company for what content they decide they don't want to host, spinning "vimeo banned Alex Jones" as negative is ridiculous.

Edited: he can't actually say whatever he wants even on his own platform. There's actually a lawsuit against him right now. Too many internet folk don't actually know what "free speech" means and I should not validate such ignorance.

[will4274]

Actually, free speech is an ethical concept, not a legal concept. The first amendment is a legal concept. Free speech means means enabling the free exchange of ideas. Free speeches as a concept applies to private platforms and organizations too, it just isn't mandated by law.

[dang]

Would you please not take HN threads further into flamewar?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[lone_haxx0r]

> And there is no "who draws the line‽" argument here, Jones exists miles beyond what is ever ok.

Popular media exists miles beyond what is ever ok. Do you want to ban those too?

[sequoia]

The courts can draw this line & determine these distinctions, and they are doing just this right now. Jones is currently being sued by some Sandy Hook parents. It turns out we don't need to rely on Youtube of Vimeo to be the ultimate arbiters of this issue, and the system may just be working in this case.