[hengheng]

I've never heard this type of speech at a bar when I asked why somebody wasn't shown the door. I guess they didn't have a greater principle.

One core value that a platform could have is common decency, which is not the same as censorship, but it is given up even easier than what your argument calls free speech.

[minkzilla]

That’s because one bouncer can see everyone in the bar. I have heard this type of speech in regards to nations, aka a much larger scale.

[seph-reed]

Terrible metaphor.

How do you suggest making a platform which allows good content while disallowing bad? Also, how do you expect to be able to define these things? Remember: every person you pay to moderate has to be able to discern good from bad in as little time as possible. Even less time than that.

[smogcutter]

Ironic argument to post on such a heavily moderated forum. Also kind of beside the point with regards to a site that seems to be intentionally designed as a safe harbor for venomous trash. Not quite the same thing as throwing up your hands over moderation being hard.

[seph-reed]

The trick with this forum (and IMO the only trick that really works) is narrow-bandwidth community.

I have no idea how to apply this to a content hosting paradigm though. Not without spending a couple million dollars on bots who inevitably make mistakes.

[young_unixer]

If a bar started kicking people out for what they say, then it would be a shitty bar, and not one I would like to visit.

[Psychlist]

Next time you're in a bar try explaining to the bouncer that they should be killed, violently, right now.

I suspect you'll find out that whatever free speech rights your local jurisdiction grants you don't allow you to stay in the bar.

[giancarlostoro]

A bar is private property that just so happens have the doors open for potential customers, whilst some things on the internet are public access, nobody is forcing you to go to any specific website if you don't want to, but at a privately owned bar you might not like someone chanting about politics or whatever the case may be, and this is established laws for platforms vs publishers in the USA. This is why a lot of people have issues with Google editorializing search results (check out Project Veritas on the matter) because they reach out into editor territory and out of just being a platform.

Since somebody downvoted without providing references to their refutes here's an actual case about freedom of speech online which is the main one by the looks of it in regards to suppressing speech online:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reno_v._American_Civil_Liberti...

The burden of defamation is on the person not the website if anything, however, if someone posts anonymously who do you sue? The best a platform can do is delete their account. I've successfully had defamatory / false content about myself deleted from a platform in the past.

[mwfunk]

No, none of this applies to privately owned web sites. If anything, forcing them to act like utilities impinges on the speech of the platform owners. The Ben Shapiros of the world have desperately been trying to spin a different narrative though and they will jump through endless hoops and contradictions to do it. This is all just moderated-vs-unmoderated newsgroups/mailing lists/web sites all over again. There’s room for both. Nobody has a constitutional right to force YouTube or anyone else to host their content, or to have those companies shield them from criticism.

If someone wants to argue that YouTube should be declared a public utility that is required to host everyone’s content no matter what, that’s totally understandable and they should make that argument instead. Otherwise they’re just asking for the government to mandate that YouTube, etc. are safe spaces where everything is permitted and no one is allowed to judge other people for what they say, including the company paying for the servers. Which is so totally counter to what those very same people seem to think about everything else that I’m surprised the hypocrisy and inconsistency doesn’t create a singularity or something. But here we are, in 2020, and AM-talk-radio types are demanding the government mandate safe spaces for them on privately owned platforms where they are shielded from consequences.