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by jmull
2054 days ago
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> This suggests that free speech is merely about being able to speak and that advocates would be happy for their speech to be stymied in other ways I do not suggest that. I am not trying narrowly define speech. My point is: It is free speech for someone to make claims about election fraud. It is also free speech for someone to refute those claims. Why deny Twitter the right to their own editorial position, whatever its bias, while certain twitter users — with strong biases of their own — have free reign? You seem to want to cast Twitter expressing their own position as inhibiting someone else’s free speech, but it’s just their own free speech. Free speech means you get to express yourself, not be free from contradiction. |
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On the other hand, there are many ways to stymie speech which don't involve outright supression. Some of the things that Twitter does to stop certain speech are better than other ways -- I think it's good when they can be explicit about what they are doing and why they are doing it. It might be better business for them to be non-partisan as they provide a platform for people across the world but that is also their choice.
However, if for example, I was an admin on HN and had some special ability to put emphasized disclaimers below your comments about how they were mistaken and you were wrong, I think you would be right to feel like I was biasing the discussion and that it was unfair. An advocate for free speech (to the extent that I am, and in the way that I am) might be against this, since it does not create a good environment for discussion (new arguments or new ideas).
As I said, it kind of depends on the particulars and the context, but I kind of think about it like a debate between two people overseen by a moderator. If the moderator is neutral it is preferred by the audience, and if it looks like unfair treatment by the moderator it could easily backfire. Of course, this metaphor is quite specific and not guaranteed to apply to all situations -- but, I think it should be considered, since it's not uncommon for grifters on Twitter to make a fuss about how they are being unfairly targeted, in order to persuade their audience that "the truth" is being hidden from them by an unchecked elite (this is along the lines of my first comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25044396).