[PaulDavisThe1st]

Back when radio was the only mass medium that you could reach entire populations on, would you have argued that anyone with a POV should be able to broadcast over the air, "because free speech" ?

Back when there were only 3 TV networks that reached the whole of the US, would you have argued that anyone with a POV should be able to get some time (how long?) on one of those networks, "because free speech" ?

Free speech never meant the ability to demand the use of any mechanism or any resource to reach a real or hypothetical audience. Changing the definition because lots of people chat on social media doesn't cut it, I think.

[kr99x]

You are badly misunderstanding the situation. A world with 3 TV networks is a world of limited airtime, so of course people will not give their slots up freely for others. That is not the world we are in now. It costs no "space" to let messages of any kind go through your platform. It costs (nearly) no bandwidth. It is generally profitable. The only reason messages are being restricted is because those who control the platform don't like them. A TV network wouldn't give airtime to any old wacko because it was a limited resource. Signal choosing not to give use of their platform to somebody they don't like is categorically different.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

> You are badly misunderstanding the situation.

Those radio and TV networks were, before the internet, the only way you could broadcast to the nation, or the city, or the region or whatever. If you wanted to reach many people and not in print, you had to be on them. As you note, this is no longer the case.

The resource you want access to is, variously, either the internet itself or (e.g.) Signal's audience. You don't need Signal for the former, and you don't have any constitutional or moral right to the latter.

[kr99x]

You prove to still be misunderstanding. Firstly in that "Signal's Audience" is not a thing under contention - it's willing parties who are already both using Signal being prevented from using that tool to talk about [x] with one another. It's constraining communication by content once you've already granted someone the tools that is the problem.

Even so, I agree you have neither a constitutional nor a moral right to anything of Signal's in any case. And yet, the world would be a better place - for all people, Signal's staff and shareholders included - if they gave it freely. Nobody is obligated to spend their own time or effort to improve the world, but if we want the world to be a better place then somebody has to.

The more accessible unfettered communication is, the better the world is able to become. Full stop. Restrained communication is less capable of improving the world, because restrained communication is less capable of changing the world at all, because those invested in the status quo have incentive to restrain communication which could make change.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Firstly, Signal is completely irrelevant here: they cannot censor based on message content, and have (for now) said that they will not (based, presumably on the fact that they cannot).

Secondly, in the case of a company such as Twitter, which can censor based on content, they are free to say that they think that the world is a better place if they do indeed play that role. You may disagree with them. I might even disagree with them too. But they are free to take that position, and I would contend that requiring them to follow your instincts on this is, in the long, a greater harm than figuring out net neutrality rules for the wiring (so to speak).

It will be a much better world where someone kicked off Twitter can move to Twotter or Trotter or Titter or Tatter, than one where Twitter is told what to do by governments.

[kr99x]

Firstly, this article and the discussions on this page are about Signal, it's hardly irrelevant. For the particular case of the company Signal, there are many actors claiming that censorship is needed. Signal for now disagrees, but even on this page you'll find people that support that. Just because the way Signal is implemented today resists the model doesn't mean that's a guarantee into the future.

Secondly, there is no reason we cannot have it both ways. A single communications company with content-neutral policies is helping the world more than one with content-sensitive policies. Two communications companies with content-neutral policies in competition with one another may be better yet, but that does not make Twitter choosing to censor its users the right thing for them to do. I have not said the government should tell Twitter what to do, only that they should choose not to censor because that makes the world a better place.

There is a growing contingent of people, especially younger people, who do not understand how free communication underlies the ability to make any change at all. Who do not see that creating the tools to censor conversations harms the future. They see immediate benefits in clamping down on this or that harm (temporarily ignoring that they're making themselves the arbiters of right and wrong and giving them the power to declare what is or is not a harm in the first place) but not grasping that they will not be in control of those tools in perpetuity.