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> Deplatforming is censorship because, if done actively and exceptionally (i.e. discriminatorially and out of the ordinary routine) then it is the attempt to prevent the speaker from speaking and anyone wishing to listeners being able to listen. No, it's not. It's refusing to actively participate in the speakers speech. It is distinct from either preventing them from speaking, or preventing interested parties from listening. The freedom of speech is, as conservatives are fond of pointing out, a negative right, not a positive one. (The use of “discriminatorially” here is pure noise; all choices are, by definition, discrimination.) > If you are going to conflate them then distributors refusing to distribute the goods of gays or blacks based on them being gay or black, given that they usually distribute goods from non-gays and non-blacks, that is not prejudicial discrimination? It's certainly race and sexual orientation discrimination, but that's not what we're discussing, and it's an orthogonal issue to freedom of speech. If you want to argue a violation of existing or ideal public accommodation laws protecting against political viewpoint discrimination, that's a very different argument than the free speech argument. In fact, it's an opposed argument, as public accommodation laws (and the concept of freedom from private discrimination on various axes more generally) is in tension with free speech and free association rights, a tension which is at its maximum when the service involved is relaying speech and the basis for denial is the political content of the speech at issue. |
- speak back
- listen
- transmit
Additionally, repeating what someone else has said (speech) is not transmission of their speech, it's transmission of their ideas.
A television broadcaster or a book publisher, however, transmits. That is their function.
> The freedom of speech is, as conservatives are fond of pointing out, a negative right, not a positive one.
Which is why there was a qualifier of "if done actively and exceptionally (i.e. discriminatorially and out of the ordinary routine)".
If a broadcaster like Sky Sports refuses to have on Noam Chomsky for a discussion about, well, anything, that's not censorship because he doesn't talk about sport nor does he have anything to do with sport. They passively and normally do not transmit his speech, hence it is not censorship. If Chomsky asks to go on then they may still refuse and it not be censorship because even though their refusal is active it is *not* exceptional.
If, however, the BBC political flagship programme refuses to have Chomsky on because he's Chomsky or Chomsky once wrote in support of a Holocaust denier [note 1] then *that is censorship* because it is active and exceptional.
None of that requires positive liberty, nor is it in variance with conceptions of free speech as a negative liberty.
> If you want to argue a violation of existing or ideal public accommodation laws protecting against political viewpoint discrimination, that's a very different argument than the free speech argument.
Given what you've written I can see how you'd think this. As I'm not:
> It's certainly race and sexual orientation discrimination, but that's not what we're discussing, and it's an orthogonal issue to freedom of speech.
If we take your analogy about distributors to its logical conclusion then it is what we're talking about - enabling discrimination that violates negative liberties.
[note 1] He wrote in support of an academic's right to freedom of speech, not in support of his book denying the death camps, but that's the way things get framed.
Edit: formatting. I will forever rage against HN's half hearted markdown flavour.