[not_jd_salinger]

While I love XKCD and am not a fan of Trump, limiting the philosophical idea of "Free Speech" to explicitly being about the Federal Government is a fairly dangerous idea.

When this country was founded Government was by far the most powerful agency in people's lives. Merchants where important, had a lot of influence but still could not be too aggressive with a regent.

Today the Government has far less influence over your daily life than large corporations and you employer. In 1776 most people where farmers, the only agency that could deny your livelihood was the government (they ultimately had control over your land). Today government policies have far less of an impact than your employer on your livelihood.

The fact that a handful of oligarchs can decided that Trump doesn't need a voice is not democratic solution to a politician I radically disagree with that I would like. If you feel like the list of things you can't say publicly without ruining your career is shrinking, that is certainly a threat to the spirit of free speech.

[thrill]

"Today the Government has far less influence over your daily life than large corporations and you employer." ... let me know when the average employer has the right to bust down your door and shove a gun in your face because you decide to grown some weed in your basement.

[kstrauser]

The East India Company finds your lack of historical perspective amusing.

[cratermoon]

You're correct about the control of speech. At the moment at least Twitter, Google, and Facebook are private companies, and under the law and in the eyes of the Free Market, they can choose what they want to show and what they don't. It's their product, their rules. They kept the former occupant of the oval office on their platforms for as long as it was profitable to them.

The solution entails more than questioning the philosophical idea of "Free Speech", it involves considering the nature of government and human rights in an entirely different light than the currently dominant neoliberal economic consensus.

[pstuart]

Let's try it out with HN? Maybe start a petition to demand that there is no more flagging/banning, etc. Anything goes in this marketplace of ideas, right? Let's stop letting dang tell us what we can and cannot say, eh? Let's stop the censorship now!