[simiones]

While I don't think the original claim is in any way obvious, and you may well be right overall, you're also making a huge mistake in your look at history - newspapers are not and have never been "public forums" (except to the minor extent that they occasionally published letters to the editor).

Instead, historic public forums were mostly related to in-person meetings - town halls, clubs, pubs etc. These have not been outlawed nor disappeared entirely, but they are almost entirely atrophied. Instead, public discussion has moved almost entirely online. This has created a complex situation, as online forums are almost always private property, unlike the forums of the past.

This situation is creating an unprecedented situation for free speech - as private mega corporations, not bound by the first ammendment, are now in control of a huge percentage of public communication. It seems pretty clear that Facebook or YouTube can't just be handled as publishers, nor as network operators, nor as broadcasters, nor as any other traditional form of communication. We will need to invent a new concept of how such communication should be regulated and moderated.

On the other hand, it's also true there is more public communication, and with higher reach, then probably ever before in history.

[criley2]

I think you made a similar mistake in your thought process with "public forums" which almost always took place in private places, like churches, clubs, etc. It's not a given that public forums were on government property, and most local governments couldn't afford large meeting spaces.

The idea that every government and "public" forum in American history was government land is crazy to me. People weren't going into the courthouse to have friendly debates. They were in inns, bars, churches, etc. I would wager the vast majority of all "public forums" you refer to happened in a private location.

Thus this isn't some unprecedented scenario, as the church has controlled public speech in all but the biggest of towns in this manner for our entire history.

I'm reminded of the Red Scare where socialists and communist sympathizers could not meet because all the meeting spaces were private and they were banned from meeting there. So much for historical public forums! What few private forums were available were targeted by the government and its sympathizers for shutdown, violence or worse.

Imagine putting the government that ran the red scare IN CHARGE OF what constitutes free speech and who can publish what.

>We will need to invent a new concept of how such communication should be regulated and moderated.

No thanks, I like Free Speech and Liberty and we never need to invent a new way for the government of the day to control speech.

[josephcsible]

> Instead, historic public forums were mostly related to in-person meetings - town halls, clubs, pubs etc. These have not been outlawed nor disappeared entirely, but they are almost entirely atrophied.

Last year they were outlawed.

[natural219]

Well put. I wonder if conservatives would have better purchase framing this as more of a 14th amendment thing (private bar owners throwing out customers whose "kind they don't want around here") rather than a 1st amendment thing.