[stale2002]

> This would be a violation of freedom of association

No, actually. We force public businesses to not discriminate based on race, and we have laws that for the telephone company to send almost all calls on its network.

Nobody would say that those laws break our rights to freedom of association.

Similar laws could be place on social media companies that we already put on telephone companies, even if they wouldn't be exactly the same.

[XorNot]

"being a jerk online" is not a protected class.

[stale2002]

You didn't contradict anything that I said.

I said that companies are already forced to do certain things, but few people would say that this is some huge infringement on free speech.

Ex:telephone companies are forced to carry certain calls, but most people would not say that there is a huge free speech infringement here.

Therefore, these existing laws could be expanded to other things like social media.

So, in other words, this statement is wrong "This would be a violation of freedom of association".

[XorNot]

Telephone companies exchange legal liability for the content of what they carry, for not changing fee or pricing structures based on the use of their lines. However, they also charge fees for the use of their service to their end users.

People do not pay for the services in question here, so the idea they have a right to them is on shaky ground to begin with - i.e. if I give away free lemonade, I'm under no obligations to give it away to any specific persons.

But more importantly, there's a big difference between a transactive exchange between two parties, and a broadcast one: the telephone company is not obligated to advertise who uses their services or how they use them, whereas Facebook is a publishing platform that does - which goes to the question of association. You can discreetly use a telephone line: you cant discreetly use Facebook without Facebook branding.

So what does the proposed law then look like? Facebook is obligated to host your content next to the "Facebook" logo? Does the logo have to be there? Does the service have to be similar? What if Facebook decide your content just doesn't qualify for their branded tier, and instead will be hosted on "QuietBook.com", which they don't SEO optimize? Suppose you have a comment section on a personal website - why are you now allowed to remove comments there but Facebook isn't allowed to remove comments from it's service?

[stale2002]

You have once again not contracted anything that I said. What I said was that we have laws that force businesses to do certain things, and very few people would say that these businesses are having their rights infringed on.

> So what does the proposed law then look like?

Well, what we could do, is take existing laws and extend them to social media companies. Such as the existing common carrier laws, or anti-discrimination laws.

> if I give away free lemonade, I'm under no obligations to give it away to any specific persons.

If you had a lemonade store, in a mall, and you were giving away free lemonade, but you refused to give away lemonade to black people, then you absolutely would get in trouble with the law.

Like c'mon. How did you not think of that immediately? I even referenced this in a previous comment.

> Facebook is obligated to host your content next to the "Facebook" logo? Does the logo have to be there?

Well, just take every single question that you asked, and apply them to if a store wanted to treat black people differently, and then you have your answer.

So whatever hypothetical you have, imagine if it was about a company being forced to follow certain laws, that prevent them from discriminating against black people.

And the answer to these hypothetical, is that if a company attempted to do these things to black people, then it would likely be disallowed.

And very few people would say that there is some large infringement on these companies rights in that situation.

[XorNot]

So again: if I have a comment section on my personal blog - can I remove abusive comments? Ban abusive users? Can HackerNews ban or downvote comments so they're not seen? Can TalkBack radio screen which callers it puts on the air?

You can write a law to do whatever you want, but the reason rights like freedom of association are enumerated is because things will go very, very wrong quickly when you undermine them. Freedom of speech is protection from government sanction for voicing your ideas, but freedom of association is protection of your being compelled to act due to the arbitrary desires of others.

> If you had a lemonade store, in a mall, and you were giving away free lemonade, but you refused to give away lemonade to black people, then you absolutely would get in trouble with the law.

No you wouldn't. You'd be in trouble if you ejected people from the premises on the basis of race, but there is no case-law which requires you to give away goods and services to anyone. But this comparison is completely irrelevant because "your opinions" are not a protected class, nor would they ever be.