[randrews]

Ads in general are probably something society doesn't want, because you have to pay people (in the form of ad-supported content) to look at them. You might say that most people in society think cigarette or gun ads (or DNC political spots) are particularly objectionable. But, I don't believe that that's a reason to ban them.

I'm completely in agreement that the law doesn't compel speech, or publication, especially of ads. Hulu is completely legally in the right to not carry DNC ads, Google and Facebook are completely legally in the right not to carry Colt or Remington ads. They'd also be in the right not to carry Altria ads. But the question is what speech do we want to ban by law... and I think the only answer to that for a healthy, free society is "none."

I even go further and say that respecting free speech exists outside the first amendment as a societal value that we should all hold, like "politeness" and "honesty," and that it should be kept even when not legally required... So Hulu _should_ run the ads, even though they are not _required_ to.

[verdverm]

You can believe what you want, we tolerate flat earthers too

> I think the only answer to that for a healthy, free society is "none."

This is not true or healthy in the internet age where speech can reach all of humanity in seconds and we are plagued by bad actors without the ability to easily rein them in. Telling people to do their own research or be safe does not scale and the negative externalities end up costing society more.

A company or platform that wants to allow unfettered speech is free to compete with those who filter & curate. We can then see without doubt which society prefers

[randrews]

Hmm. So the way I interpret this is: true free speech lets people say things that are wrong, and leads to people believing things that are wrong. A company that allows it will perform worse in a market because of people believing those wrong things. An analogous thing would happen to a society allowing it, so, to have our society be stronger economically, we should have limits on speech. Is that close to right?

If so, my argument is this: a company and a country have different goals. Many things that a country might provide (welfare programs, democracy, public services) are expenses that don't make us economically stronger. But, we do anyway because that's not the point of a country: the point is to provide the best quality of life for citizens. I'm happy to accept the drawbacks of free speech (people believing in Q, or that the Apollo landings were faked) in exchange for being able to say whatever I want. If you aren't, then there are other countries that make the other tradeoff.

I think this is the core of what's going to be a big debate over the next decade or two, though: is it better to be less productive and free (America), or more efficient but authoritarian (China)?

[verdverm]

> A company that allows it will perform worse in a market because of people believing those wrong things.

This is not why. Look at 4Chan, Parlor, Truth, or any other "free speech" platform. It ends up being toxic and noisy to the point that the vast majority of people will not use it. Thus the company fails, because it cannot reach critical mass for a 2 sided marketplace.

> I'm happy to accept the drawbacks of free speech (people believing in Q, or that the Apollo landings were faked) in exchange for being able to say whatever I want. If you aren't, then there are other countries that make the other tradeoff.

We live in a democracy and you might be the one looking to other countries, if any exist who want to support such an unfettered society. I don't know of any... and even if they did exist, if your company wants to operate in a given country, it has to follow the local laws.

[randrews]

We do not live in a pure democracy, we live in a constitutional republic. Our lawmakers aren't able to create certain laws because of limits on their power in the constitution; one of those limits is that no law can be passed abridging the freedom of speech. No matter how many people vote for it, without amending the constitution to remove that protection first, it will not happen. And the process for passing that amendment is intentionally cumbersome, for that reason.

> 4Chan, Parlor, Truth, or any other "free speech" platform. It ends up being toxic and noisy to the point that the vast majority of people will not use it.

4Chan and Parler seem to exist just fine. 8Chan doesn't, or was killed and then revived, or something, I'm not sure, but it wasn't due to lack of users; their host canceled them. Never heard of Truth before now, it seems to be Trump's Twitter clone that contains just Trump?

Anyway, my point is not that these free-speech-platforms are more successful than curated ones. My point is that that's the wrong metric to judge whether free speech is a good value to have in a society. I don't care if there are costs to it any more than I care whether the post office is profitable: I don't want to live in a society without freedom of speech, no matter how efficient it is, any more than I'd want to live in one without a post office or a fire department. I am willing to pay for the externalities because the alternative is much, much worse.

From your other reply: if I'm letting my bias in, then how am I misinterpreting what you say? I genuinely want to understand your position.

[verdverm]

Letting your biases shine through affects more than your interpretation of what I say, it permeates from all of your speech. Most people do not want what you want, but you characterize that as being at the other extreme, and therefore must be disastrous, while your solution is the savior of all. Step back to see that your "solution" is unworkable, that it does not reflect what the vast majority want.

Again, you have a problem in that you only appear to think at the extremes. What concessions to your vision would you be willing to make?

I genuinely want you to understand your position

[randrews]

Looking back at what I've said in this thread, it's "free speech is a societal value like honestly and politeness, not just a constitutional right," "I would be in favor of lifting bans on cigarette ads," "people don't like watching ads but we shouldn't ban them anyway," "I don't think we should be banning any speech," and "the point of a free country is to have a good standard of living for its citizens more than to make money."

There's only one thing in there that I think any reasonable person could think is extreme, and that's having no bans on speech. I'm overall happy making the concessions to this that America already makes.

As for the rest of it: if that sounds extreme to you then I really don't think I'm the one with biases, and I really don't think there's going to be much common ground between us. It's cliche at this point but do you talk about this stuff to a lot of people who aren't on the internet? Because outside the bubble of social media and this website, nothing I've said here would be controversial at all.

I also notice that you think I'm misinterpreting what you said, but still won't say how... Which makes me think that I'm not misinterpreting it at all, you just don't like having a corollary of your beliefs pointed out to you.

Anyway this has been fun but I'm finished now, the anti-flame-war filter is making it take forever to post replies.

[verdverm]

If you only think at extremes you will miss the middle ground.

> Is that close to right?

No, you are letting your bias in