[ThomW]

Free speech isn't speech without consequences. All that the first amendment protects is government making laws restricting free speech, but if you're a customer and you're doing shit that I don't agree with, I have every right to boot you from my platform. I don't have to stand idly by and not take action.

[HideousKojima]

The 1st Amendment and Freedom of Speech aren't the same thing. Freedom of Speech is a philosophical concept and is, in fact, "freedom from consequences."

[vineyardmike]

There is consequences to everything. It’s the philosophical right to talk. Not the right to an audience or the right that people won’t be mad at you for disagreeing.

If I call your fiance ugly you may not invite me to your wedding even though I have freedom of speech. If I tell the waiter they’re ugly, they may not serve me food even though I have the freedom of speech. Everything has consequences.

[overl0rd11]

What if you criticize Amazon? Should you be banned from using all their services? What if you criticize private enterprise in general? Banned from everything except services provided by the state then? Your interpersonal examples where both people/groups have very little and similar amounts of power. 'Consequences' to speech become dangerous when corporations or even larger groups of people get involved.

[thiht]

What if you threaten the life of Jeff Bezos or Amazon employees online?

[thephyber]

This argument is so contrived, it's cringe.

You have somehow made a logical equivalence of some benign speech like "criticize private enterprise in general" and then projected that on "every company in the world bans you".

(1) There is always some company willing to sell a product/service for the right price. Even to genocidal maniacs, and especially to everyone who is more socially acceptable.

(2) Every competing company smaller than Amazon wants to steal Amazon's business. If you are banned by the big company, they are likely to want your business. They may use their compassion and willingness to be criticized / reverence for "unlimited freedom of speech" as a competitive advantage.

(3) Every "undesirable" company eventually finds suitable replacements for their vendors. DailyStormer, Parler, 8Chan, InfoWars. They are all still on the internet.

There are legitimate concerns when there is a monopoly / small oligopoly in an industry with no substitutes. And there are legal concerns when governments sanction people/organizations without due process. But your comment wasn't useful to any informed discussion of these topics.

[TulliusCicero]

Freedom of speech has never meant freedom from consequences. Obviously speech can have all sorts of different consequences (both positive and negative) at all kinds of layers of society.

[ric2b]

By that definition Freedom of Speech is a ridiculous idea.

Are you saying I should be able to spend my entire day advocating for your rights to be removed, insulting you or whatever else and you still need to treat me like any other person and can't get annoyed at me?

Or the opposite, if someone treats me really well I can't be friends with them because that would be a positive consequence of their speech?

We all need to act like emotionless machines that completely ignore all speech so that free speech can exist?