[AbrahamParangi]

I don’t give a rat’s ass about the free speech rights of the government. Why on earth would I? The government is already massively constrained in what it can say and that’s entirely appropriate because the purpose of free speech is to protect the right of the weak to speak even when the strong disagree with them.

You may disagree with the ruling but if you’re on the side of free speech, you should definitely cheer it.

[evandale]

lol I gotta say I've been trying to read the defenders of this and take them seriously but your incredulity matches mine...

.. and people are replying to you and _still_ defending the government and think they should have unilateral power over their people

I'm kind of speechless about how many people think this ruling is a bad thing.. like who in the hell out there believes the government should have OPINIONS? Can one of you reply to me?

It's as stupid of a concept as a corporation having an opinion.. opinions are reserved for PEOPLE and I have no idea how you could come up with an argument to change my mind on that.

[afavour]

> It's as stupid of a concept as a corporation having an opinion.. opinions are reserved for PEOPLE and I have no idea how you could come up with an argument to change my mind on that.

I guess I don’t understand your point here unless we’re being ultra-literal and saying a corporation can’t have an opinion because it doesn’t have a physical brain developing individual thought.

An example of “corporate opinion” off the top of my head: Facebook is in favour of advertising. I guess it's just a shorthand for "the executive board and shareholders of Facebook share the collective view that advertising is good" but I don't think anyone is particularly confused about what is meant when someone says Facebook is favour of something.

[ipaddr]

Facebook is made up of many parts. Some parts find advertising to be directly opposite of their goals. The react team may not like ads being force in their docs for example. If own shares through a pension I may not like advertising.

The CEO decides who manages which roles and divides authority. Opinions comes from these power structures. They could be divided on issues or unified. They speak for the company.

Google is so big you often have conflicting goals from different power structures.

[afavour]

> Google is so big you often have conflicting goals from different power structures.

In that situation I'd say Google is conflicted on the topic. It's still not all that different from a human being, IMO, I can be internally conflicted on a topic and find it difficult to find an opinion that encompasses all of my thoughts.

I get that it's shorthand and euphemism but I don't think it's all that confusing.

[evandale]

> because it doesn’t have a physical brain developing individual thought.

You summed up my point with a single sentence I can agree with, can't argue there!

In your scenario what's the opinion Facebook has about advertising? I'm in favour of more bike lanes in my city but I don't consider that an opinion. Describing _why_ I'm in favour has an element of opinion but voting yes/no is not an opinion to me. Plus, any old why isn't good enough for an opinion. For instance, if Facebook says they're in favour of advertising because it helps them make money then I don't think I can consider that an opinion.

I suppose corporate slogans and mission statements are opinions (We believe the customer is always right) but it's hard for me to call that an opinion because are your values actually opinions? I would say that they can be formed using opinions but I would be reluctant to say they're opinions themselves because of the "strength" of them I guess?

[afavour]

OK, I guess we are being ultra-literal. Which is fine!

> I'm in favour of more bike lanes in my city but I don't consider that an opinion

...I do not understand why not. To my perception that is very much the definition of an opinion.

But anyway, we clearly have a bunch of different definitions in play here. I think we can safely agree to disagree.

[evandale]

It's not an opinion because IMO you need a why for an opinion. There's an implicit why most of the time. But Facebook supporting marketing because they make more money with marketing can be a verified fact - there's no opinion element in it and I don't think Facebook supporting marketing by itself is an opinion.

If you like rain because it waters your garden I'd hesitate to call that opinion because you have a factual reason.

If you like rain because it sounds pleasant that's an opinion.

If you like rain because it restores your chi it's (probably) an opinion.

I say governments and corporations can't have opinions for lots of reasons. One of them being they're not people, others that follow from that, like you need thoughts or feelings to have an opinion.

It just doesn't sit right with me having faceless entities publishing opinions because by definition opinions aren't based on facts and we have enough of a problem with regular people spreading misinformation.

[afavour]

Alright, this will be my last contribution here. But:

To start, "I like rain" is a factual statement derived from your opinion, not an opinion itself. So let's change it for "rain is good":

> If you think rain is good because it waters your garden I'd hesitate to call that opinion because you have a factual reason.

> If you think rain is good because it sounds pleasant that's an opinion.

You're making distinctions that don't exist.

Thinking rain is good because it waters your garden is based on the fact that it will help your garden grow.

Thinking rain is good because it sounds pleasant is based on the fact that you enjoy the sound of the rain.

Both of these ignore counter-factuals. Sure, you think rain is good because it waters your garden, I think rain is bad because I live at the bottom of the hill and all that rainwater frequently floods my house. I think rain is bad because I dislike the sound.

Your opinion is based on the fact most relevant to you, my opinion is based on the fact most relevant to me. Choosing which facts are most important is a personal choice that results in an opinion. They're all opinions! To finally bring the thing full circle:

> But Facebook supporting marketing because they make more money with marketing can be a verified fact

It is an opinion supported by fact. A Facebook exec could make the argument that they could make more money by dropping advertising and instead charge a monthly membership fee. There are definitely fewer facts available to back up that opinion but it would still be a valid one.

[ModernMech]

> I say governments and corporations can't have opinions for lots of reasons. One of them being they're not people

That's just your opinion. Others are of the opinion that corporations are in fact people and deserve all the protections that people deserve regarding free speech. Some such people even sit on the Supreme Court! Materialists would even go so far as to argue countries are conscious.

[emodendroket]

Your conception of what constitutes an “opinion” is different than any other one I’ve ever encountered.

[evandale]

What's your conception of an opinion?

To me am opinion is a belief you have that's not based on facts.

Why do you want your government to have a belief not based on facts? Furthermore, why would you want the government to push this belief on its people?

Lastly why would you care about the opinion (remember: an opinion is a belief that isn't based on facts) of a corporation to the point that you'd defend their right to make statements that aren't factual?

[afavour]

> To me am opinion is a belief you have that's not based on facts.

> Why do you want your government to have a belief not based on facts?

There's some kind of fallacy at work here, you're establishing what your personal definition of something is then arguing with OP while taking your personal belief as fact.

"Opinions are not based on facts" definitely isn't a universally accepted definition of an opinion. An opinion doesn't have to be based on facts but it's not precluded from it.

[emodendroket]

An opinion is a belief which is not itself objectively factual. Factual information can certainly be a basis for them. If we go back the advertising example, we could take two objective facts about advertising:

* online advertising allows consumers to learn about new products and services

* advertising incentivizes user data collection in order that it may be more effective.

From just these two facts one could easily come to a pro- or anti-advertising position based on their values and the relative weights they choose to put on each fact.

[DropInIn]

It's pretty clear that your "reasoning" is based not in any logic but almost exclusively in your "feels"...

You just dislike corps and it's undermining every thought you have on this topic.

[evandale]

Mind telling me how it's clear that I dislike corporations?

I'll proudly admit I have no trust in corporations, but dislike is a little far. There's corporations I like but there's no corporations I trust.

[DropInIn]

Any entity you distrust is also an entity that most reasonably fits into the classification of dislike.

You may like thier products or services but that's not the same as liking the corp itself.

[evandale]

If anyone reads this thread please see this comment: parent is not even trying to argue in good faith.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36621860

[afavour]

Good grief, man.

[evandale]

Can you answer any of my questions? I think they are all pretty straightforward.

[backtoyoujim]

I mean if you can drone strike a citizen as president there is little left to have in the toolbox of "unilateral power over their people".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Abdulrahman_al-Awla...

[brightlancer]

> It's as stupid of a concept as a corporation having an opinion.. opinions are reserved for PEOPLE and I have no idea how you could come up with an argument to change my mind on that.

Well, I wouldn't presume to make you think, but _BY DEFINITION_ corporations are legal persons.

Corporation. Incorporate. Corporeal.

This is a legal definition, not biological or sociological or religious or whatever else.

And under that legal framework, the corporation can act as a person and enter into contracts, initiate lawsuits, be sued, be prosecuted, etc. And more basically, the corporation can make public statements which express the _opinion_ of the corporation.

Once folks set aside political bigotries, this shouldn't be a hard concept to understand.

[npunt]

FYI the purpose of an entire branch of government (judiciary) is to have opinions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_opinion

[brightlancer]

Judicial opinions != Personal opinions

It ain't the same ballpark. It ain't the same league. It ain't even the same freakin' sport.

Equating the two is like equating a sea sponge and a dish sponge. "Well, they're both sponges!"

[nobody9999]

>Equating the two is like equating a sea sponge and a dish sponge. "Well, they're both sponges!"

Actually, they can[0] be. In fact, I use sea sponges as dish sponges every single day.

[0] https://www.naturalbathbody.com/natural-sea-sponges/

[npunt]

Yes indeed, I was just being a bit cheeky given GP's other discussion of the definition of 'opinion' :)

[evandale]

Doesn't seem that cheeky from where I'm standing.

You admitted a judicial opinion is different from a personal opinion and you're making fun of my definition of a personal opinion? But you acknowledge a judicial opinion is different than a person opinion?

Why can't you extend that to a corporation? The "opinion" of a corporation or a judge is NOT the same as a personal opinion and there is a distinction that can/should be made. I'm not sure why you can agree with someone else that a judicial opinion is different than a personal opinion but when I say "not people opinions" are different from "people opinions" I'm wrong?

[evandale]

The judiciary branch is separate from the legislative branch and I was under the impression we were discussing the legislative branch of government.

[mc32]

All that needs to happen for those loyalists to change their mind, is to have the party governing to change to someone they disagree with. Then you will hear how the gov't is killing free speech (that would be a rightful complaint). But we all know what happened to Qwest communications when they declined the gov'ts offer to spy on citizens.

[lern_too_spel]

The platforms had a preexisting way to report ToS violations. The government made statements of fact about posts that violated those ToS. The platforms were free to act or not act on those reports.

[roflyear]

You can't think of a scenario where the government should be able to express a thought about something? ;)

[uLogMicheal]

The government has plenty of ways to express thoughts. Almost every agency has a podium with a room full of reporters waiting whenever they want to make a statement.

[JackFr]

For instance, if you're the FAA, you should express opinions about airline operations, air safety, etc. That is your role. If you are the FDA, you should express opinions about food and drug safety. And in both those cases note that you are a regulator, and within your domain, it is your role to regulate the players.

If you are the White House, you are not a regulator of anything. It is fine to express your opinion. In fact the White House has a daily press briefing for specifically that purpose. It is fine to call out people with whom you disagree. Perfectly OK to call them dangerous charlatans and liars. It is not OK to censor their speech. It is not OK use the implicit coercive force of the executive branch to encourage third parties to censor them.

It's not hard to understand.

[dragonwriter]

> If you are the White House, you are not a regulator of anything

If you are the White House, you are the ur-regulator of anything any part of the executive branch is a regulator of, as well as the things that the Executive Office of the President is the actual direct regulator of (which are mostly internal to government operations.)

[roflyear]

Man, people are being really rude here just for me asking a question.

[JackFr]

“Honest question bro!”

[roflyear]

Not what I meant at all. You're deciding to interpret things as bad faith.

[Auracle]

They have plenty of ways to do so without using intermediaries at social media companies.

[roflyear]

That's implying compelling speech which is not the discussion.

[cscurmudgeon]

The rights apply to people not the govt lol

Edit: Amazing, a perfect factual comment is downvoted.

[roflyear]

I'm just saying there are times where you may want the government to be able to express opinions....

[caseysoftware]

A government doesn't "express opinions" they "enact policy."

[cscurmudgeon]

Yeah, and no one is preventing that.

There is a diff between opinion and force/blackmail disguised as opinion.

"You have a fine shop here, would be a shame if it burned down".

Syntactically, it is an opinion. But it is not just an opinion if comes from a mobster.

[JackFr]

The daily White House press briefing is an excellent venue.

[roflyear]

I don't think that gives them all the avenues to express things that may be important.

[evandale]

No? What!? Name a scenario in which the government would put forth an opinion on something.. governments, like corporations, can't have opinions.

[roflyear]

Sure. "We think that info may put someone on our security team at risk, can you please take it down?"

[cscurmudgeon]

That is not an opinion. It is a request at the best or a command when read pragmatically.

Edit: Think about this. If it is just an opinion, they can say that in press releases and not communicate that in secret to social media companies.

[mc32]

Sure, in addition to all of their organs of dissemination, of which they have plenty of options, they can also have their own Twitter and Facebook accounts.

What they can’t do is ring up Twitter and Facebook and say, hey, that’s misinformation, do something about it. Or have government embeds giving guidance.

That’s hilariously very ayatollesque behavior!

[roflyear]

I don't think so. For example, if there is info on twitter that puts a government employee at risk, I think it's appropriate for someone to point that out to twitter.

[mc32]

Oh, like when Cops get doxxed, you mean?

[roflyear]

Not exactly, no.

[Brusco_RF]

They don't have enough channels to do that? They have to do it via veiled threat to a speech platform to delete users posts?

How can anyone defend this behavior? Just because it's your guy doing it? If Trump was telling Twitter to delete posts that hurt his re-election chances would you feel this same way?

[artificialLimbs]

Unbelievable that you're being downvoted at all. The authoritarian minded have definitely increased substantially as this site has become more popular and drawn increasingly larger crowds. When it was dominated by those capable of logic and reasoning and having some knowledge of the world, authoritarianism would get smacked down hard and rightfully so.

[roflyear]

I am sure you are just as illogical as other people - and it would be good for you to realize that!

Never did I say that I support governments. I was only asking what I thought (and was wrong about) was a positive provoking question.

[roflyear]

Not the context I was replying to.

[AbrahamParangi]

I am satisfied for the space of the government’s unenforceable opinions to be circumscribed.

[roflyear]

Which restrictions are you cool with?

[staticman2]

" I don’t give a rat’s ass about the free speech rights of the government...the purpose of free speech is to protect the right of the weak to speak even when the strong disagree with them."

That doesn't sound right to me. You basically just argued "The purpose of a right to free speech is to protect the right of free speech." It's circular reasoning. Why should free speech be a right?

Out of curiosity I pulled up an article in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

One principle put out by John Stewart Mill is that free speech is valuable because it leads to the truth. If this is correct you should arguably be concerned if the government can't engage in it because we will all be lead away from the truth.

The article says "... arguments show that one of the main reasons for justifying free speech (political speech) is important, not for it's own sake but because it lets us exercise another important value (democracy)."

So if we accept this then if censoring the strong undermines democracy it could be bad, especially if they became strong because the weak elected them into office to represent them.

The article quotes someone who says "Speech, in short, is never a value in and of itself but is always produced with the precincts of some assumed conception of good."

In other words, don't argue free speech is good because free speech is good.

[dvt]

> That doesn't sound right to me. You basically just argued "The purpose of a right to free speech is to protect the right of free speech." It's circular reasoning. Why should free speech be a right?

That's not what GP argued, and you're being quite uncharitable. Their argument goes something like this:

    1) Free speech is meant to protect those that don't have a monopoly on speech 
    2) The government has a monopoly on—or can coerce—speech (because it taxes you, appoints the judges, has a police force, etc.)
    3) Therefore, protecting the free speech of the government is not really a stewardship of free speech

This argument makes sense and is not circular. The definition of free speech doesn't even come into play (and is in fact assumed to be desirable: after all, it's in the Bill of Rights.)

[staticman2]

" 1) Free speech is meant to protect those that don't have a monopoly on speech "

You lost me here.

How can the government have a monopoly on speech if we're talking about the government being prevented from saying things by a judge?

[dvt]

> How can the government have a monopoly on speech if we're talking about the government being prevented from saying things by a judge?

The judicial branch is supposed to be independent by design[1], so it's of the government, but not quite the government.

[1] https://judiciallearningcenter.org/judicial-independence/

[staticman2]

So the judicial branch is and is not quite the government, and the government has a mnonopoly on speech even though they can't say things, and I'm being uncharitable by finding this argument less than coherent. Got it.

[dvt]

> (1) So the judicial branch is and is not quite the government, and (2) the government has a mnonopoly on speech even though they can't say things

On (1): yes, that's the idea behind the independent role of the judiciary. They're supposed to be quis custodiet ipsos custodes. Sometimes, it doesn't work out, but usually it does. I'll concede that there's gray area here, but not quite enough to make the argument non-coherent.

On (2): the government can definitely say things (the White House literally has a Communications Director), but also (and more importantly) both stifle and coerce speech. I'm not sure how you came to this second conclusion.

[tdehnel]

From a constitutional perspective (which is the perspective Supreme Court Justices swear to have), the ability of the government to limit speech is not allowed. Full stop. Sources below.

First Amendment to the Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Constitutional Oath taken by all current Supreme Court Justices: "I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

[staticman2]

"From a constitutional perspective (which is the perspective Supreme Court Justices swear to have), the ability of the government to limit speech is not allowed. Full stop. Sources below."

The Supreme court has never said anything like what you just typed in 200+ years of american history. Do you type this every day, constantly knashing you teeth at the existence of trade secret laws, copyright laws, libel laws, and the like, or does the rheteric come out in service of special goals?

[tdehnel]

Wow what a jerk. I'm going off the Constitutional Oath, which all judges take. Obviously they use judicial discretion but be charitable for a second and at least try to understand my point, which is that deviating from what the Constitution says is the very rare exception, not the rule.

[AbrahamParangi]

I think you misunderstand what I'm saying.

The spirit of free speech is to protect saying things that are either unpopular or inconvenient to the powerful. Speech that is popular or convenient to the powerful needs no such protection! Even in the most repressive states you can still praise the party or the dear leader.

The truths that we need free speech to find are not the congenial truths, but the inconvenient ones.

[staticman2]

Do you think that what is popular today will be popular tomorrow, so needs no defending?

[AbrahamParangi]

Yes, I do think that whoever is today's top dog doesn't need defending today. The alternative is just using power to crush the powerless which- I mean okay, that's a normal human reaction but I think it is beneath our aspirations as a country.

[jonny_eh]

It's also not free speech if it's only for some. The government is a very important player in our society, we depend on them being able to speak freely!

[AbrahamParangi]

I just don't understand how you can think this. If I profess my religion in a private capacity, that's a rightful exercise of my freedom of speech and religion.

If I profess those same beliefs while acting in a public capacity I am infringing on the rights of others by favoring or creating the impression of favoring a particular religion.

You individually have freedom of association. If you don't like gay people, or Vietnamese people, or MAGA republicans - ultimately nobody can make you be friends with them in your private life. However, acting in an official capacity you're absolutely obliged to be neutral.

The government very rightly has restrictions on how partial it can be as it is the arbiter of our society.

[aksss]

To be clear we’re not talking about the government speaking freely. They do so and with seeming impunity for bs relative to their position of authority.

We’re talking about the government coercively censoring speech of citizens in/on the media, not under emergency orders or commandeering, but as a matter of routine. Yes they’ve always done this even with the major news networks thirty or forty years ago (pre-Internet). It was wrong then just like it’s wrong now. It’s more visible and obvious now to more people, the evidence is right in front of us through leaks and email disclosures from efforts like the Twitter files.

[tdehnel]

They certainly can speak freely and any number of channels will pick up their statements and carry them without much critique.

But their right to free speech ends when they start to hurt citizens' rights to express themselves.

[ponow]

> Why should free speech be a right?

You cannot be serious.

[Spivak]

You're reading this wrong, they're not saying that free speech shouldn't be a right but that "free speech is important because it protects free speech" isn't very useful when trying to evaluate whether the government itself ought to also have or not have free speech protections.

Is free speech important solely because it protects you against a malicious government and therefore there's no issue at all with non-government entities censoring others' speech and no reason for the government itself to have it? Or is it important because the marketplace of ideas confers some societal benefit and it would be better if agents of the government were equal participants in that market?

[ifyoubuildit]

I think you might be reading something that's not there. Asking the question doesn't imply an answer. And it's probably better if people can answer it rigorously rather than just repeat the claim because everyone else does.