[burningChrome]

Do people not read the article, or do they just read the clickbait title and comment?

Apparently they missed Ron Wyden (co-sponsor) of the bill is a Democrat and the bill is a bi-partisan effort?

Or the fact the EFF is actually in support of the bill:

EFF applauds Senators Cruz and Wyden for taking this critical issue seriously, and we look forward to working with Congress on this bipartisan bill as it moves through the process. We hope it lands on the right balance to provide additional protections for everyday users around freedom of expression.

[chmod775]

> Apparently they missed Ron Wyden (co-sponsor) of the bill is a Democrat and the bill is a bi-partisan effort?

And thank god for that. I hope this is indicative of a larger trend in the opposite direction.

I'm not in the US, but here too free speech and other democratic values have been something the far right could contrast themselves on against the center and left. It pisses me off to no end that the issues I've been harping on about for years are now most effectively championed by a group that is otherwise ideologically opposed to me. I'm not mad at the right for this, I'm mad at the center and left who handed it to them.

[carlosjobim]

> ideologically opposed to me

Are you sure they are? Probably most people in your country would label you as far right for championing free speech, no other issues considered. Probably you are doing the same for others.

[root_axis]

Every faction claims they support free speech and every faction also supports suppression of certain types of speech.

[lifty]

But do you agree this bill is positive?

[shevy-java]

But this assumes that a bill is required to establish fundamental rights. Free speech unfortunately does not exist anywhere. Even the USA has restrictions, such as "speech aimed at inciting quick reaction/violence" or some other restrictions with regards to "offensive" words and minors or similar. Or, even simpler, to talk very loudly in public late at night. So free speech is not unlimited, despite its name.

[JumpCrisscross]

> this assumes that a bill is required to establish fundamental rights

No, it assumes a bill is required to establish consequences for fundamental rights being denied.

[dmix]

> speech aimed at inciting quick reaction/violence

Speech alone isnt sufficient to be charged with that, which is why it passed supreme Court scrutiny. Similar to criminal conspiracy laws, where you have to pursue tangible actions IRL not just talk about it with a friend.

[chmod775]

Yeah. On pretty much every other topic important to me, their official positions are either diametrically opposed or lean into another direction far enough that supporting other parties would be a better choice.

[convolvatron]

what a strange take for a non-US person. one 'side' takes a couple whacks at free speech. the other side calls them on it, gets in power, and then starts taking a chainsaw to it, and you find reason to be angry that's its side A making a fuss now? and not that side B went rogue?

[chmod775]

I've read this five times and I still can't reconcile it with what I said.

[gleenn]

Shouldn't you care more about the actual issue than who is writing the laws around it? Why are you so pissed off about the "who" instead of happy you are getting what you want?

[chmod775]

I'm not getting what I want on free speech, because the center left form the ruling parties. And I wouldn't want the right to be in power anyways, though soon they couldn't do much worse to this democracy.

People here are getting police visits and legal mail because they called a politician a name on twitter or get investigated over a sign they held at a political protest.

Thousands of cases at this point.

[convolvatron]

and in the US we're having serious free speech issues with the right right now. sorry to be confusing, I just wonder why you think there's necessarily a direct equivalence between the left-right politics of two different countries, and not more concerned about actual rights violations instead of who's scoring political points.

[plagiarist]

What? The far right is against free speech. They only ever screech about free speech when someone is experiencing social consequences.

They whine about actual Nazi rhetoric earning bans on private companies' platforms, then turn around and open investigations on people criticizing their masked police force. Attending protests gets you added to the terrorist watchlist.

[rayiner]

The proper response to that is to support free speech values in both circumstances. Otherwise, we’re just going to be fighting about the details of whether particular conduct falls within the letter of the free speech protections.

[Larrikin]

Before anyone replies check the user name and decide if it's worth your time.

[plagiarist]

My objection to their comment is that the right does not protect these values.

I have zero idea what they're talking about contrasting against. They seem to be suggesting the center and left do not respect these rights and the far right does.

[onetimeusename]

I don't think anyone does truly. Very few people. Free speech isn't really a principle, it's probably more of a compromise. I am surprised people think free speech is a partisan issue. I wasn't aware either popular side had a track record of defending speech they strongly disagreed with. It's sort of like "show me the man and I can show you the speech they want to ban". There's even speech that could arguably be legal on principle but that probably no one would ever want to defend.

[atmavatar]

There's a very important distinction to be made.

Nazi rhetoric earning bans on private platforms happens because a large number of people organize in protest against such rhetoric. Advertisers see this and don't want to be associated with it, so the ad-driven platforms make the obvious choice to remove the Nazis. This is an example of people exercising their free speech and their often overlooked freedom of/from association.

Nothing stops the Nazis from creating their own platform or buying out an existing one, which is why we have Gab, Truth Social, and X. They're also free to organize themselves and try convincing people to leave the platforms which banned them and/or convince advertisers to apply pressure to let them stay.

You have to appreciate the absurdity of getting airtime on nearly every right wing media platform to complain about being silenced, though.

Arguing private platforms should be forced to keep Nazi rhetoric around isn't meaningfully different from arguing I shouldn't be able to kick a guest out of my house when they start spouting intolerable bullshit.

[rayiner]

It wasn’t just “Nazi rhetoric,” but mainstream political speech that some tried to shove into the box containing the taboo for actual nazism. And if you’re response is to draw “distinctions” then you’re inviting a commensurate response from the other side. We can split hairs and shave down the free speech values until they no longer cover the things we want to be able to suppress. But that erodes the free speech norm. Norms are two-way streets. Both sides have to put up with things they detest and trust that the other side will reciprocate. If there is no trust in reciprocity than neither side has an incentive to uphold the norm.

[amanaplanacanal]

I would absolutely draw a distinction between government enforced censorship and private platforms censoring content.

Where it becomes a larger problem is if the private platform is an effective monopoly; using monopoly power to censor viewpoints would be a bad. Normally we would call a monopoly platform a common carrier and outlaw censorship by them.

[cramer4next]

Like when the far left called parents who attend school board meetings "Domestic Terrorists"? Everyone deserves free speech. You don't see nazis rioting or chasing down federal officers in the streets.

Or when Donny Lemon storms a church and disrupts a ceremony.

[actionfromafar]

The feds hire the nazis now, that could have something to do with it.

[shevy-java]

> Apparently they missed Ron Wyden (co-sponsor) of the bill is a Democrat and the bill is a bi-partisan effort?

And why should that matter? Your assumption here is that these two parties are different to one another AND not corrupt. I don't see why these two assumptions should be true intrinsically. Can you explain why, if a Democrat does xyz, one should not be wary anymore?

As for "bi-partisan effort": look at public hearings recently. On simple questions such as was the storm of the capitol an attempt to overthrow a democratically elected government, all the clown members of the current clown administration dodged to answer that. Any more questions necessary here?

> Or the fact the EFF is actually in support of the bill

And why would that matter either? The EFF is not a holy shield that has taken away people's ability to think for themselves. I don't need any moral compass given by EFF or anyone else to know where and when and how corruption works.

[JohnMakin]

Cynically, if I was looking at this as if both parties are protecting their interests - they might be realizing that this behavior going forward is going to be harmful to their donors, and thus themselves. State mandated TV/speech is not necessarily great for business, depending on the tastes and whims of whoever is in power at the moment.

[platevoltage]

Who are you referring to? At the time I'm replying to this, there are 4 other top-level comments on this thread, and the only one even implying that it was a partisan effort was someone mentioning the "current regime" in a joking sort of way. Everyone knows that Liberals also want to limit free speech. That's not new.