[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.