[vertex-four]

> Freedom of speech mean that these ideas can be challenged in the public sphere.

I will note that much of HN doesn't seem to believe this - when the Brendan Eich thing happened, and people were choosing to boycott Mozilla for his views (thus using their freedom of association and freedom of speech to call for him to be removed from that post), many seemed to believe that Brendan Eich's rights to freedom of speech and political freedom were being attacked by anybody who chose not to associate with him because of his views.

The fact is, any individual or entity can, and should, choose not to associate with those who they see as causing harm to others. That's an individual choice. Free speech and free thought should not mean that anybody give anybody else a free pass to cause harm or spread ideas that are likely to cause harm - and we should use every right we have to ensure this, so long as it doesn't end up with people losing their rights to food, water, shelter, and (a duty of the Government and the people) protection from direct abuse.

Your right to freedom of speech do not mean that I have to listen to you, interact with you, or provide a platform for you, no matter whether I'm one person or a multinational. You can be angry that I won't - I'm angry that the mainstream media won't give my minority a platform - but I don't have to. The only entity which has to be fair is the Government.

[dubfan]

> Free speech and free thought should not mean that anybody give anybody else a free pass to cause harm or spread ideas that are likely to cause harm

But then you don't have free speech or thought anymore. You only have the freedom to express ideas that are deemed to be acceptable by whoever holds the most sociopolitical power at any one time. And there's never a guarantee that the progressive side will hold that power forever.

And the Mozilla boycotters weren't just "choosing not to associate with him". They were calling for him to be fired for participating in a political campaign they disagreed with. This is exactly what McCarthyism was about. It's amazing how progressives have forgotten the danger of this now that they control the social narrative.

[vertex-four]

> You only have the freedom to express ideas that are deemed to be acceptable by whoever holds the most sociopolitical power at any one time.

If there's any reasonable amount of support for your ideas, any at all, you really should have no problem finding work, friends, and wealth. We're not exactly at a point where LGBT rights, feminism, and similar subjects have anywhere close to unanimous support. You only have to look across this discussion board and in most newspapers to see that.

> They were calling for him to be fired for participating in a political campaign they disagreed with.

Yes, that's part of a decent protest - telling the company what they can do to get you back as a customer - and Mozilla could've chosen to ignore them and potentially lose them as customers and community members. That's fine. That would be their choice. Many companies have done so and succeeded - Chick-fil-a, as one example.

You really think that when it comes back round again, if we're nice and don't try to cause any real societal change, the (little-c) conservatives won't try to cause any real change in the opposite direction? That the Government and the media are never going to pick another scapegoat minority for society to go after when the majority is fed up again? That they'll always tell both sides of the story from a fair and neutral perspective? That's never been my experience, and history tells us the complete opposite.

The majority is always going to have immense amounts of power, and they're always going to wield it. We might as well try and push in our direction while we have any power at all (and seriously, we have far less than you think).

Here's a question: We have the right to freedom of association. Is that somehow a lesser right than freedom of speech? Or must we be forced to associate with those whose speech we find bigoted and harmful?

[mkr-hn]

> Yes, that's part of a decent protest - telling the company what they can do to get you back as a customer - and Mozilla could've chosen to ignore them and potentially lose them as customers and community members. That's fine. That would be their choice. Many companies have done so and succeeded - Chick-fil-a, as one example.

Chick fil A pulled back on most of its homophobic donations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick-fil-A_same-sex_marriage_c...

I still don't eat there, but only because Bojangles is closer and better.

[ryanpardieck]

Yes, for some reason many people think freedom of speech means they--and those they identify with--should be able to speak free of social consequence. I don't really know what leads a person to think that. Maybe they just said stuff for so long without being challenged, that they start to think they are entitled to never being challenged?