1mo ago

The freedom of speech is a joke

You're viewing a single thread.

13 comments

This is not funny, and it misrepresent what freedom of speech is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech#As_a_negative_right
As a negative right:
Freedom of speech is usually seen as a negative right.[22] This means that the government is legally obliged to take no action against the speaker based on the speaker's views, but that no one is obliged to help any speakers publish their views, and no one is required to listen to, agree with, or acknowledge the speaker or the speaker's views. These concepts correspond to earlier traditions of natural law and common law rights.[23]
- It also misrepresented the reasons for removal.
  It was spammy, many of them seemed… uh… racist. None were particularly funny, and most seem fairly low effort.
- Removing is a positive action to suppress though. Supporting rights also tends to mean supporting shitty people as they are most likely to have them infringed.
  
  To not facilitate your opinion no matter how well founded on a private forum, is not violating free speech.
  You can make your own forum, and spew your idiocy there.
  
  It's violating the idea of free speech, possibly not the law. They are very different things. Opponents of free speech like to cite the law as all that matters.
  
  The idea of free speech? Seriously? The idea is that the individual is free of tyranny to express ideas and viewpoints that run counter to authority. It has never had the concept that you are free to say what you want where you want. That is why free speech demonstrations have to happen on PUBLIC property. The side walk, a park, outside a publicly accessible government office. The instant you cross the threshold into a private space, the owner's free speech protections override yours. They have the right to moderate the speech that is expressed in THEIR space. Tyranny, by definition, can only be exerted by government or government-like entities. The owner of a private space does not have the authority or power to be tyrannical. That term may often be thrown around inappropriately, but when it comes to these conversations, we should always be cognizant of the actual realities and definitions of the terms.
  Not to put together a strawman, but if it worked the way you are expressing there would be nothing stopping Burger King from hiring a bunch of people to go into McDonalds with signs and bullhorns to express that McD's is shit and BK is better. If McD's did not have the right to mediate the speech that occurred in their property, then they could not say or do anything. It is the same as if someone came in and started making racist remarks openly about patrons and employees. They have the right to remove this person. The same principal extends to online communities. If someone is exercising speech that the owner of the community space does not want spread on their platform, they have the right to remove that speech and the person exercising it.

13 comments