Actually, lots of people argue that platform X is messing with their "right" to "free speech" whenever this issue comes up. Even the article mentioned this. That's why I brought it up.
The law:
> Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech
Notice how "freedom of speech" is referenced as an external concept, not defined by the law? A right is a more general concept than an inherently narrow-scoped legal attempt to support it.
Would you say that a US citizen in North Korea still has an unoppressed right to free speech?
(FWIW, your right to free speech can't be "taken away", by anyone. That's the thing about rights - you have them regardless of whether or not they're being oppressed.)
Whatever effect they have, unless there's something in the constitution or our laws which prevents them from doing it, then they can infringe away.
The constitution recognizes our right to free speech and prevents our government from passing infringing laws (we've made exceptions for public safety - inciting violence or panic for example), but is there something that prevents a company from infringing on your right to free speech?
And even if there was, how exactly is twitter refusing to broadcast your message infringing on your right to speak? You don't have an inherent right to publish messages on twitter.com, correct?
> Would you say that a US citizen in North Korea still has an unoppressed right to free speech?
How is this relevant?
No, there is not. However, not being illegal does not erase something.
> how exactly is twitter refusing to broadcast your message infringing on your right to speak?
Twitter has deliberately set itself up as a platform upon which users speak with each other. Through success, it has become a de facto common. This specific "refusal to broadcast your message" is based solely upon what you are saying. Controlling what others say is, by definition, infringing on free speech.
A US citizen in NK has ended up in NK voluntarily. Therefore under a misguided [0] theory of contracts-above-all, they have voluntarily chosen not to exercise free speech and thus their right is not being infringed!
[0] As computer scientists, we're well aware that layered complexity inevitably creates contradictions. Any analysis of rights must therefore be in terms of overall qualitative behavior rather than focused on "primitives" that will be easily usurped.
But they aren't controlling what you say. They just aren't broadcasting it.
You can say hate all you want (within the law). Set up your own web site. Buy a plane and fly a banner over the beach. Go set up in a public place and start talking out loud.
Twitter isn't stopping you from speaking or sharing your ideas. Calling it "infringement" because a commercial entity refuses to broadcast your message is, in my opinion, incorrect.
"I'm not hitting my brother, I'm just flailing my arms and walking forward."
Their voluntarily-created situation is that they are broadcasting what you say. By setting up an ultimatum that if you say something they do not like they will no longer transmit what you say, they are forming a control. This obviously isn't absolute control [0], it is limited by how much you rely on Twitter.
I personally am not reliant on Twitter, but many people are and that is what we are discussing. Your argument is deliberately eschewing this concept of reliance, essentially attempting to justify all emergent behavior as implicitly moral so long as the primitives have been followed.
As I said, this is a dead end. Otherwise we would not even need a legal system because the laws of physics would suffice.
> You can say hate all you want (within the law). Set up your own web site. Buy a plane and fly a banner over the beach. Go set up in a public place and start talking out loud.
Other avenues of speech do not justify controls on a particular one. If this were true, the government controlling what you could say on the Internet wouldn't be an infringement, because you still had other outlets.
In another comment, you allude to your ISP restricting what you can publish online as wrong. How exactly does this differ from Twitter, besides being a different OSI layer?
[0] Although there is actually no such thing. Even government is limited to post-facto punishment, and only if they can catch you.
And I believe I am doing that rightfully so. I don't think reliance is relevant. Anyone who relied on twitter did so knowing that twitter can revoke their platform at any time from any user without cause. It's in the TOS.
> If this were true, the government controlling what you could say on the Internet wouldn't be an infringement, because you still had other outlets.
This is absolutely correct. The only reason the government can not do this is the first amendment.
But if that did not exist, then the government somehow stepping in and preventing you from speaking would be just as morally wrong (in my opinion) as twitter somehow stepping in and preventing you from speaking (which I would consider fairly morally wrong, but I don't think this is what twitter is doing).
And in the same vein, twitter refusing to broadcast your speech is as morally wrong (in my opinion) as the government refusing to post it on one of their web sites, if they were publishing broadcasted messages of others (which I would not consider morally wrong, assuming the first amendment did not exist).
I don't think prevention of free speech by a government should be conflated with refusal to broadcast speech by a commercial entity. If the public wants a forum to share any speech they want to share, they are free to set one up.
> In another comment, you allude to your ISP restricting what you can publish online as wrong. How exactly does this differ from Twitter, besides being a different OSI layer?
I didn't say I thought an ISP removing my connection is wrong, I said I thought twitter petitioning them to do so because twitter disagreed with my speech and wanted it removed from places twitter does not control is wrong.
By your same reasoning, the government could claim ownership of the atmosphere and be justified in restricting literal speech.
Fundamentally, we're currently building a society where the commons is privately controlled. Rejecting the analysis of freedom of speech for this society implies one does not actually value the concept.
I don't follow.
> Fundamentally, we're currently building a society where the commons is privately controlled.
We're building that society by choice; if we don't fully agree with the ramifications of it, we should build it differently.
And by the way, all society building is about compromise. It seems most people are happy with the compromise that the commons should be privately controlled (at least online) if it gives them the convenience they are looking for. The vocal opposition appears to be a minority.
> Rejecting the analysis of freedom of speech for this society implies one does not actually value the concept.
I haven't rejected any analysis. I'm stating my opinion on the matter. You are free to disagree, but I would appreciate if you did it honestly (and not by putting words into my mouth).
> I haven't rejected any analysis
You have repeatedly rejected applying the concept of "freedom of speech" to analyze the community of twitter users. Deprecating this widely-known general quality obscures the phenomenon as if it were something novel.
> We're building that society by choice; if we don't fully agree with the ramifications of it, we should build it differently.
Yes. Being able to express thoughts like "centralized platforms destroy freedom of speech" facilitates deciding and doing so.
> It seems most people are happy with the compromise that the commons should be privately controlled (at least online) if it gives them the convenience they are looking for
Actually most people just assume there should be someone telling them what to do, and then make up for their disempowerment by mobbing together against some minority. The entire point of rights is to protect the minority.
If rights are not for protecting minorities, then they have no point - the majority is safe by construction. There's no way that speech celebrating July 4th would ever be curtailed in contemporary society.
But as a hypothetical it doesn't really do much for this discussion.
Rights may help protect minorities, but I would not consider that to be their point. That's like saying rights were created to solve that particular problem.
Rights exist, and agreeing on what they are protects whomever is having them infringed upon, minority or not.
For example, if two strong people wanted to kill ten weak people, rights protect the majority. If the ten wanted to kill the two, rights protect the minority.
It may be the case that the rights of minorities are infringed upon more often, but in general rights are blind to numbers.
Legally, of course not, because as has been pointed out very clearly in this thread, "freedom of speech" != "the first amendment"
You don't have an inherent right to publish messages on twitter.com, correct?
Maybe we should do something about that. Large social networks like Twitter, Facebook, etc. are very powerful in that they control a huge amount of public discourse. We live online nowadays.
IMO, they should either drop the pretense and assume editorial control (and be held responsible for the words of every single user), or remain hands off and do what the law requires, rather than this wishy-washy stack of double standards.
...With the one exception of what we're talking about here. Banning political commentators for words that are barely offensive while doing nothing about terrorist propaganda is reprehensible
I think this is a false dichotomy.
Nobody is arguing it's illegal, or they should be punished by the government (no one sensible anyway, if we're going to pick the worst arguments / representatives from the different sides of the issue, it's going to be a long day. Also, don't argue with those people). People are just arguing about free speech violations as a philosophical idea.
Further, given the influence corporations wield, particularly in the dissemination of information, this is an important discussion to have. At the risk of being a super nerd, look at the setting for the tabletop RPG Shadowrun to get some idea of a plausible (though extreme) outcome for corporations in the US (ignore the trolls and magic, unless you're into that). I tend to err towards more freedom, and letting Twitter do what they want, but that doesn't mean the implications of their actions shouldn't be discussed.
edit I can't reply to the message below, so I'll do it here. It sounds like we're probably pretty closely aligned philosophically (I think they can do what they want but people should be able to see what they're doing to better decide if they're on board). My issue was with your original comment that appeared to mix the legal with the moral. Beyond that, we're cool :)
I don't think so. I focused on the legal side because I thought others were too, but that doesn't mean I'm confused.
The comments in this thread basically said "twitter is infringing on my right to free speech".
I don't believe that's the case, morally or otherwise.
I think if twitter came to my house and held their hand over my mouth, or put up barriers to stop people from coming within earshot of me, or petitioning my ISP to take away my network connection so I can't post my opinions anywhere, then morally that's wrong.
But twitter refusing to let me post on their site? I don't think that's morally wrong at all.
If you publish a newsletter for your family, is it morally wrong to exclude what I want to tell your family from it? What if it's for your school? What if it's for the whole country?
Until twitter (or any non-governmental entity) is bought and owned by the public, it has no moral obligation to give every single person air time who wants it (in my opinion).