"Free speech" protections DO NOT APPLY to a private company deciding whether to provide internet services to something like 8chan.
Period.
I continue to be surprised at the level to which people misunderstand this.
Period.
I continue to be surprised at the level to which people misunderstand this.
That's probably because you are actually the one misunderstanding. The argument it sounds like you're making (I apologize if I'm reading you wrong) is the often made one that "Freedom of speech only protects you from the government". This argument equivocates the idea of freedom of speech with the First Amendment.
Many Americans, and freedom loving folks internationally, believe that freedom of speech is critical for a liberal democracy to exist. Many of the American founders believed in the idea and enshrined it in our Bill of Rights to make sure the Government can not violate it. They did not, however, create he idea of freedom of speech, which existed long before the Bill of Rights, exists outside of America and outside of the context of Government and Citizens.
Think of it like murder. People do not find murder reprehensible because it is illegal. It is illegal because it is reprehensible, and most people would not support it regardless of its legal status (I hope). The idea of murder and the legality of murder are related but separate.
Your argument is therefore taking as narrow a scope of the idea of freedom of speech as possible and then arguing against that, which is a type of straw man argument. I hope that clarifies the logic fallacies involved in your argument and helps you better understand those you disagree with.
It's granted that people are within their rights to throw out speech they dislike and that there's a world of difference between severing a voluntary business relationship and the deployment of state force, but the implications of an anxious, PR-sensitive set of internet infrastructure providers is certainly fair game for discussion.
If we get into the habit of shutting down every site that attracts a spate of negative attention, it still has the aggregate effect of chilling free discourse. If a shooter came onto HN and posted a manifesto here, would it withstand the mainstream media onslaught?
I think that 8chan is terrible and I would rather it not exist, but at the same time, I would be pretty against denying its owners water or something, since we've decided that utilities don't get to take sides.
I'm not saying I disagree with you, evidently; the line in which we draw "utility" is a discussion that I really don't know that I have a good viewpoint. Are you entitled to having a soapbox to shout off of? I'm genuinely not sure.
What do we even do, besides sit and watch? I've totally shifted the way I browse the web to reduce my exposure to toxic information, and I think that the whole corporate banning of Alex Jones was a net positive, but what happens when a voice I agree with gets shunned in the same way?
What a messy problem
It isn't "misunderstanding" it is willfully ignoring to push a narrative. I sincerely doubt most of the people here calling this a violation of free speech are doing so in good faith.
It is a pretty basic set of logical steps to determine that a private business refusing to serve a customer is perfectly okay and should be encouraged. Arguing that a private business should be forced at gunpoint by government goons to do business with nazis or racist assholes doesn't make any sense at all.
All the attempts to derail into minutia like "cloudflare is a utility" is simply done to wear you out.