Hacker News Reader

Comment by mechnesium | Hacker News Reader

I agree with you completely. I get regularly downvoted here for promoting free speech and denouncing all forms of web censorship.

Websites and their obscure “Terms of Service” and “Community Guidelines” are eroding those rights and should be fully compliant with the first amendment if operating in the United States, similar to how websites operating in the EU must comply with the GDPR.

I forgot how the United States is just about the only country with virtually unlimited free speech, so the downvotes must come from a place of envy.

Edit: Downvotes have proven my point :-)

View on HN

> Websites and their obscure “Terms of Service” and “Community Guidelines” are eroding those rights and should be fully compliant with the first amendment

This makes me think you misunderstand the first amendment. It concerns freedom of expression from government interference. Free amplification on private platforms is not covered.

Yeah, that’s the common interpretation.

If we need an amendment to extend that to all entities and forums, public and private, then I’m all for it.

I'm not sure a Supreme Court ruling that I'm prohibited from deleting blog comments actually represents an extension of my freedoms...

> that's the common interpretation

Hardly an interpretation, it's stated in black and white :

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Just because the amendment explicitly addresses the government, doesn’t mean that non-governmental entities shouldn’t respect the vision of the amendment. Not everything in this world needs to be driven by legal compulsion.

What we really need is an honor code, or something even simpler: mutual respect for other people’s thoughts and opinions.

> Just because the amendment explicitly addresses the government, doesn’t mean that non-governmental entities shouldn’t respect the vision of the amendment

The vision of the amendment is the government getting out of the way so that progress can be made by the vigorous use of choice of what ideas to publish and distribute by private entities. Private entities promoting the ideas they like and not doing so with those they dislike with all their resource are the purest embodiment of that vision.

It’s trivially easy for any non-government website to be fully compliant with the First Amendment for there is no obligation to grant someone a part of your platform or other property to enable them to speak.

I can see why politics is somewhat discouraged here, it seems like it always brings out the worst possible takes.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com