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Comment by nabla9 | Hacker News Reader

Principled response: Twitter should ban completely ban foreign governments who don't allow free speech for their citizens.

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That'd ban everyone. Is there a country that permits fully free speech? Certainly not the US. What about Germany?

So now you are back in the position of making a judgement call about whose laws permit free enough speech. There's no black and white line to draw here.

There is clearly visible line to be drawn.

Difference in free speech between countries is not some linear continuum that gets gradually fuzzier when you get closer to Russia, Saudi Arabia and China. It varies a little, countries have idiosyncrasies, then there is big discontinuity.

Yeah? In Denmark you can be fined for language that is insulting or degrading. Germany bans political parties. In Italy speech against the honor and prestige of the president is forbidden. South Korea strictly limits speech around elections. In Australia there is no constitutional protection of free speech and media (particularly depicting violence) is regularly censored.

Now let's start going through the other countries and tell me how this isn't a spectrum. Where does Malaysia fall on your bright line? Turkey? The Philippines? Iran? Thailand? Belarus? Brazil? Egypt? Eritrea?

I guarantee you that attempting to draw a bright line will absolutely run into fuzzy edges and judgement calls.

But banning domestic users for their free speech is ok?

define "free speech". Or you arr using it in the USA sense ?

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