Comment by high_density | Hacker News Reader

Comment by high_density | Hacker News Reader

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it's not "freedom of speech vs publication". If it was about distribution-rights on small vs big, it would be "freedom to whisper", not "speech" which implies speaking publicly.

Another concern: by your logic, net neutrality should be moot. Let ISPs choose and throttle online service by their whim.

Anyway,"freedom of speech" is actually intended to prevent any dictatorial entity from hiding the other side from the public.

imho, If the 'democrats' are actually 'democratic', they should have solved this with a much more elegant solution - eg. inviting people to a common, shared platform and refuting them there. Current FB/twitter/aws solutions are rather 'easy but dictatorial and may backfire', which is somewhat 'republican' in taste...

(* by backfire: pro-trumps can think: "The other side is trying to snuff us. What are they hiding? Are they more evil than imaginable? We should do something to guard USA from them"

imho, the root of the whole fiasco is actually the press preventing the broadcast of Trump after the election. (the 'snuffing') Better solution would be having open discussions to refute the pro-trump people.

Another thing is that by-standers will note about how 'undemocratic' the whole solution is, and whether they'll also be treated if they end up being the 'other' side of other issues

I never said publication wasn't protected under free speech. If the government pressures twitter to ban your account, that's censorship and a violation of freedom of speech.

My argument was that your right to freedom of speech does not compel others to publish your speech.

If you send me an e-mail with your opinion and the instruction to forward it to all my contacts, then I am not violating your freedom of speech by refusing to do so.

And yes, freedom of speech does not protect net neutrality. That's why we need the FCC to set those rules and enforce them.

What some people are arguing for is a sort of "opinion neutrality" for social media companies that forces them to treat all opinions equally without moderation.

You can certainly debate the pros and cons of such a rule, but it's not a consequence of your right to freedom of speech.

once again, same here: to maintain democracy, no political entity should be able to snuff the other side.

By your logic, it's OK for Bill Gates to buy all the press influence to completely silence the politically-other-side.

And my mention of net neutrality is to show how flawed your whole logic process is.

> What some people are arguing for is a sort of "opinion neutrality" for social media companies that forces them to treat all opinions equally without moderation.

hm I actually find this scary. Maybe you're from China, where deviant opinions/minorities must be snuffed down for "harmonious society"?

> By your logic, it's OK for Bill Gates to buy all the press influence to completely silence the politically-other-side.

That is not OK, for the very simple reason you shouldn't be allowed to monopolize the media or any industry for that matter. The way you protect free speech is by not allowing any company to become so large and powerful that it rivals governments and can enact censorship.

> And my mention of net neutrality is to show how flawed your whole logic process is.

I don't see how that points out a flaw? I just explained that net neutrality is not protected under freedom of speech, so I don't see its relevance.

> hm I actually find this scary. Maybe you're from China, where deviant opinions/minorities must be snuffed down for "harmonious society"?

Thank you for keeping the discussion respectful. I don't think opinions should be snuffed out, but I also think you shouldn't be forced by the government to publish lies. I worry that if governments can force companies to publish all opinions including the ones they don't agree with, then they can also force them to publish propaganda.

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