A landmark Supreme Court fight over social media now looks likely | Hacker News Reader

A landmark Supreme Court fight over social media now looks likely

washingtonpost.com

21 pointsmetadat13 comments

Texas can't keep the heat on in the winter, or the power on in the summer, but they want to regulate the interwebs, and particularly companies not located in Texas.

SMH. This really is as stupid as it sounds.

Ah yes if California is known for anything it's reliable utilities.

Wake me up when California demands you pay for my free soeech.

California may be a terribly run state, but that has nothing to do with the comment you replied to

Aren't censorship apologists ashamed of themselves when they see a comment like this as the top comment?

If some place passed a law I disagreed with, and someone wrote a comment insulting that place in response, I'd downvote it. I'd be embarrassed by it. I only ever see this kind of comment on this issue - tech censorship - and it's often the top comment. Isn't this embarassing?

The main argument of the decision is simple: If Twitter can close your account for disagreeing with you, for say, supporting LGBT, then the phone company, etc., can too. And this right to crush disagreement comes from the first amendment!?

Is censorship free speech, like war is peace and freedom is slavery? Does the first amendment just mean that censorship is in the corporate layer instead of the state layer?

> And this right to crush disagreement comes from the first amendment!?

That is correct. Under the first amendment, the government cannot force a website to host content it doesn’t want to host. If I post rule-breaking comments on HN, HN is allowed to delete them. This is the pro-free-speech, small-government solution. The alternative is having big brother step in to stand over dang’s shoulder and say “that comment you have to keep. You must continue displaying it in perpetuity.”

> Does the first amendment just mean that censorship is in the corporate layer instead of the state layer?

This is also correct. The first amendment limits the state’s ability to control speech. It does not limit a corporation’s actions.

The “corporate censorship” you speak of is not censorship at all, since you can always vote with your feet and patronize a website whose moderation policies you prefer. Or you can even start your own website and moderate it as you please.

At some point "you can even start your own website and moderate it as you please" doesn't work in practice. You have to get bandwidth & addresses/routing from somewhere and DNS registration somewhere at the very least - and those places can also choose to censor you.

I am not saying this is a bad thing. I am saying that as a practical matter, while it's hard for the government to stop you from walking to the street corner and pontificating, I have not personally seen any easy way to get all the necessities of "internet pontification" - even paid - without potential or even likelihood for corporate censorship here in the USA.

Just email or DM the people you want to pontificate to. No censorship. This is the same as it has always been. If you want to stand on your street corner and rant, you can do it. If you want to publish your rants in a big newspaper that you don't own, you need the newspaper's approval.

Wrong. It's always worked that way. Well, at least since the Fairness Doctrine went away.

You've always had the right to speak freely curbside. Until now, nobody has had to pay to distribute your free speech.

> Under the first amendment, the government cannot force a website to host content it doesn’t want to host.

Apparently shops, restaurants, hotels can be forced to have patrons they don't want. Even if those patrons are talking about things they don't like, whole on the premises!

"Gift article" link: https://wapo.st/3do9Yev

I didn't see a paywall on this one. In any case, thank you.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com