Barring a legally binding contract or criminal activity, no one is under any obligation to protect the civil rights of those on their property. If I wanted to hold a "whites only" house party and turn away minorities at the door, I can do that. If I refuse to allow protesters to use my front lawn as a staging area, I can do that. If I own a website and someone says something I don't like, I can ban them. If someone doesn't like Patreon's policies then they are welcome to start Conservatreon.
I think the scarier prospect is people thinking that property holders should be forced to act as law enforcement within their domains, and to make determinations about civil rights. Sure it may seem rosy for free speech, but you're opening the flood gates with that one.
Free speech simply says that you can't be arrested for speaking. It doesn't say people have to listen, and forcing people to listen is only going to worsen the situation you describe.
Refusing to rebroadcast or support the opinions of someone you don't like is at present not a crime, and I sincerely hope it stays that way. Because otherwise you have to apply the same logic to other rights. And that sort of extremism leads to some crazy outcomes.
For example, in the US the 2nd amendment is, under the law, of equal importance as the 1st. So should I, as a gun owner, demand that I should be allowed to carry my firearm anywhere, on anyone's property; and claim that for them to deny me that right is a violation of my 2nd amendment rights? I'm pro-gun and even to me that sounds crazy, as it would to many pro-gunners who are usually big on personal property rights. There's a reason Full30.com exists.
Or how about the right to freedom of assembly (also part of the first amendment)? Should I be forced to allow protesters to use my property, as disallowing them violates their first amendment rights?
You do know there are many gun owners that advocate for passing laws that make signs stating a property is "gun free" to be unenforceable as a matter of law right?
And view "gun free" government buildings to be unconstitutional
For my part I see the signs as useful. If I see a "gun free" sign on a business that just tells me to spend my money elsewhere if possible.
Even when the shoe is on the other foot, e.g. a baker who does not want to disseminate interracial or same-sex wedding cake?
Deferring to "that is a crime" is no help because your argument is that it should not be a crime to refuse to disseminate speech you don't like.
There is no principled way to draw a line here. Either you don't compel speech or you do.
There are many, many gun owners who argue exactly that. That "gun free zones" are anti-Constitutional, be those zones publicly owned, or privately owned.
This shouldn't be news to you.
It's directly analogous to my previous example. It is illegal for businesses to deny service on the basis of skin color. It isn't, however, illegal for a private residence to do so.
Sure the Right of association, and I suppose property rights give them the legal ability to this.
However most of these platform publicly and loudly proclaim themselves as "Free Speech Platform", open to all points of view, open to all. Even in the public responses to the outcry over the bannings on Patreon their first statement was "See support free speech but...."
Once they add the but, they show themselves to not be supporters of free speech, instead they show themselves to be supporters of limited speech as defined by theit terms of that is acceptable speech.
Saying "We Support limited acceptable speech" however does not make for a good sound bite.
Claiming to support free speech while imposing speech codes, rules and terms is Fraud IMO.
So if platforms want to censor, want to limit speech fine, they need to stop claiming they support free speech when they do not. To do otherwise should be considered fraud
Most of these platform get to be very very large to the point of more or less monopolistic due to their claims of supporting free speech, then once they are the market dominate force they bait and switch their users and become a limited speech platform. That is a classic old as time form of fraud.
>>I think the scarier prospect is people thinking that property holders should be forced to act as law enforcement within their domains, and to make determinations about civil rights.
I am not even sure what that means or the point you are attempting to convey here, Nothing I stated indicated that property holders should be forced to act as law enforcement.....
>>Free speech simply says that you can't be arrested for speaking.
No, that is not what "free speech simply says" Free Speech is a ethical axiom. Even wikipedia does not have such a limited view of the concept, the first line in the Wikipedia entry on Freedom of Speech is "Freedom of speech is the right to articulate one's opinions and ideas without fear of government retaliation or censorship, or societal sanction" See the "or societal sanction" part.
As for the rest, it would appear I'm thinking more from an (American) legal perspective and the implications of various measures that might be taken, whereas you're thinking from a more philosophical perspective. If you have a way to prevent "societal sanction" without violating other rights in the process then I suggest you find a way to get nominated for a Nobel.
It's all well and good to state that everyone should listen to everyone else and that not to do so is a violation of free speech. I'm just not sure how that goes beyond theory. Even in the most benign case, that of time, people have to sleep. Am I violating someone's right to free speech if I refuse to listen on account of exhaustion? Would my old college dormitory's "quiet hours" be considered "societal sanction"?
No you are seeing me state that is a violation of Freedom of Speech and jump the erroneous conclusion that I desire some kind of law, or legal penalty for that violation. I do not.
I merely want to people recognize that it is infact a violation of the concept and stop defending companies when they violate the concept or at least stop saying that is "not a free speech violation" when it clearly is.
If you support the censorious actions have the balls to call them censorious and stand by them.
> Am I violating someone's right to free speech if I refuse to listen on account of exhaustion? Would my old college dormitory's "quiet hours" be considered "societal sanction"?
Aside from the fact this is strawman lets address it anyone
Inaction on your personal part of not listening would not violating the other persons right to express themselves.
You showing up where the person is speaking with a bull horn to suppress their speech is, setting fire to a building to shut down speech is, blocking the entrances to building where speech is taking place is, boycotting advertisers is, calling employers and getting people fired is.
See all of the examples I give are POSITIVE actions people use to SUPPRESS the speech of others.
As to your college dorm "quit hours", this likely would not be a free speech violation either provided the dorms where not promoted or advertised a public space where people free to express themselves and that the hours where clearly known , established and enforced uniformly. How if there were not published quite hours, and tue night there was a vegan rally that was allowed to occur, but then on wed night there was gun rights rally that was shut down because of "quite hours" then yes I would consider that to be free speech violation.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it up to them who they want to do business with? What is the obligation this non-governmental entity has to act as host?
In a sense, wouldn't forcing Patreon to be open to all (again including groups with a message of hate and inciting violence) be a violation of their rights?
Personally I don't think these companies should be legally forced to support freedom of discourse on their platforms by the government.
I think that consumers should force the companies to support free speech, and they should punish companies that support censorship by boycotting those companies into bankruptcy.
The world is a better place when it is free from censorship. Censorship is still bad, even if it is legal and done by private parties. Censorship supporting people and companies should be bankrupted by the market.
This site itself is highly censored (in the form of rules and moderation) so you aren't even upholding your own ideals by commenting here.
Not sure what you mean by highly censored, I've seen plenty of unpopular opinions on HN and people that were expressing them were never banned, in fact those users were fairly rude without being personal. Not allowing personal attacks on HN is not just a common courtesy, it protects it users from defamation, falsehoods about their life and kidnapping of topics; those are all reasons that are perfectly compatible with freedom of speech. Detaching a tread is not censoring, I never seen it happen because of uncomfortable opinions but when it becomes hugely off topic it's clearly a valid thing to do.
That's not how boycotts work.
If I were able to convince millions of people to my side, THEN I would start doing the boycott stuff.
That is the only way to have boycotts work. You have to get millions of people to be on your side and everyone has to do it all at once.
But if I had a magic wand that I could wave that would make this happen, then I'd absolutely do so.
It'd be like if I criticized a dictator and you responded by saying "well, if you hate our Supreme leader so much, then why don't you form a revolutionary movement and see how THAT works for you".
now we have large mainstream internet communities like reddit that also put justifiable limits on what can be said. no one is saying you cant start a racist irc channel or bbs board, they are saying that horrible things shouldn't be said on a massive platform that millions of people see
The New York times also never publicly advertised themselves as a "Free Speech Platform" that was "open to all persons and views"
>they are saying that horrible things shouldn't be said on a massive platform that millions of people see
Well one, it is clear you yourself are not a supporter of Freedom of Speech.
Two, so do you believe that a massive platform with millions of people should be forced to sensor speech you find to be "horrible"
One of the things I always question when people start classify speech as "horrible" is who subjective it is. For example I think it is "horrible" that the christian region is given prominent placement in society. I believe the views of the Christian Region to be "horrible" and I consider indoctrinating children into said religion to be abuse. Would you support a massive platform banning all references to Christianity? And if they did would support them calling themselves "Supporters of Free Speech" while doing so?
//and before the Christians get all butt hurt, I oppose any and all organized religions, I think they are all bullshit. Christianity however is the most popular religion in America so I use it to highlight my point
i think you're wrong about christianity, and we can debate whether or not advocacy of it should be allowed on a public platform. i think comparing it to nazism, targeted harassment, child porn/revenge porn, and hate speech (really the only things banned on reddit for example) is delusional
There is no way for you to make up a rule about what should be banned besides "I don't agree with it".
I'm all in favor of that.
Do you support them?
Not to mention that doxxing and harassment are not free speech in the first place.
E.g. Anita Sarkeesian publicly calling one of her online political opponents a shithead and garbage human from the stage at a conference. He was sitting in the audience quietly. Result: he (not she) gets barred from returning on the grounds that his presence was somehow threatening, while her open vicious insults are passed over.
E.g. Zoe Quinn's crash override network had a chat log leaked where they were organizing harassment and doxing. No consequence.
Double standards everywhere.
This is why they like super vague terms like harassment and hate speech. If the term has huge flexibility, the people with power have huge arbitrary power to apply it.
As for the other one, you're gonna have to provide proof.
For one, if they were there to harass, you would expect them to have done some harassing. I have seen no examples of that. The only possible thing that could be construed as harassing behaviour was them being there in the first place - and I don't think that's a very high bar to set for harassment.
I mean, you can watch the videos[0] of the event yourself. None of it looked particularly harassing to me, until Sarkeesian started attacking the audience.
Not sure what exactly you're referring to when you say 'the story' but the articles I've seen don't seem to paint the same picture ([1] for example).
[0] First video I found, shows the whole talk. The point in question comes about 2:30 into the video.
https://youtu.be/XwcRc5LuElA?t=151
[1] https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/3946095/youtuber-sargon-of-akk...
Yes, their is. Their behavior, both at the event and their prior behavior online towards her both suggest that is the entire reason for them being there.
Maybe you need to read unbiased news because they were not, nor did they do anything that could even remotely considered harassment. Attending a talk of your political opposite is not harassment
Though I do think they went WAY over board on the reaction to being called "Garbage Human" but I understand why as they are correct if the roles where reversed the SJW reaction would have been FAR FAR more dramatic...
>>and I cannot be upset that he was banned.
He was banned? From where?
This is a lie. And you don't have a fact to back it up.
https://www.polygon.com/features/2017/6/27/15880582/anita-sa...
Ok, and. Do you believe only governments are a threat to free speech?
Free Speech is a concept that every person, every company, every government should work to up hold.
While governments can and have been the source of censorship, that is not the only source.
Today free speech is under massive assault not by Government but by Society at large, society it seems have lost all respect for the concept, instead of holding the position of "I disagree with what you say but I will fight for your right to say it" people instead hold the idea "I disagree with what you say so I will boycott companies that hire you, or allow you to speak, or do anything to even tangentially associate themselves with you" and increasingly people have the position of "I disagree with you so I will punch you in the face"
This is very very scary and is direct assault on free speech.