But that was the state stopping Nazis from marching, this is a private company refusing to do business with someone. Free speech is a right guaranteed by the state, so you won't go to prison for stating your beliefs. But no one should be obliged to help you air those beliefs against their will.

When private companies obtain near-monopoly status, they become a significant danger to the public interest and the government rightly scrutinizes their every move. I still think WalMart should have been compelled to stop altering music CDs in the 90s. And I still think any "too big to fail" company should be broken up under antitrust proceedings.

This wouldn't be a problem without the Citizens United ruling. Corporations should not be considered people, especially when doing so comes to the harm of real people.

So now it becomes a regulatory issues, ie should they be regulated and treated like utilities in that access should be available to all regardless of race, wealth or political persuasion.

I think the article sums up the problem quite well:

"Because internet intermediaries, especially those with few competitors, control so much online speech, the consequences of their decisions have far-reaching impacts on speech around the world."

Can I refused to make a wedding cake for a gay marriage? You can always go somewhere else.

Can we please stop comparing treatment of gays and treatment of nazi's like they're some kind of equivalent? Gay people from most accounts were born that way, and just want to remain being alive and gay. Nazi's should be given no safe harbor, as they want to opress and/or kill gay people along with everyone else who don't want nazi's to have power.

Choice vs born-with-it isn't a valid reason. If science discovered a way to change your sexuality, would you be OK discriminating against gays after-all? Religion is also protected and nobody is born with a particular religion. Country of birth is something that people are born with but we heavily discriminate against that - a Syrian can't just get the plane to America and go set up home there. You Americans will almost unanimously agree to stop him for no other reason than an accident of birth.

Nice strawman. We should be able to discriminate against those who seek to discriminate in the ultimate (ie deny nazi's/violent religious extremists/radical communists/etc a platform to promote discrimination/violence).

"If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."

- Noam Chomsky

I do not believe in free expression to promote/commit violence.

I don't think you understand 'freedom of speech', when you start saying 'I believe in freedom of speech for only X kind of speech, because the other kind abhorrent'.

I didn't say anything about freedom of speech.

I do not believe nazi's or any other group have any right to promote hate and violence against others.

> I didn't say anything about freedom of speech.

> right to promote

You just did. Promotion is speech.

I am sorry you think the ability to promote hate is something worth defending.

Did you apply this logic to the bakery who refused to bake the cake for a gay wedding last year?

The issue of freedom of speech when it relates to businesses is a pretty good hypocrisy litmus test. Last year the Left was outraged when a business refused service based on moral grounds, while the Right sided with the business, and we have the opposite in this case.

Yes. People who defer to the legal definition of protected classes and insist that members of them must be protected and everyone else be damned are the showing clear hypocrisy.

It would be funny if in another 1000 years we'll all agree that the current US popular leftist morals turned out to be the right ones: It's wrong to discriminate against someone because of their race, religion, sex, or sexual preferences (as long as it's one of a few predefined types) but it's right to discriminate against someone because of their political views, alternative sexuality (outside the list of predefined types), ugliness, height, location of birth, or anything else you don't like. These classifications are so arbitrary and transient, why does anyone stand by them so vehemently? When they're old they might become the new racist uncle - hating the wrong people that the next couple of generations decide shouldn't be hated anymore.

> When they're old they might become the new racist uncle

Honestly, that's what's got me concerned. Political mores are changing so fast and so constantly, and people are being so black-and-white about them, that it seems like the only "acceptable" position to some people is getting pretty close to a full-throated condemnation of everything and everyone that happened before they were born.

If it wasn't so easy to fail the purity tests, maybe fewer people would become Nazis (either out of ostracization or to troll purity the testers).

Sexual orientation is a protected class. Being a Nazi is not.

This difference isn't hard to understand.

Sexual Orientation, like Political Affiliation, is only protected in certain states. The Federal Anti-Discrimination Law does not protect against discrimination by sexual orientation, you might want to read up before claiming to understand something

IANAL - but that's a different deal. You are (afaik) not allowed to discriminate against gender, sexual orientation etc. as a business or private person. Whereas Freedom of speech is just about what the gov' can and can't do to you.

Edit: so it's not quite comparable in this way.

Not really. The Federal Civil Rights Act only prevents discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Sexual Orientation was never included in the legislation, though some states do have legislation with respect to sexual orientation and political affiliation. California being one of the states which does not allow discrimination on sexual orientation or political affiliation. As detestable as they are one could easily argue that the Neo-Nazis are a political group and should be afforded equal protection.

As a side note, the Bakery case is being looked at by the Supreme Court, in terms of whether or not you can force an artist to make something they don't want to.

> California being one of the states which does not allow discrimination on...political affiliation.

Cite please, I genuinely curious.