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Article 19

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

"""

There may actually be a case for the US needing to change their laws to extend free-speech protections to things that happen on the internet. But that's a whole separate issue. Maybe something the EFF would be interested in?

Obama Administration supported banning criticism of Islam: https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/un-adopts-religious-int...

That Article would be more relevant to countries with hate speech laws or blasphemy laws.

In a more normative sense (that is, describing what should be as opposed to simply what is), private entities should be able to enforce their own rules, there shouldn't be any limits to how many private entities there are, and it should be simple to move from one private entity to another.

In fact, I'd support data portability laws, simply based on the concept that data is an objectively valuable property and should be owned by the people it was generated from.

The baker should be able to deny baking a cake to gay couple?

A pharmacist should be able to deny knowing options about birth control based on religious rights?

A hospital should be able to deny removal of life sustaining device when I don't want it anymore?

>Private entities can do what they want.

Is there a difference between a private entity and a public corporation?

If I run my own plumbing company, I can hire my son without putting up an ad in the paper. Should a Google executive be allowed to hire her husband without putting up an ad?

We hold public companies at a higher standard that private individuals, correctly so.

What if Mead stopped you from using their notebook to write down a thought that they don't agree with?

Protected class.

> A pharmacist should be able to deny knowing options about birth control based on religious rights?

> A hospital should be able to deny removal of life sustaining device when I don't want it anymore?

You want to get into the special laws and regulations the medical field operates under? Really? Really? Because I can guarantee you don't. I can guarantee you are not qualified to do that, and do not have the patience to even start.

Leave it alone. It is its own world and always has been.

> What if Mead stopped you from using their notebook to write down a thought that they don't agree with?

It's more useful to have competition than regulation, because regulation can be gamed. Regulation is required when competition is not possible, does not happen, or when the potential for harm is so high that we cannot simply trust to competition, as in the medical field.

I contend that social media platforms of YouTube/Twitter/Facebook are at that level now. Competition is not possible and harm has clearly been done.

I agree with you, and I think the regulation we need includes data portability regulation: Make it a legal requirement for companies to allow you to get all of your data (which those companies primarily exist to monetize anyway) out of their web services complete, in a simple fashion, in a way which allows you to put it into your own system or upload it into a competitor's system.

Other laws might be required as well, but data portability would be a good start.

Shouldn't I be allowed to give a forwarding address so that my audience that I developed, can reach me on the new platform that I go to?

I don't think any youtube creator worth her salt doesn't keep backup of the videos. The problem with google kicking you out is that you lose your audience. Severing the connection between you and your audience is the biggest issue here, not loss of some files.

Google should be forced to honor forwarding URL (e.g. to vimeo) for accounts that it suspends.

2) Yes.

3) Yes.

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/un-adopts-religious-int...

How should I trust your words now?

This is a resolution passed by the Human Rights Council, but it is not a human right. It does not disallow anything. It talks about promoting and encouraging respect, deploring discrimination and violence, noting concern, recognizing contributions, etc. These are all soft, non-binding commitments.

The only actual obligation is "to prohibit discrimination on the basis of religion or belief and to implement measures to guarantee the equal and effective protection of the law", which does not conflict at all with freedom of speech.

It also includes "the positive role that the exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the full respect for the freedom to seek, receive and impart information can play in strengthening democracy and combating religious intolerance", which seems to address your concerns.

I have seen many cases of criticism of religion equated with criticism of every person who happen to be tagged as person of that religion, and used as a reason to stifle speech.

In Canada and USA, the situation is reversed on free speech. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/derek-james-from/canadas-hypocr...

As I said, the only concrete obligation in the resolution is prohibiting discrimination. Speech is not discrimination, and the Human Rights Council has never claimed that it is.

Google/Twitter/Facebook/Reddit are private entities that own their platforms and can enforce rules there.

There are private entities, public corporations and government.

We hold government to highest standard of equality, we give private entities most freedom to discriminate. Public corporation with share holders are held somewhere in between.

Your friend can kick a person spouting white separatist views out of his room. Good call, in my opinion, by your friend.

Should Mead, makers of paper notebooks, have a right to see what someone has writing in a notebook and take away the notebook if they don't like what's being written?

Am I wrong?

The person said that she/he was a Diplomat who negotiated this law.

>negotiating laws and charging corporations are very different things.

I agree. UN is toothless in enforcing anything, it is just grandstanding anyway. That was the point of my question, when do they propose on doing something about the corporations who invalidate the rights to speech. To show just that.