What's interesting is how the same argument for allowing more discrimination would be laughed off the stage as completely meritless and bigoted. But the situation is exactly the same! Organizations are allowed to discriminate against protected classes when it's a bona fide occupational qualification or the organization is a private club, so surely there's long precedent for allowing discrimination in specified circumstances?
Somehow almost everyone sees how this argument is totaly facile in the context of discrimination, yet it gets trotted out over and over when suggesting further restrictions on freedom of speech.
[1]: https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...
good grief... you should shout this from the rafters. thanks for sharing.
Or in other words, I hope people realise it could well be their political enemies that decide what's classed as fake news and what isn't. Wonder how many people would change their mind about backing a crackdown on the concept if they realised it could be the current administration making the decision?
Free speech is the ability to express any opinion or idea, anti-government opinions included. This is why online posts and various non-verbal actions (like burning a flag) are protected under The First Amendment, even though nothing is being physically said. Additionally this is why threatening violence towards somebody isn’t protected: a threat of violence isn’t an opinion or an idea.
Your first amendment rights were not violated if Facebook censors you.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama
[1] https://firstamendmentcoalition.org/2010/08/free-speech-cali...
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-11-29/how-to-ta...
For example, guns are not allowed in post offices for a substantial governmental reason.
[1] https://youtu.be/5tu32CCA_Ig (Fully Sourced in Description)
The question with fake news becomes: what is the damage that this type of speech causes to the public? This is a really difficult question to answer, especially since we're only starting to notice the effects on our political system. If this damage is too great, there would be justification to restrict it in the public interest.
Of course, the people who end up making these determinations may also have conflicting political incentives, which makes this a very delicate situation to tackle in as broken of a political environment as we have in the US.