> But, neither does anyone have a right to an audience.

Free speech includes the right to be heard.

That's why the government is allowed to kick you out of political rallies/meetings if you're just there to protest or whatever; you're not allowed to try to shout over someone else to prevent them from talking, rather if you disagree with them then you need to go find your own followers to try to convince.

edit: To all the people downvoting me, do you not realize I'm literally just paraphrasing the relevant supreme court ruling?: https://www.thefire.org/say-it-again-for-the-people-in-the-b...

This has nothing to do with the right to be heard. In this case, it'd be about requiring CloudFlare to _assist_ 8chan in _being_ heard. And there's no such right, or ruling.

8chan's hosting isn't even being yanked, only their access to an edge caching CDN. I'm really struggling to see a "free speech" issue here. What if Google Analytics decides not to offer 8chan analytics? Does that also interfere with the right to speech?

> In this case, it'd be about requiring CloudFlare to _assist_ 8chan in _being_ heard. And there's no such right, or ruling.

The comment I was replying to was about what the constitutional right to free speech entails, not about what CloudFlare is required to do.

I submit that the concept of free speech does not include a right to be heard.

Certainly there are forms of restricting someone's ability to be heard that would infringe on their right to free speech, but the former does not necessarily imply or require the latter.

The concept of free speech does include the right to be heard in that if I want to hear what you're saying, the government preventing me from hearing it is just as bad as preventing you from saying it. It takes two to communicate.

However if I don't want to hear what you say--or I don't want to help you say it--the government is not going to step in and force me to do it.

The distinction is really about depriving vs. providing.

People get it mixed up in their heads when it comes to contractual relationships like Cloudflare. On one hand it is grammatically correct to say that Cloudflare is "depriving" 8chan of their service, since 8chan used to have access to it. Legally, though, 8chan never had any right to Cloudflare's service. It was a privilege that was revoked.

> Legally, though, 8chan never had any right to Cloudflare's service.

Correct. However, the main/only service CloudFlare provides is preventing DDOS attacks, which fall plainly into the category of unconstitutionally depriving someone of their free speech.

Providing services to 8chan isn't furthering their mission in any way, and the only "advantage" of cutting them off is that it empowers the people who would deprive the 8channers of their constitutional right to free speech.

_I_ have no obligation to ensure that _a third party_ doesn't impair _your_ right to speech.