I don't think so. Is anyone proposing this as a solution? The parent certainly doesn't seem to be.
> Yes, totally agree. These big companies must be broken up, or treated with a much greater degree of regulation (effectively holding them to the standards that the government is held to, as sole provider of some functions).
I am sympathetic to breaking up big companies (albeit because of a dislike of private consolidations of power, rather than a commitment to freedom of speech). But their alternative proposal is exactly the scenario to which I was referring.
My issue here isn't with the idea that we do something about large tech companies. It's the proposal to abridge legal freedom of speech, masquerading as an attempt to protect free speech. OP is presenting this as an objective argument about freedom, when really they just don't like where the lines are drawn.
1. Free speech absolutism is actually perfectly reasonable. An absolute stance of free speech doesn’t mean you can’t use speech to commit a crime. If you hire a hit man to kill somebody, you’ve committed a crime, even though the only thing you have done is speak. Nothing about that contradicts an absolute stance on free speech. I have a drivers licence which entitles me to drive a car on public roads. It doesn’t entitle me to run over pedestrians who may be walking on them. Your child pornography example is the same thing. Child pornography is illegal because it involves the crime of sexually abusing children. That’s why it’s illegal, and why drawn or computer generated images or movies depicting sexual acts with children are protected by 1A.
2. Calling for free speech in large online platforms is not curtailing their own right to free speech. The one and only reason large online platforms are allowed to moderate their platforms in anyway they choose is because of a law introduced in the 90s granting them protection from prosecution for the content they publish. If you have an online platform that you don’t moderate, you used to be protected by common carrier laws. If you do choose to moderate it, you are no longer a common carrier, and should be held liable for the content you are now acting as a editor and publisher for. This law was created at a time before large tech companies had monopolised online speech, and really should be revised. Changing it certainly wouldn’t require curtailing anybody’s rights, and every time this comes up I’m honestly surprised by the kind of people who object to it, because the argument you have put forward applies equally as an argument against net neutrality.
2. It doesn't matter when certain laws were introduced. The government making legislation forcing private citizens to disseminate speech against their will curtails their freedom of speech, full stop. I'm fine with arguments about what regulations are appropriate, just not in the guise of "platforms must do X to support free speech".
Regarding regulations, my point is simply that your assertion that correcting large companies ability to control online speech would violate their own rights to free speech, is simply false. The only reason they have that ability in the first place is because of a regulation that is without precedent, and allows them to have their cake and eat it too. You don’t have to compel them to do anything. Simply remove the immunity they have from be held liable for their decisions.
However everything you and I have just said is irrelevant, because people who raise those point almost never have a genuine concern about the rights of large companies, nor the absurd idea that somehow this line of reasoning would lead to the legalisation of child pornography. The reason these points are raised is that the heart of the issue is that as a society we should value free expression, it has nothing to do with laws. Taking a direct stance against free expression is actually quite hard to get people to agree with, which is why these nonsense points must instead be raised to deflect to conversation onto something completely different.
This would be more convincing if the supposed inability to distinguish weren't regularly deployed in favor of free speech "absolutism". "Who decides what's hate speech?" is a common refrain when people call for action against hate speech. Why is the gatekeeper argument valid for racism but not for insults?
> Child sexual abuse is also one of the only crimes committed for the purposes of taking and distributing photos.
This is a non sequitur. Not all child sexual abuse is done with the intent of creating pornography, but even so it doesn't make child pornography bans any less of an abridgement of free speech. You mentioned that selling ivory is illegal, which is an example of a limit on free trade. We oppose these things because we think they're morally wrong and the benefits of prohibition outweigh the drawbacks, not because there's some weird loophole by which they're placed in an entirely different category.
> Regarding regulations, my point is simply that your assertion that correcting large companies ability to control online speech would violate their own rights to free speech, is simply false. The only reason they have that ability in the first place is because of a regulation that is without precedent, and allows them to have their cake and eat it too.
Maybe it's time to revisit the laws protecting them for user-generated content. I'm sympathetic to that idea. But, if you're an absolutist, it would still curtail their freedom of speech.
> However everything you and I have just said is irrelevant, because people who raise those point almost never have a genuine concern about the rights of large companies, nor the absurd idea that somehow this line of reasoning would lead to the legalisation of child pornography. The reason these points are raised is that the heart of the issue is that as a society we should value free expression, it has nothing to do with laws. Taking a direct stance against free expression is actually quite hard to get people to agree with, which is why these nonsense points must instead be raised to deflect to conversation onto something completely different.
You misunderstand my point. I'm not making a slippery slope argument about child pornography. I'm saying that the OP is not making a "free speech" argument in the first place; they are merely trying to shift the lines of acceptable speech to be more amenable to them. That's a fine argument, and I'm happy to debate it — just not when it masquerades as "X speech must be protected because Freedom of Speech".
Well now that just sounds like a no true Scotsman argument. Even among absolutists, the idea that torts or other unrelated crimes should be legalized if they contain an element of speech would be considered fringe and extreme.
Regardless, OP isn’t even talking about crimes. They’re saying that big tech companies should be regulated to force them to carry speech they don’t want to, which is clearly a limit on freedom of speech.
Which is simply a straw man argument. The actual legal argument is to allow them to choose between being a common carrier, or accepting liability for the content they publish.
If I understand correctly, you're also misapplying common carriage here. Common carrier laws basically say that if all you do is transport things from A to B, you can't discriminate. That already doesn't describe social networks, which do much more than just deliver your speech: they algorithmically promote it, sell ads against it, etc. But OP is speaking even more broadly than that. One example they've brought up is YouTube demonetizing people, which has nothing to do with transmitting speech.
In reality, no one is a free speech absolutist. We just argue over where the lines should be drawn. Bans on child pornography and threats of violence are pretty uncontroversial abridgements of free speech. Banning harassment and hate speech seems to be a bit less popular. Which is fine, everyone has their own ideas about what's acceptable. But don't draw your line in the sand and then tell me that's what determines "free speech".