Kind of like how the existence of terrorists and pedophiles justifies putting backdoors in all encryption. It ends at a place where all your rights get eroded away, and doesn't even end up protecting anyone anyway.

The 'terrorist' label is a great example of how the meaning of terms get conveniently expanded and broadened for political ends.

However ridiculous or dangerous their rules are, they're the right of private corporations in the US. The First Amendment protects public speech from govt censorship. It does not require private entities to broadcast everyone's speech equally.

There's always one person who makes this comment like it's an original thought and useful contribution.

I'm talking about culture, not law. The US and the west in general has always had a strong free speech culture.

It'd be ridiculous to only rely on a law limiting government as the thing that defines what is and is not okay.

There's a reason this is being called our generation's 'culture wars'.

I do make this comment a lot because free speech advocates on HN seem to think that private companies are compelled by legality or morality to equally broadcast all speech. A private company has limited resources and a right to choose for whom it uses its platform.

Would you say a music venue is harming speech by refusing to host a racist metal band?

And what is your proposal to fix this? That we extend the First Amendment to include private organizations, which essentially trampels their right to speech?

If you think we should break up monopolistic publishers, like Facebook, then fine. But that's not going to make extremists good for business. No one wants to swim in a pool people are peeing in.

You've rightly identified a culture war, but you haven't provided a good reason that the status quo in the US should change.

Also, re: the history of free speech: there were morality laws as recently as the 90s in the US that made it illegal to say certain things in public. You couldn't burn a flag for a significant part of US history. As far as the government is concerned, speech has never been freer here.

The thing most of you seem to object to is that the invisible hand doesn't like certain ideologies.

Private companies are morally bound to uphold free speech norms, and in some cases, they're legally compelled to do so as well: see Marsh v. Alabama. It seems obvious to me that social media companies provide "virtual town squares" and that sooner or later they'll find themselves bound by Marsh- or Pruneyard-style requirements to uphold free speech. The alternative is to have a de jure but not a de facto right to free speech.