My point is that they don't get to decide that, though. They decide whether they will pay for hosting, but they can't stop him from paying for his own hosting elsewhere.

Likewise, if the WSJ decides not to publish my letter to the editor, they aren't violating my freedom of speech, they are just deciding not to amplify it.

You are comparing apples to oranges. WSJ is a publisher. These tech companies are currently enjoying the benefits of being a "platform" while acting as publishers.

> These tech companies are currently enjoying the benefits of being a "platform" while acting as publishers.

If this is referring to Section 230, I think it's a misinterpration. Section 230 gives platforms the ability to moderate without being (legally) treated as a publisher, but it doesn't make them into a utility. If it's referring to a different law, I'm curious which one.

In your view, if YouTube is not a publisher, should they be required to host pornography? Are the community features part of the platform, or is YouTube entitled to host content but make it undiscoverable?

You’re trivialising the issue a bit. Remember when CloudFront stopped providing DDos protection to some white nationalist website (I forgot which one). “Just start your own multi-billion company bro!”

It's also inaccessible to me to buy a printing press, but that doesn't make the WSJ compelled to print something I write.

You sure you're not referring to CloudFlare and The Daily Stormer?

I'd be more sympathetic to your point if you hadn't said at first (paraphrased) "Alex Jones said this awful thing I disagree with". Therefore you presumably believe it's ok he got kicked off of whatever platform, because of _what_ he believes.

You really don't see the moral hazard in that?

I believe YouTube has the right to remove it whether or not I agree with it, because they don't owe it to anyone to pay their hosting bill.

Should a restaurant be able to refuse service to an openly gay couple then in your opinion? What if it offends the other patrons?

There is no law protecting conspiracy theorists.

I'm not sure there is a national law requiring businesses to serve gay customers either. I'm just curious how OP feels about that.

Besides, who decides who is and who isn't a conspiracy theorist. You? A twitter mob? The government? Some people in San Francisco?

The fact that there is apparently such strong disagreement (most of which probably is from people who believe that it is appropriate to use the strong market share of these platforms to mold political discourse) is a bit alarming. No way that ends well.

Fine, let the court of public opinion decide.

Alex Jones is banned from Youtube. People, largely, do not give a shit. Now try banning gay people from a resturant.

Good luck with that.

And in many jurisdictions it is illegal to discriminate over sexual orientation. There is no such law protecting conspiracy theorists.

Your argument is juvenile and fails to address the point

And your reply is devoid of substance.

I think we're done here.

my argument has substance and I agree. not worth it.

And my point is that it's undesirable to have a handful of companies with this kind of control.

The "host your own" argument is done to death truly. If one type of speech can be hosted for "free" by a company with 80%+ market share, so should another without discrimination.

To allow otherwise is to risk of erosion of our values and enable corruption. Even if you don't like Jones.

I think the bigger threat is us enabling 2 to 3 large companies to the degree where their decisions can affect discourse.

Alex Jones is a thoughtless jerk though, and can still find/provide his own hosting/distribution.

You presumably also would be in favor of domain brokers restricting speech (correct me if I'm wrong). Does every controversial political speaker also need to host his or her own ICANN domain? Or should they just promote their speech entirely offline?

I'd like people to use a multitude of domains/providers/companies to minimize the ability of a small group of companies to influence discourse.

Having said that, I understand that practically avoiding those companies is tough.

There’s no shortage of companies who value money more than morals. Those affected can host their sites with one of them.

All these cries of "censorship" misunderstand that what is happening is fundamentally a business decision.

When Alex Jones gets pulled from Youtube, it's because he is effecting their business relationships and ability to make money.

Couldn't you make the same argument about gay couples in a small town rural restaurant?

But would it be morally right to ban those couples from a restaurant?

No one is born a conspiracy theorist.

Someone spouting asshole opinions is not the same as an immutable trait by birth.

Alex Jones is not even being sincere in his quackery, this has been explored in court and he admitted to being a fraud.

Because we have decided that after decades of bigotry, violence and discrimination that the rights of gay people to their life supersede the rights of free association for public businesses.

We have? Can you show me a national law in the US that says restaurants have to serve gays?

See how the "it's a private business so they can discriminate!" works?

Keep in mind, as you mention, the shoe has been on the other foot and it will be again. It's better to enshrine and uphold these principals at all times. Not be like a dirty cop planting evidence because "he knows the suspect did it" and try to get to "Right" by cheating. In the end that blows up and it was wrong all along anyway.

Why do you think I’m talking about the US? There’s a whole world out there.

In that case "We" haven't decided anything at all what you suggest.

But now you and I are in the weeds.

I hope you see my point, that's all. Discrimination isn't good. Even if you don't agree with the other party.

We aren’t trying to come to an agreement, we has a lot broader meaning than that. Good luck, have fun.

Discrimination isn’t good and propping it up in the name of free speech is gross.

"We" in a global context have many different views.

Agreed, we aren't trying to come to agreement, on that we apparently agree.

Speech might be hateful, but isn't discrimination. Discrimination is discrimination.

Free spread of ideas is vital to the continued progress of humanity but sometimes it will offend people.

You could if it was 1950. Fortunately it’s 2020 and laws exist to protect gay couples.

I'm not sure they do to the extent you suggest.

But I agree, if you open a public service you can't not rent to blacks, you can't not serve gays nor Democrats. That is how it should be.

When you open an upload streaming service to the public, _particularly_ if you have the majority market share, you have certain obligations of non discrimination. This should include religious and political viewpoints as well as race and sexual orientation.

Maybe Jones does cross the line from political discourse into trolling and incitement to violence. Not sure because I haven't watched him except on Joe Rogan. But we need to be very careful about moving that line.

I was replying to what you specifically said:

> Couldn't you make the same argument about gay couples in a small town rural restaurant?

And the answer is "no, you can't."

Well actually yes, you very clearly could.

Perhaps the restaurant is in a religiously conservative community and people won't eat there with their children if the restaurant has openly gay couples in attendance. So the gay couples being in the restaurant could negatively impact business.

What law prevents this? I'm not sure there is one in most of the U.S. Twitter and Reddit's opinion aren't so far law.

So the bottom line is yes, you could make the same argument.

But I think we both recognize this is morally unfair. When you provide a public venue, or offer something for sale to the public you have certain responsibilities towards non discrimination.

The fact the people being discriminated against are people you don't like or disagree with is irrelevant to this.

> About 20 states, including New York and California, have enacted laws that prohibit discrimination in public accommodations based on sexual orientation

https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/the-right-to-refuse-servi...

You learned something today!

I think maybe you learned something today :)

I also thought these laws were more prevalent then they actually are until I looked into it.

Really? 8chan was unable to find any hosts for a very long time, and its future is still uncertain.

Lots of people in New Zealand and El Paso won't shed a tear for that fact.

Battles over freedom of expression have nearly always occurred at the boundary of the vile: see the obscenity battles over the rap group 2 Live Crew [0], or Chomsky's vociferous defense for the right of Europeans to express Holocaust denial [1], despite he himself finding those views to be inaccurate and repugnant.

It's a simple formula: Take the most awful idea you can imagine, that any reasonable person would also find unworthy of the public square. Now walk it back it by 1%. Still worth banning? Okay, do it again. Rinse and repeat, until anything anyone finds even vaguely controversial or upsetting is verboten. I can trivially produce a compelling argument that any opinion on abortion or the military (for or against), is hateful, vile, and dangerous.

In practice, we need specific exemptions for libel, slander, conspiracy to commit a crime, etc. (It's worth remembering that the infamous "fire in a crowded theater" line was used as a justification for suppressing pamphleteering against the draft [2].) We have such exemptions, and their details are certainly debatable. But they must be targted very narrowly, and the burden of proof must be high, lest moral panics or realpolitik throw out the baby with the bathwater, and outlaw thinking itself.

[0] https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1447/2-live-crew

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faurisson_affair

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...

“despite he himself finding those views to be inaccurate and repugnant”

If only that were true. Most people who look into this are dumbfounded at Chomsky’s support of Faurisson—not just his right to speak, but his insistence that we take this holocaust-denying nutjob’s “research” seriously.