Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request

Re:Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at Chi... by totony on Saturday June 13, 2020 @04:03AM (#23507742)

I think the parent is right in that free speech is not an absolute and has geographical restrictions. Most western nations restrict free speech mostly by broadly defining some forms of speech as hate. Saying hate speech laws and free speech are consistent with each other is disingenuous considering one exists to limit the other.

I can understand the argument that hate speech is a fair restriction, but one must concede that it is a restriction and other countries may add their own restrictions to it which you may disagree on.

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Re:Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at Chi... by 6AA4FD on Saturday June 13, 2020 @01:53PM (#23511227)

I should clarify: most americans think everyone is entitled to some right called "free speech" but there are philosophical justifications of this that cut across the boundary between ideas and acts (kind of hard to summarize it) that exclude a lot of speech acts from "free speech" [0]. I was trying to say that it's not inconsistent to apply a single framework for free speech across national borders or despite companies like twitter blocking trump's tweets because there are theories of speech rights that work that way.

[0]: There is an interesting paper on this called 'A Theory of Freedom of Expression' by Thomas Scanlon that can do a better job of explaining it. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2264971?seq=1

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