>Ultimately we have a dictatorship of ideas

What an amazing way to phrase "others don't like what I am saying and don't want to associate with me". The government controlling social media platforms is vastly different from a collection of companies controlling social media platforms that they built.

There's an argument that can be made about companies needing to treat their platforms as public squares depending on if they get certain protections or subsidies from the government, but as it stands its currently their property and you don't have a right to force others to broadcast your opinions

Madness of the crowds. It's also interesting that this phrase brings only search results from Douglas Murray, who has been widely attacked as far right (and thus untouchable). The social and psychological effect is much more meaningful and important.

https://ncase.me/crowds/

To be clear I don't oppose to what is being said. I'm opposed to how it's being said. If there's only one allowed dogma, there's no chance of correcting the course and logically it will always end in a disaster.

> The government controlling social media platforms is vastly different from a collection of companies controlling social media platforms that they built

If the difference is measured by the effect produced then in many cases it is zero, that is, there is no any difference. For example,we frequently see collective censorship which effectively means the absence of freedom of speech.

In fact, there exist also other interesting forms like collective (or democratic) racism or collective (democratic) totalitarism. For normal people, the origin of these rules does not really matter.

Freedom of speech is specifically freedom from the government interfering with your speech. Freedom of speech does not mean you can compel others into carrying your message forward.

Take your argument to its logical conclusion. Say I want everyone you come in contact with to hear my personal thoughts on government. Are you ok with being compelled to pass along a card with my diatribe on it to all of the people you interact with on a daily basis?

> Freedom of speech is specifically freedom from the government interfering with your speech

Yes, it is an important point but somewhat old. Nowadays it can be generalized: freedom of speech is a protection of the stage from monopolization by anyone (being it a government, company or private person). I would say, now it is more important and much more difficult to protect the communication channels from giant companies which are much stronger than most governments (and in many cases actually control the governments).

I agree in principle that corporations shouldn’t have the power to shut people up, but these social media companies also enable a much larger set of ideas to be broadcasted than when the principles of free speech were written into the constitution. How do we prevent the fascism and bigotry of yesteryear and even new forms of bigotry and fascism from being shared on these platforms as well?

that's fine, then it's time to slap most of big tech with massive anti-trust cases

Isn't it the same thing just obfuscated by two levels of indirection, Patriot Act/Op Choke Point -> VISA/Mastercard -> Social Medias

https://old.reddit.com/r/kotakuinaction2/comments/hi47ci/dic...

> The government controlling social media platforms is vastly different from a collection of companies controlling social media platforms that they built.

The difference is not particularly significant.

Yeah man I remember when Mark Zuckerberg came into my house and took my wife and kids for saying something on Facebook.

This is a facetious reply, but I don't think the government's punishment of free speech violations would have to be totalitarian to be highly concerning.

Likewise, I think allowing a handful of tech employees and billionaires to control what is and is not free speech -- without any democratic control or regulation -- is also highly concerning.

It blows my mind that the so-called left is advocating for the right of private, global, monopolistic corporations to act with impunity.

HN/Reddit ...

Good = Social media companies selectively controlling the platform they built

Bad = Telecom companies selectively controlling the platform they built

Personally I have found that on HN there is more of a dictatorship of phrasing than a dictatorship of ideas. Here's the short list of ideas you can't say on HN no matter how you phrase them, I think you would agree that this is not excessive:

- "Individuals of one race are better or worse than individuals of another."

- "One gender is clearly better or worse than another."

- Anything about Republicans or Democrats

The origin of this list is not that the mods are biased, it's that they have a 100% correlation with foaming at the mouth.

As far as I can tell that's the whole list. Anyone care to add to it? Do not repeat the actual arguments, that will start a flame war.

I'm actually amazed that there was a somewhat troll-free discussion about the protests and riots going on in the USA (and the West) right now. I think this is a giant kudos to HN. It's just a great feeling that we can disagree, but in a polite manner. Thank you for this HN! This is the basis of democracy!

Spaces versus tabs? /s

- Anything positive about China

- Relating ad blocking to piracy

- Benefits of open offices

These may be controversial but you won’t be canceled.

they were downvoted. downvoting costs reputation and can lead to a dead post. downvoting means, “don't argue this position again”. fair to say they were cancelled i think.

The problem with cancel culture is that it cancels the person, rather than their post. Downvoting is fine because it downvotes a specific expression of opinion - it does not go against the person for wrongthink.

You have every right to stand on a street corner and preach whatever manner of nonsense you want.

There are two people doing that on the street below me right now (one is a charlatan peddling superstition, the other is a conspiracy theorist warning of the dangers of 5G). Your complaint in this context would be that my landlord isn’t giving you a stage and a megaphone?

My complaint is that these corporations get wide legal protections because they claim to be an open platform. In reality there are ideologs within them that exert editorial control by exalting (by promoted content channels) or deriding by means of either outright banning or vote manipulation of speech. If they were publishers, I am fine with such behavior. Since they derive monetary benefit from the wide legal birth, I decry them openly as tinpot dictators.

Yesterday you wrote: "While I agree that we need more room for nuanced debate, this is not a wining argument. Our society needs more accountability, not less."... from a throwaway account that cannot "really" be deleted... you realize that, right?

None of those things you mentioned are state actors taking over platforms.

At least I can says something against Trump or even the government and my posts will probably not be deleted. Free press and speech doesn’t mean everyone gets equal speaking time, just that the government is very limited in how it can interfere. It is just a restriction on government power, really.

And yes, this restriction on government power is much better than what they have in China, Turkey, etc... it is actually much better.

Can you say something _for_ Trump or the government though? Your posts will not be deleted, but likely downvoted into invisibility.

To be frank anti-government censorship concerns me less than pro-government censorship, due to the various asymmetries inherent to the concept of government (e.g. the government operates prisons while those who oppose the government do not.)

To be clear, I don't think it's productive. But neither does it make me fearful in the same sort of way.

I think there have been ideas in every society that have been taboo and not allowed to be shared. For example, in Germany nobody is allowed to speak positively about the Nazis. This is ultimately a subjective line that is drawn by the people in power and by social forces. These platforms are just enforcing their own subjective line on bigoted viewpoints. It only seems to be negative against conservatives in most cases so personally I think it’s fine, since those bigoted viewpoints tend to come mostly from conservatives.