In the US, ISPs were a common carrier from 2015 through 2017, when the Republicans revoked that: while they might not let you say anything you want on the servers they own, they couldn't terminate your contract for you saying legal things on the servers you own.

Perhaps that regulatory regime will return. Maybe even next year. Not under a Republican-led FCC, of course.

>While I agree, please direct me to where I can speak "in the public domain" online.

Same place as with pre-online TV and radio I suppose.

Free speech doesn't guarantee you an audience at the time and place of your choosing.

Take public buildings like a Courthouse or City hall, sure you have Free Speech rights, but good luck interrupting a court hearing to get your message out (without being held in contempt by the Judge (the government) and thrown in jail). Or try getting your message out at mid-night when the building is closed.

Then as others have said, what is stopping you from registering your own domain and posting your message there? If the government infringing your rights in that regard?

Do you not believe that people can stand on a public street corner and express their ideas freely, where many people will likely see and hear them? Your examples are edge cases (court rooms at midnight) that seem designed to suggest that no such places exists. They do exist, and I am asking where is there online version. Are you suggesting that the only way to exchange free speech online is for each passerby to create their own website and respond on their respective websites? I've seen people claim voter suppression for fewer hurdles. Or are you suggesting that it is the responsibility of a private entity to create and maintain a public square?

Where is the online public square? That's the point I am trying to make. And as others have pointed out, if you think having domain name and hosting is a public square, then you are ignoring all of the precedents of those things being removed by private entities.

>Do you not believe that people can stand on a public street corner and express their ideas freely, where many people will likely see and hear them?

The Government can restrict you on the street corner too. Take Covid, states/counties/cities/municipalities across the country are enacting curfews, so violate the curfew and they will arrest your chilling your speech...assuming you consider that an edge case as well, then just read the case law from the good old "soap box" days, which deal exactly with people setting up their soap boxes on the corner to talk to the public and yes the government can regulate that speech to a certain extent.

>Are you suggesting that the only way to exchange free speech online is for each passerby to create their own website and respond on their respective websites?

Do you have a website? Can I freely post on your website without your consent?

>Where is the online public square?

The web is the public square, you want to set up your own soap box (website) do it, but you have no right to take over someone else's soap box (website), and if they do give you some rights to stand on their soap box they certainly can place restrictions.

>if you think having domain name and hosting is a public square, then you are ignoring all of the precedents of those things being removed by private entities.

You are ignoring self hosting from private servers.

The online "public square" is the internet itself. If you want to say something in public, simply create a web site and publish it. My understanding is that anything you say on your own web site will be protected via the same laws as public speech.

Companies aren't the only entities allowed to publish content on the World Wide Web, you know. You're free to build whatever discussion platforms you like, or you could just, y'know, publish a website.

> Companies aren't the only entities allowed to publish content on the World Wide Web

Actually, the only entities with any capacity of publishing content on the WWW are a few tier 1 ISPs.

If you push that rope you will discover that your capacity to publish anything you want is restricted by the policy of whoever hosts your servers, and their ISP, and their ISP's ISP.

If the end-state of that evolution is every entity being completely free to decide what gets published on their private platform, that's a huge problem.

> If you push that rope you will discover that your capacity to publish anything you want is restricted by the policy of whoever hosts your servers

Fair enough.

My original parent comment asked where you can speak freely online, which for the purposes of my argument I'm equating to US law regarding free speech. (This may not be the angle you're coming from.)

Most hosts will allow you to publish things that fit that description. To take the examples given in this thread: if you want to publish an image of the Confederate flag, or publish something and not have Twitter or Facebook placing ropes around your content, publishing your own website is going to solve that problem for you.

Now, you're not wrong, there are limits to that, but I'm struggling to find out how those limits apply to this conversation in any realistic way.

The US laws about free speech are greatly liberal (if extended to protect non-citizens). Even something more restrictive like outlawing hate-speech is still a complete no-issue.

But privatizing those laws on the hands of a few companies only work as long as (besides other constraints) there isn't a mob pushing those few companies around. So, I'm completely in favor of letting MS police their platform, but the universal ones ought to be declared public services and there should be guarantees of universalization there.

1 - Not only ISPs, as for example an app store on a locked phone is universal to that phone's userbase.

> your capacity to publish anything you want is restricted by the policy of whoever hosts your servers, and their ISP, and their ISP's ISP.

this is obvious and anyone still unironically pushing the "just make your own" narrative is aware of it but has no other comeback

Hi, it's me, unironically pushing the "just make your own" narrative.

I posted a comment similar to this, but let me just lay cards on the table: if you want to publish child abuse images, or sell controlled substances, you're probably going to have a hard time finding hosting for that. Same if you want to publish content that violates US copyright law, which I agree with less but still applies.

The original question was "where can I speak 'in the public domain' online," and I'm fairly sure my answer holds.

Unless you were just trying to make some juvenile "any limits placed on my conduct online are invalid because Internet" argument, which I mean good luck with.

While true if you run something small that goes unnoticed, we still have gatekeepers once you get to a certain size. Good luck taking payments if Mastercard blacklists you.

I will definitely agree that payment processing is subject to limitations I don't agree with. Many adult-oriented websites have found it difficult to find payment processors, even when their businesses comply with the relevant laws.

But if we're answering my original parent comment of "where can I speak freely online," we're probably not discussing payment processing.

But then I control it and can deny the free speech of others. That's not what I'm asking for.

Sure. If I own a website or a newspaper or the patch of ground in front of my house, I get to decide what information goes there.

Are you arguing that there should be some legal provision that says anyone can publish anything on your website, or newspaper, or ground, and you don't get a say in it? That seems unreasonable.

I am arguing for a space online that is publicly owned, maintained by the government, easily accessible by your average person, with the same very few restrictions on free speech that exist in the real world.

I think that would be an interesting thing to have, and the implementation of it would have to solve a lot of issues (equal access to technology, etc) that need solving badly.

I'm also glad we finally got to the actual thing you want to see change.

Curious though: what would having this space solve?

>what would having this space solve?

Is this a trick question? It guarantees that any marginalized people has access to communicate easily and freely to the general public, and it cannot be denied by anyone.

No tricks, but I disagree with you here.

A government-run, publicly owned online communication platform has several problems that prevent it from being the utopia you expect.

1. What value does it actually provide that Twitter and Reddit and Tumblr (and even Facebook) don't provide? I've learned more about marginalized communities both locally and globally on Twitter than I have anywhere else. Seems that they have a pretty decent platform today.

2. It's existence doesn't mean those platforms go away, so it by itself doesn't stop Facebook from doing the ridiculous things it's doing today. Folks may choose to patronize those private platforms over using the thing you describe.

3. Economically disadvantaged folks won't have access to it without a separate set of programs to ensure every household is connected to the Internet at a reasonable speed, and that they have the tech required to access it. (COVID-19 has laid bare the economic disparity even in my relatively affluent school district.)

4. Are we talking "run by the US"? If so: globally, marginalized people may not be able to communicate there due to policies from our government (which we can over time theoretically control) or their governments (which we cannot.) If not: who runs it then?

5. I think you'll find that the US government routinely denies people speech. Police violently responding to peaceful protests around the country is just one example. The US would definitely have to control for speech that violates US law, such as SESTA/FOSTA.

6. This is all ignoring the fact that people are people, and even the best examples of online communities have examples of folks being rejected by the dominant voices in the community irrespective of the rules.

I think a public-owned online space is fascinating, but I don't think it'd be a magic bullet to solving these problems.

Easy. Set up your own web site and put whatever you want to say on it.

If the hosting company takes you down, host it yourself. If ICANN takes it down, host it on Tor.

There are always ways to bypass corporate control of speech. You may have to completely forgo the benefits provided by the corporate web sites, but nothing is stopping you from making your own platform.

I think there's a deeper underlying issue here, and that is that some people don't actually want a place online where people can speak freely without restrictions. They will claim that the internet is already "free enough", and will cite "workarounds" similar to yours, but when pushed, will admit that having a place online, very accessible to the average person, with effectively very few restrictions on speech, is a bad idea. Are you someone who believes this?

People can speak freely without restrictions using their own resources.

What you are asking for is to force other people to set up platforms for people to speak, which is a very different thing.

Freedom of speech has always applied to the former, but never the latter.

>People can speak freely without restrictions using their own resources.

The average person cannot. "Just host your content on Tor" (as it was eventually suggested elsewhere) is not a solution to there being lack of an accessible online public space, when faced with private entities who will deny you hosting and domain names.

But I would like you to answer the question posed in the post you replied to (yes I know it wasn't originally addressed to you). Are you someone who believes that a place like that shouldn't exist because of the content you believe that would be posted?

To straightforwardly answer your question: you can always take that kind of stuff to 4chan.

But I don't think it's accurate to say that most people think these places shouldn't exist. The reality is simply that most people don't want anything to do with it. What you're witnessing is 99% of people collectively saying "not in my backyard", which leaves very little backyard for deeply unpopular views. I think that's an important distinction, even if the results are similar.

For what it's worth, I think a place for unrestricted speech should exist. I am honestly disappointed when I see calls for blanket bans, but I also understand why private platforms don't exactly aspire to bear this weight. These people and their views still exist, and ideally we as a society should confront it.

This is only "easy" if you are a sysadmin by profession or hobby. That excludes the vast majority of people, 99% perhaps.

> If the hosting company takes you down, host it yourself. If ICANN takes it down, host it on Tor.

That's a bit like "if the police beats you up in public, you're still free to speak your mind in your basement" though.

Except that it’s not a public space and the harm is far less than a beating. A hosting company can have terms of service just like any other business and the only real restrictions are legally-protected classes, and even that has context.

Think of it like going to a coffee shop: they can’t kick you out for being Catholic or male but they can ask you to leave if you are harassing other people, not following public health codes, etc.

> Except that it’s not a public space and the harm is far less than a beating.

As in "you can't speak any more, because your website is offline". A gag is the offline equivalent.

> Think of it like going to a coffee shop

I believe that example would be more accurate if we all lived in company towns, where no public space exists and your presence, and speech, is merely tolerated under normal circumstances, but you have no right to either being there nor speaking your mind, and can be removed at any moment, should anyone "in charge" have an issue with your behavior. That also has the angle that you lose a lot more than just your ability to speak: you lose your home and need to find a new place that will take you in, need to tell everybody you know and do business with about your new address etc, like when Google shuts down your Gmail account.

> > Except that it’s not a public space and the harm is far less than a beating.

> As in "you can't speak any more, because your website is offline". A gag is the offline equivalent.

Again, a private company choosing not to use their resources to support your speech is not a gag. You are still free to pick any one of thousands of other options and you are free, even encouraged, read their terms before signing any contract.

Your Gmail comparison is similarly invalid: beyond the extreme rarity of that, when you choose to accept Google’s terms for getting free email service you are, well, accepting their terms. People have chosen for decades to register their own domains to avoid needing to update addresses and outside of uncommon legal situations this will avoid needing to do so.

> You are still free to pick any one of thousands of other options and you are free, even encouraged, read their terms before signing any contract.

Right, again, there aren't thousands of other options. If you want to host your site, you need a domain. That limits yourself to a hand full of registrars. And you need somebody to transmit traffic, if you hold any kind of controversial opinion, you need DDOS-protection. That leaves you with another hand full of corporations. Otherwise you're offline, as in, unable to speak.

> People have chosen for decades to register their own domains to avoid needing to update addresses and outside of uncommon legal situations this will avoid needing to do so.

How do you handle email on your domain when the registrar decides to drop your domain? And why shouldn't it, it's a private company, it can do whatever the hell it pleases.

There are thousands of hosting options: don’t forget that many companies offer hosting under various customer domains as well as your own.

If you want your own domain you can check any company on this list:

https://www.icann.org/registrar-reports/accreditation-qualif...

Similarly, network capacity and servers are available from many companies around the world.

If your content is so toxic that you can’t find anyone in the world to provide even basic network connectivity, it might be time to ask whether you’re using “controversial” as a synonym for “illegal”. That happens to groups like ISIL, but even that’s not completely successful, and it’s extremely unlikely that anyone reading this has “international takedown” as a realistic threat.

> If your content is so toxic that you can’t find anyone in the world to provide even basic network connectivity, it might be time to ask whether you’re using “controversial” as a synonym for “illegal”.

Ah, the good old "only criminals have something to hide" aka "all speech that is good is free, if your speech is suppressed, it's probably evil, and evil speech should be suppressed, because it's evil". That's really not a sensible approach imho.

You can create your own website and and host it yourself.

And yet we've seen hosts, domain registrars, and other service providers restrict certain ideas on their platforms.

How practical is it in reality to be your own ISP, domain registrar, certificate authority, hosting service, web dev agency, and community moderator all in one?

Not very.

But it's what the Constitution provides. It guarantees you the right to express your thoughts using your own resources. It does not force others to do it or make it easier for you.

The Constitution assumes a public space exists, otherwise if it was all private, there would be no point to any of the Bill of Rights, since private entities would/could override all of them. The internet is a land controlled entirely by private entities.

Thats the downside of the modern web largely Boeing created in the US, its highly commercialized.

tor, ipfs

Start your own blog.

The internet isnt just SV companies. There's nothing stopping you from creating your own platform that espouses your ideals.

I think his point is that at the end of the day, you're going to be dependent on someone. With a self hosted blog you're dependent on at least an ISP and registrar, both of which are private entities.

These are good points.

It sounds like a big part of the problem is that we don't have a truly "public" internet, if the backbone of the internet is a bunch of private entities.

We need a truly decentralized internet that doesn't suck like tor currently does.

Your ISP is a utility. Twitter is not. Your ISP cannot block you from hosting your own blog on your own servers. Even if your ISP did, there are places which will allow you to host whatever you want. Alex Jones is still online for example. WikiLeaks is still online.

This argument is always about people complaining that they don't get to participate on the big platforms. But if there was so much demand for people shouting about racist loser shit online there would be a big platform for it. It's their responsibility to build it, not Twitter's

>people shouting about racist loser shit

This is exactly what I was talking about here[0]. You don't want a place to post freely to exist because you already have a preconceived idea of what people will say, and you are against that. This kind of attitude is hidden behind so many of the "but you can already do X, kinda" responses I've seen before in these discussions.

Why not just lead by saying you don't think a government maintained platform for free speech should exist because you don't want to hear what people who want it would have to say?

0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23716909

I don’t have any problem with a government provided free speech platform. It would be an interesting experiment. But how are you going to get Congress to fund something that will host racists and pornographers?

The Republicans will allow the racists, and the Democrats will allow the pornographers. Done and done.

For example there is Parler, an alternative to Twitter. While it is not a state company, it promotes free speech. They claim "Our content is moderated based off the FCC and the Supreme court of the United States which enables free expression without violence and a lack of censorship.".

That's the claim, at least. The reality is quite different.

https://www.iflscience.com/technology/free-speech-social-net...

> "When you disagree with someone, posting pictures of your fecal matter in the comment section WILL NOT BE TOLERATED," the first rule states, which is just a fantastic start to any list of rules. A club that has to spell that out (presumably after multiple people broke that rule) is clearly one that needs to be joined. "Your username cannot be CumDumpster," the rules continue, adding that pornography isn't allowed. Sorry, Ted.

Twitter permits all of those things. Some "free speech platform".

I did not know about the implicit rules. I do not use Parler yet. However the problem with trolls is a hard one to solve on any platform, especially on the platform that wants to promote free speech.

If they turn out to be a right wing version of Twitter it would be a shame. We need a platform that could accommodate both left and right wing people so that they can exchange thoughts with each other.

Are trolls a problem to solve at all if your goal is to promote free speech? Trolling is one of the most commonly censored forms of speech. It seems like trolls are a core feature, not a bug, in that scenario.

If you actually want to solve the problem of trolls, I think the first step would be to put away the "free speech" platitudes, sit down and figure out what kinds of speech you actually support and what kinds of speech you want to curtail and why.

Yes, trolls are a problem when one wants to promote free speech. It means you cannot censor them, but you should find a mechanism to discourage such destructive behaviour. Maybe a similar system that exists in real life and real personal relations. Maybe some form of hierachy. Unfortunately I do not know. However, I would look into establishing a meritocratic system or a representative system (much like the political system), where like-minded groups promote their representatives that have greater reach. And the anti social behaviour is punished at the social level and not by central purging.

Regarding your comment about ditching free speech and allowing only what I think is good. It would imply that I know what is good. I do not have such perfect knowledge and I do not believe anyone else has.

To the surprise of no one who isn’t a hopeless naif, Parler has turned out to ban and censor far more than Twitter ever did: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23684512

Well, but did they really ban more accounts than Twitter? I highly doubt it, just for the reason that Twitter is older and has more users overall. But if there are any stats that you can point us to, I can be convinced.

Going off raw numbers is a silly strawman.

Parler claims to be a free speech platform, but their new content policies are stricter - no offensive usernames, no porn, etc.