Ha. "Agreed" only in the most superficial way. You might have caught people saying it occasionally.

If you follow civil liberties debates and the politics thereof you know there's often a gap between what politicians (or just ordinary people) say about freedom of speech and what they actually believe and do. In the US the politics of things like compelling public schoolkids to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, to give a perennial example, are illustrative of this. (there are tons of examples involving obscenity laws, etc.)

I don't think it has anything substantial to do with freedom of speech issues.

Obscenity laws and flag burning are better examples.

(after reading your comment below I think I get it. It's one of the infringements of freedom of speech that you're willing to tolerate because it's merely "creepy?" If so, that's illustrative of the larger point I was trying to make about people treating freedom of speech hypocritically.)

It doesn't mention "creepy", and says something quite different from what you got from it.

You're welcome to entertain an eccentric definition of "freedom of speech" that doesn't include one of the major freedom of speech issues of our time. It's just very odd.

That's probably all the progress we'll make here :)

Occasionally being compelled to say something is also bad, but a separate issue to me.

One side says the right wants to use force of government threaten breaking up companies whose speech policies they disagree with. The other side arguing that left-wing social media companies have so much power they can essentially censor opposing views.

Edit: clarity

The other side is saying not to actively invite violence. I'm pretty sure those are not equivalent positions.

[0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/11/trump-advisor-te...

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

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52496514

[3] https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-race-and-...

My entire point is that you were using such a vague straw man that it's impossible to know which direction you meant it. That's why I intentionally showed how it can be a straw man in either direction.

Also, I've been watching the hearing. So you're correct, I suppose -- that's how I was able to accurately summarize. I'm assuming from comment history that you have a libertarian bent, so I'd imagine you're on this side of government staying the hell out of regulating social media companies? But who knows? That's my point.

The Democrats want more effort made by social media companies to fight what they perceive as online misinformation... and are asking for more suppression of speech on social media platforms.

Nobody is hiding the ball here. These are direct statements made in the opening remarks by the leadership of both parties.

No, my statement was not ambiguous - unless you haven't listened to what is being said by the mainstream representatives of both parties.

My view is that these companies are privately run and online communities should be free to run them as they wish. If, say, Christian Mingle wants to ban atheists from using the platform to spread their message, they should be allowed to do that without suddenly taking on liability for things like copyright infringement. If a woodworking community wants to ban discussion of politics, they should be allowed to do that without retribution. If a dating website wants to ban people who say gross things in a first message, there's nothing wrong with allowing them to exist and compete in the marketplace.

If I, as a user of social media, want to belong to a community that removes misinformation around the election, government shouldn't ban such a platform from allowing to exist (since without 230, that'd essentially be impossible). Companies should compete on an equal footing and shouldn't be penalized due to whatever speech policies they favor. It's not government's job to enforce neutral speech codes.

That said, I know some folks disagree and favor government taking a more active role in speech regulations in order to make sure nobody is banned from social media. While both Democrats and Republicans are pushing for changes, mostly only one side favors using the threat of law to enforce their will. It's not that you're genuinely concerned about things like copyright infringement -- you're clearly in favor of laws that would force social media companies to choose between removing the ability of its users to post without a legal review, or using the speech policy you favor, knowing they'll choose the latter. (Since, with so many posts, they couldn't exist with the former.)

You continue to indicate that you haven't actually listened to the arguments made.

The Republican argument is not about whether or not a company can censor information on their platform. In no way is it about the government's "banning" the existence of such a platform.

It's about whether or not the government should blanket protect companies from normal legal liability when they make publishing/editorial decisions over their users' content. That's what Section 230 does.

If Section 230 is removed or amended to the liking of Republicans, it won't be the government that punishes Twitter for their editorial/censoring decisions - it will be everyday people who can make a libel case based upon harm that Twitter caused them. Why should everyday people not be allowed their day in court if they can make a legitimate case of harm as a result of Twitter or Facebook policies?

Please explain why my woodworking community should be responsible for a user libeling another user about, say, their professional woodwork just because the forum has a "no politics" rule, for example. Or even a "politics sure but no Nazis" rule. What sense does this make? Let private companies compete in the marketplace. If folks don't like policies, they can switch services. No need to rewrite 230 to punish or reward companies based on their speech policies.

But that's not the way it works. In reality, moderators don't know legal libel when they see it to the point that they should be automatically indemnified. We see in day-to-day life that not everyone who is accused of being a Nazi or a racist is one in fact. Sometime the accusation of being a Nazi is itself the libel, and if your woodworking moderators are participating in the perpetuation of that libel; then they should be held to account.

If your woodworking community, through moderation, decides to weigh in on user comments through moderation, badging, or editing; then it should be liable for any libel that it amplifies through its policies. If a person can show actual damage from those policies in court, then why should your woodworking community get a pass?

I think the key dishonesty in your comment, whether you're aware of it or not, is this idea that "moderation, badging, or editing" is what would be "amplifying" libel. What sense does that make? How does removing a post that, say, promotes the KKK in a woodworking forum have anything to do with a user possibly-falsely claiming in the public forum that "Joe's Tables and Chairs" doesn't use walnut like they claim?

It's a bizarre claim you're making to justify tremendous government overreach in forcing tiny forums and a billion other websites like it on the web to adopt your preferred speech policies.

Edit: And by the way, I'm being very generous with my examples. For one, I'm assuming you're okay with removing ILLEGAL content, such as child porn, without the website owners being subject to lawsuits for libel and other things -- since they're required to remove those things regardless of 230. But also, what about very legal porn? Or what if a Nintendo Switch game forum removes somebody who posts "first!" as a reply to every thread?

If I'm misreading you, and your preferred policy is instead that these websites should be responsible for claims THEY make -- such as, if the owners call a user a Nazi -- well that's already CURRENT LAW! 230 doesn't grant protection there now. But they're not calling people Nazis -- also, I don't think that lawsuit would go far for reasons based in libel law -- so this never comes up. If you're saying they're "implying" people are Nazi's simply by removing content based on hate speech policies, again, 230 doesn't really apply there. It'd still fail under our libel laws, and any suit would fail on the merits.

Now, maybe you want to rewrite libel laws, too! That'd be a big government approach to even FURTHER regulate free speech, but it'd be difficult to write a law that made it possible to be sued just for implying somebody is a Nazi for something they wrote. Certainly it wouldn't pass Constitutional muster, so you'd have to rewrite the Constitution, too. The only Justice who has shown any openness to re-interpreting libel laws to further restrict speech is Justice Thomas and you'd have to go FAR beyond what he's called for.