Re:Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest ...
by Khaine on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @06:51AM
(#25927107)
Free speech is not a "constitutional concept" whatever you mean by that. Free speech is a philosophical concept that has been embedded in the US Constitution as the 1st Amendment.
The US Founders thought that people must have the ability to speak their mind, to discuss and challenge each others ideas. They thought this ability was so important they enshrined it in law.
Re:Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest ...
by seanp2k2 on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @11:26AM
(#25930186)
And what that means, practically speaking, is that unlike other places in the world, we can speak out against the government and not worry about going to prison for it. That was the intention of it, and we still have that. Whether content critical of the government converts well enough for a company to allow it to stay on their platform is a different question, and hate speech
public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence toward a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation
Re:Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest ...
by shrimpx on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @12:45PM
(#25931267)
“Free speech” is about limiting government retaliation based on speech. So Uncle Sam can’t legally put you in prison because you spoke against Uncle Sam.
Free speech doesn’t mean you’re protected to speak whatever you want in any setting. Speech is subject to private property and common sense. If you are profane on my property I’ll kick you out and ban you. That is NOT a violation of your free speech.
What Facebook and Twitter are doing is providing a product that amplifies and places speech in front of particular eyeballs and ears. There are many, many issues with what Facebook and Twitter are doing, but they're all unrelated to the legally-protected constitutional free speech.
Some people have argued that "posting on Twitter/FB may as well be considered protected speech, since society depends on it so much" which is an interesting concept for sure, but has no basis in law yet.
Finally, to your last point, the amplification is not for everyone, and that's at the core of why people hate these companies right now. Users are subjectively amplified or suppressed, or kicked off. And this unequal treatment of users is at the very core of their business model: they make money by selectively amplifying content.