Before the printing press most people couldn't mass produce their written word. The printing press was a megaphone and a platform. Is taking away someone's access to a printing press censorship?

Not too many years ago no one had the ability to call anyone with a telephone. That service is provided by private companies in many countries. Is denying someone the ability to call their associates censorship?

Times change.

But is taking away the megaphone the same as silencing them? When everyone has a megaphone, those who don't are not heard.

And that’s fine. Not everybody can or has to be heard by everybody else. There no such as a thing as an expectation to be heard by others.

That becomes more problematic and debatable once infrastructure companies such as a DNS provider or a hosting company refuses to deal with some content given that you remove the ability to create your own soapbox.

Just to note, the US legal definition of free speech, at least according to the courts, includes the expectation to be heard by others. There is actually such a thing as a right to an audience; free speech is not fulfilled if someone is excluded from any space where someone may hear them.

But that doesn't mean, for example, that I'm allowed to force myself on your house and shout at you because I have a right to you being my audience. You're not entitled to Youtube hosting your content, just as you're not entitled to NYT hosting your opinion, just as I'm not entitled to have my words on your private blog.

Right, the question is to what extent YouTube is in fact a house and to what extent it is a public square.

My view is that it is functionally a public square, regardless of who owns it. Compare a protest on the side of a road in a company town.

> There is actually such a thing as a right to an audience

A right to access to an audience, not a right to an audience.

The US definition of free speech also recognize companies freedom of speech. Which is exactly what makes them able to decide what content is shared or not on their platform. You’re using their properties, you have no entitlement to them relaying your message.

I'm going to need a source on that one. I don't know of any decision where the definition of free speech includes a right to an audience.

The owner of an auditorium or hall is allowed to not give platform to anyone. They get to decide who gets heard.

Well, the public forum doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_(legal) holds that the point of free speech is communication among citizens. I don't have a cite for the direct quote I wanted (it's lost in my browser history), but the idea was that free speech is not satisfied by just making available a space in which one is not going to be heard by anyone. This doesn't imply a positive right to a particular audience, of course.

You said, specifically, that "US legal definition of free speech, at least according to the courts", included the expectation to be heard. That it implied an audience be made available to you.

You need to be able to cite a source, ideally a case or specific law, on such a claim because no one else I know holds to that definition. A link to a Wikipedia article about a different concept does not satisfy, because it does not cite a legal definition of free speech by US courts.

As I just said, I don't have a source. I was surprised as well. (Should have bookmarked it...)

Then it's quite possible that you've completely misread what the alleged source actually said.

You've levied a pretty heavy claim with nothing but your word as evidence for it.

I don't think it's a heavy claim? Consider the notion of having free speech standing alone in a room. This is obviously pointless. Why would it be a stretch for a court to make the observation that the point of free speech is that people hear you?

I remember thinking "oh yeah, that makes sense, they wouldn't view free speech in isolation but as a tool of the democratic process."

It is a heavy claim, because it implies you can coerce others. It implies you can grab someone passing by your hypothetical room and force them to be your audience.

No. That's never been the case. Your room is open to all and people who want to listen aren't prevented from going into it.

However, I'm also not obligated to host you in a room I own. The government guarantees my freedom of association as well. You want to opine, do it in your own room, or do it in places owned by the public at large.

Your recollection of what you were supposedly thinking doesn't mean you didn't misread what was written either. If you want me to even consider your claim, you are going to need a source on it. Because, like I said, it's a heavy one.

If you’re in a park where everyone else is shouting through a megaphone, and you don’t have a megaphone, your voice will not be heard.

> then by that definition the whole world was censored 2 decades ago.

Nope, you are misunderstanding something here. Removing what was considered "given" is what becomes perceived as censorship.

> perceived as censorship

keyword here being _perceived_

Everything is a matter of perception at the end of the day.

It doesn't really matter that much if you want to use the word "banned" in preference to "censored"; the facts of the matter is that the entire right wing's viewpoint is under threat on these channels to the point where people have been decamping and moving on to other platforms in large numbers. There have been quite a few notable social media plays (thinking Gab, Parler & Truth Social) that may as well have started in response to the 2016 election.

So we don't have to use the word censorship but there is a lot of voting with feet going on that suggests some sort of speech suppression. The persistent banning of private opinions by American big tech is probably the major cause of that.

And that's perfectly fine. If anything, that's proof that there is no censorship, the fact that they can go and make their own platform. Also, the fact that you're not allowed to say anything bad about Trump on those platforms without getting banned.