Free Speech as a political principle is about relations between a state, and citizens, not a website, and its users. There are some gray-zone cases (e.g. formally private press/platforms can be heavily influenced by a ruling party using economic means, or for whatever reason some press/platform conglomerate controls market share so big it can influence gov't to legislate conditions harmful to potential competition), but it's definitely not about this site.

So I could have no ability to say anything at all, and still have free speech?

Yes. To test this, close the website and go and shout out of your window.

That sounds like an ability to say things.

Free speech doesn't mean you can force anyone to listen.

The government should not make any speech illegal on a federal level, but individual private businesses or websites (like HN) can still decide what's tolerated on their property.

And the corollary -- I believe in free speech but there are some people I'll never listen to, even though I believe in their right to speak.

What about individual private businesses like Spectrum and Verizon?

This is touching on the whole obvious problem with no controls on speech: cancel culture is free speech since it's just me asking other people not to freely associate by freely speaking that I don't want to freely associate with them. Then you enter the whole "tolerance of intolerance" debate and so on.

This whole thing is a question of degrees. I think "common carrier" was a useful concept: loss of control traded for immunity.

Wouldn't the analog counterpart be the postal system? They have no right to poke in your private communications.

Edit: That said postal systems are generally owned by the government. So I suppose ultimately (if nothing else) it would be up to their T&C. But I don't see how they could reasonably justify monitoring the traffic. It's not like it's a PR issue for them what users share through their tubes. I would imagine it'd make sense to have them regulated similarly as the postal system (ensuring private communications).

No, it'd be FedEx, since the USPS is the government.

Listened to an interesting debate on this topic

https://opentodebate.org/debate/mock-trial-murthy-v-missouri...

The first debater said it was okay because the companies complied voluntarily. I found myself at first nodding along.

Then, at least for me, after hearing more arguments I was like, "okay, she's basically saying if President Trump calls Musk and says (please censor anything pro-Biden)" that's fine as long as there's no "or else". To me it seemed wrong for that to be ok.

The other debater also pointed out that even if there was no explicit "or else" the twitter files made it clear the people there thought there was an implicit "or else".

It's a hard problem.

There's no contradiction. The question is whether or not you advocate shutting down websites you don't like—not whether you, personally, want to participate in them. There's no hypocrisy in preferring, for one's self, a highly-moderated forum to an unmoderated one.

Because 15 years ago this was the default point of view everywhere online. Then the unwashed masses came and banned us.

Well, calling people "unwashed masses" because they don't agree with you isn't the greatest way to start the discussion, I guess.

A majority of people aren't worth talking to. I'm interested in letting the few that are know they aren't alone, aren't crazy and don't need to be like the rest.

It doesn't matter, insulting people is fine. Censoring them is not.

Yup. Using the early internet required a moderate amount of intelligence. The current internet does not. And now when things are being optimized for the lower 50% of the bell curve it results in things looking a lot different.

The early internet was like a race track for experienced drivers. Nowadays even kids are allowed to participate so all cars are heavily speed limited, with soft bumpers and a huge framework of regulations and protections.

That's fine in itself, but more importantly (to the point) it doesn't mean that pure race tracks should be banned. That's where all the interesting stuff happens.

Why would a vegetarian shop at a supermarket that also sells meat?

Do you only participate in forums with which you are 100% ideologically aligned?

Free speech absolutism doesn't exist in a bubble, but falls under a broader civil rights umbrella. Most free speech absolutists here would likely understand that Hacker News is a privately ran forum.

Many free speech absolutists would agree that Hacker News should not be compelled to publish off-topic or rule-breaking discussions any more than a cake shop owner should be compelled to sell you a cake displaying a message that the cake shop owner doesn't agree with.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_v_Ashers_Baking_Company_Lt...