I think I understand why people make this connection but I don't actually think there is one. Freedom of speech is possibly the #1 thing people get confused over, due to the similarities between "I don't like your speech" and "I want your speech to stop" and "I want the government to stop your speech."

What I'm seeing is an argument for, "I don't like Facebook's speech. I think you shouldn't like it either. So I think we should all walk away."

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howunfortunate 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

"Freedom of speech" is used as shorthand for both the general culture of open listening to disagreeable views, and for a series of laws related to the first amendment.

98% of the time people are talking about the former, and the only ones confused are the people assuming they're talking about the latter and linking the face-palm-worthy "showing them the door" XKCD.

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jimmydddd 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There's also a blurring of private/public in certain instances. There were cases in the 1980's regarding free speech rights in a shopping mall. Privately owned, but a public space (defacto public square).

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sodapopcan 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> 98% of the time people are talking about the former

I'd say damn near 100% of those 98% will still cite the constitution, sometimes even crying "1st amendment!" in lieu of "free speech," so I'd say your overall point is wrong. They are basically saying both at the same time, with intent, while still not understanding it.

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Joeboy an hour ago | parent | next [-]

From an outside-the-US perspective, this is obviously not true.

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howunfortunate 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Sure, some people are talking about the former but are genuinely mixed up about the latter.

What do you feel would be the good-faith way to respond to such people?

Surely it's not by sidetracking into pedantry about the law, which at the end of the day both they and you know that's not what they're really fired up about.

	▲	sodapopcan 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I think that any reasonable person who is just misinformed is going to understand, possibly after some time if they are the sort who find it hard to admit they are wrong. Otherwise, if they are going to try and claim that "No, constitutional 'free speech' means I can say whatever I want without consequence from ANYbody" then I don't think there is a good-faith way to argue that.
	▲	RIMR 44 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Anyone who is "fired up" about free speech but feels that their freedom of speech is being violated by someone other than the government has an explanation to give. If the explanation is that they feel that other people have an obligation to listen to them, then I don't care. My freedom of speech includes the freedom to reject other people's speech. If they can't tell the difference between a disagreement and suppression of speech, then that's their problem. The generous interpretation is that they don't fully understand the issue. The realistic explanation is that many people value their own freedom of speech over the freedom of others to the extent that they view disagreement with their views as an attack on their right to hold their views. Essentially, "freedom for me but not for thee", and I don't rightly care about what enemies of freedom are "fired up" about. But at the end of the day, much of what conservative "free speech" protests against big tech have been about has been that big tech drew a line on things like violence and hatred of protected classes, and conservatives don't like being told that their ideas, while legally allowed, are not welcome in polite company.

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jvanderbot 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The meta-lesson here is "do unto others as they'll do unto you after next midterms".

Suppression of misinformation during one era is suppression of protests in another era.

You're right that the reality of the current day is what TFA is about - but GP is mentioning that we built this reality.

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Waterluvian 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Fair. The civil tolerance of speech we don’t like.

	▲	aisenik 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		An informed and educated populace is essential to the function of any universal democracy. The regulation of capital is essential to maintain efficient markets. It follows that the regulation of capital with respect to communications is necessary to maintain democracy and efficient markets under a notionally capitalist system. There's clear moral valence to this issue. The popular (mis)understanding of freedom of speech as applied to corporations is in direct contradiction to the notional principles of western sociopolitical ideology. Resolving this conflict is only difficult because of our conditioning.

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RIMR 41 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

This lesson doesn't make sense in a two-party system where the two parties have wildly different levels of trustworthiness.

The left suppressing lies only opens the door to the right suppressing the truth, because the right was an enemy of truth and a spreader of lies from the beginning. The answer can't be "allow the lies so the truth has a chance to survive", that's just a compromise that brings us further from the truth.

Demanding neutrality on truthfulness in mass communication, especially during extreme political turbulence, is a terrible idea.

	▲	jvanderbot 17 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		You're missing the point - if someone, broadly and irrevocably, is responsible for deciding what is true and repressing things that say otherwise, then that mechanism, even if used truthfully by one party and viciously by another, is itself a bad mechanism by virtue of being so easily abused. The very existence of a "bad others" in your government implies you do not want to give power to government. That is the whole point. if you add power while you're in office, you better believe that power will be used against you while you're not. It's not about good vs bad, it's about giving power to an organization that itself can be flipped good or bad by one election. Of course "ours==good, theirs==bad" is a different, dangerous cognitive problem, but institutional power creep is orthogonal and needs to be fought regardless to protect all of us from that power being used against all of us. That is a prerequisite to civil society wherein we're forced to live with people with completely different world views. Because right now, platforms can and do cave to government pressure, so they're just thin proxy enforcement arms against dissent.
	▲	newfriend 31 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		left = good! right = bad! amirite?