> What's "lawful speech" today may not be lawful tomorrow if we go down this path. I don't want governments deciding (except in very narrow circumstances) what people are and are not allowed to say.
Entirely agree and current laws already prohibit encouraging murder
> I really like the parent's idea that a company deciding to not provide service to someone they find objectionable is just a business opportunity for someone else.
Like it was in in the 20th century before civil right laws?
It is like saying that a monopoly is impossible because competitors can always emerge. It just does not work in practice.
Especially when the "competitor" become themselves target of a new witch hunt.
So what's your solution, then? If you agree that governments should not be broadly deciding what speech is ok and what is not, then how do you prevent monopolization pushing out legitimate but unpopular speech, while also allowing companies the freedom to disallow certain kinds of speech on their platforms?
Things like civil rights laws are the flip side of the same coin. I'm comfortable with laws that prohibit threats of violence. I'm comfortable with laws that ensure you can't refuse service to someone just because they're of a race you don't like. I think that's a reasonable compromise of "free speech".
But I'm not comfortable with a government requiring that a company allow their users to build something like 8chan inside their service. If Reddit didn't want to allow users to have a sub dedicated to fat shaming, I'm not comfortable with the government being able to tell Reddit that they're required to allow that sub to operate, unfettered. If Facebook wants to shut down a page or group that promotes hatred of a particular race, I'm not comfortable with the government saying they have to let it run.
So how do we solve this problem? The article you reference even suggests, at the very end, that (despite the examples of past bad behavior) all this worrying might be for nothing:
> My primary hope is that it’s just not a real problem. Certainly there has been very little in the way of speech restriction so far, and what little there has been has been against things which, on the object level, I’m happy to see gone. It’s entirely possible that we’ll escape with only a few things banned that probably deserve it. I certainly hope this is the case.
He also acknowledges that it's not great to be in a position where we have to depend on hope in order to reach a good outcome, which I agree with, but maybe that's just all we have. Legislating behavior only works up to a point. Legislating attitudes doesn't work at all.
I'm happy to see the Daily Stormer gone. I'm happy to see 8chan gone. I'm happy to see Reddit banning some subs (and honestly wish they'd ban more). I don't see the value in tolerating speech that promotes intolerance. But I'm not comfortable with the government stepping in here, and while their handling is far from perfect, the private companies aren't doing too terrible a job at it.
Entirely agree and current laws already prohibit encouraging murder
> I really like the parent's idea that a company deciding to not provide service to someone they find objectionable is just a business opportunity for someone else.
Like it was in in the 20th century before civil right laws?
It is like saying that a monopoly is impossible because competitors can always emerge. It just does not work in practice.
Especially when the "competitor" become themselves target of a new witch hunt.