> in your view, we have gotten around the first amendment.
There are principles that the 1st amendment protects, and it is those principles that matter.
For example, there are laws that prevent the government from locking people up, without due process. If someone were to find a way to get around that law, by having a private company lock people up, without due process, that would be getting around the principle of due process.
> But you said that that was okay, that if it was so important, we could gather support and bypass the first amendment.
It is "ok", in the same way that it would be "OK" to change the constitution, so as to remove everyone's right to due process, and allow the government to lock people up without a trial.
And by "OK", I mean, you better have a really good reason for it, and you better have to follow the extremely difficult process of removing everyone's right to trial, and you really shouldn't be using a loophole to do that (such as if private companies locking people up without trial, was allowed).
Thats what I mean by that. That getting around these principles, should require a very high bar, and you better be able to convince a whole lot of people, if you want to remove everyone's right to trial, or some other similarly important thing.
> as a cudgel to allow the government to strong-arm businesses into acting the way you'd prefer.
Common carrier laws already exist and are uncontroversial.
If you want to call that authoritarianism, ok, go ahead. But most people think that these laws are perfectly ok. Most people do not think that anyone's 1st amendment rights are infringed upon, because phone companies have to carry all users.
So, you don't get to say that extending these already existing, and uncontroversial laws, are some giant change, when they aren't.
If we really want to go even further, we could talk about the civil rights act of 1964. That forces businesses to not discriminate. But few people would say that our rights are infringed upon, because businesses can't discriminate.
Your line of argument, should cause you to think that anti-discrimination laws, are some "cudgel" to force groups to associate with people that they don't want to.
Which would be an extremely controversial argument to make, for you to say that all anti-discrimination laws, are authoritarian.
> you want the authority to force people to (in your view) be less-authoritarian. Hopefully you at least recognize the irony.
It forces people to be less authoritarian, using authority, in the same way that the civil rights act forces people to be less authoritarian, using authority.
If you want to call the civil rights act, or common carrier laws, ironic, well OK I guess.
> Common carrier laws already exist and are uncontroversial.
But as mentioned, applying them to forums is controversial. This is like saying that the death penalty exists and is uncontroversial, so the police should be able to shoot people. You can't simply take a rule that's deemed acceptable in one context and apply it in another context. First, it begs the question. Common carrier status is somewhat controversial. The question of whether it should apply to anyone in the tech space is exceedingly controversial, and you had the prior administration roll back common carrier status for a number of high-tech areas because they felt they shouldn't apply. That's, by definition, controversial.
> There are principles that the 1st amendment protects, and it is those principles that matter.
Yes, and one of those is the right to free association. It's right there next to speech in the amendment. You seem to be saying that your right to ~speech~ be heard is more important that Facebook's right to association.
>Your line of argument, should cause you to think that anti-discrimination laws, are some "cudgel" to force groups to associate with people that they don't want to.
But you're not talking about associating with groups anymore, you're talking about associating with content. We generally think that discrimination based on attributes of a person is far less acceptable than discrimination based on their opinions. I can't kick you out of my restaurant for being black, but I can kick you out for being an asshole. Now you're saying no, I can't do that either. Why does your right to be an asshole trump my right to associate with you?
You have misinterpreted, or I have misphrased. Yes I agree that the debate is not settled yet, and there are people on both sides of it. But you can't go around pretending like things like common carrier laws (which do similar things as this proposal!), don't already exist, and that we don't have existing legal precedent for similar types of laws.
And by saying that common carrier laws are "uncontroversial", I am using a different legal precedent, that already exists, to show that you cannot just dismiss all of this stuff out of hand.
There are lots of people, who do actually support the idea of expanding these laws. We wouldn't be talking about this at all, if this were some wild, completely out there idea.
It takes a while to change laws anyway, so it doesn't happen overnight.
> in one context and apply it in another context
But the context is similar. This is all about private businesses and communication companies, and things that philosophically have a lot of similarities.
Yes they are not exactly the same. But they have similarities, and therefore you cannot just dismiss it all, by saying that they are different.
> Now you're saying no, I can't do that either
I am saying that you cannot frame this as something obviously authoritarian, when we already have laws that cover similar things.
You can't just say that these proposals for new laws, which lots of people are proposing, is some crazy thing, that has no previous examples.
Yes, I agree that those laws do not currently apply to other things. But the point is that it is not some huge change, requiring us to get rid of the 1st amendment, when we already do similar things, which yes are not exactly the same, but are still similar.
> First, it begs the question
The issue is that you are actually begging the question, by discarding these ideas wholesale, by saying that they infringe on companies rights.
Yes, I agree that the debate is not settled yet. Thats why people are talking about it. Instead, I am pushing back on you, dismissing all of this, out of hand, and claiming that this is some crazy, new, out there thing when it isn't, and we have similar laws, doing similar things.
> you're talking about associating with content
The same thing applies to phone companies. So that is an existing legal precedent, and therefore you cannot just say that what I am proposing is extremely different than current laws, when we already force phone companies to associate with content.
There are principles that the 1st amendment protects, and it is those principles that matter.
For example, there are laws that prevent the government from locking people up, without due process. If someone were to find a way to get around that law, by having a private company lock people up, without due process, that would be getting around the principle of due process.
> But you said that that was okay, that if it was so important, we could gather support and bypass the first amendment.
It is "ok", in the same way that it would be "OK" to change the constitution, so as to remove everyone's right to due process, and allow the government to lock people up without a trial.
And by "OK", I mean, you better have a really good reason for it, and you better have to follow the extremely difficult process of removing everyone's right to trial, and you really shouldn't be using a loophole to do that (such as if private companies locking people up without trial, was allowed).
Thats what I mean by that. That getting around these principles, should require a very high bar, and you better be able to convince a whole lot of people, if you want to remove everyone's right to trial, or some other similarly important thing.
> as a cudgel to allow the government to strong-arm businesses into acting the way you'd prefer.
Common carrier laws already exist and are uncontroversial.
If you want to call that authoritarianism, ok, go ahead. But most people think that these laws are perfectly ok. Most people do not think that anyone's 1st amendment rights are infringed upon, because phone companies have to carry all users.
So, you don't get to say that extending these already existing, and uncontroversial laws, are some giant change, when they aren't.
If we really want to go even further, we could talk about the civil rights act of 1964. That forces businesses to not discriminate. But few people would say that our rights are infringed upon, because businesses can't discriminate.
Your line of argument, should cause you to think that anti-discrimination laws, are some "cudgel" to force groups to associate with people that they don't want to.
Which would be an extremely controversial argument to make, for you to say that all anti-discrimination laws, are authoritarian.
> you want the authority to force people to (in your view) be less-authoritarian. Hopefully you at least recognize the irony.
It forces people to be less authoritarian, using authority, in the same way that the civil rights act forces people to be less authoritarian, using authority.
If you want to call the civil rights act, or common carrier laws, ironic, well OK I guess.