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> applying them to forums is controversial.

> is exceedingly controversial

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.




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