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To: higgmeister
How would you quantify and limit the "significant carrier of public speech?" Just claiming a group is a club or is too small does not seem to be a practical exemption to an effort to stop censorship on social media platforms.

I've had some experience with coming up with verbiage satisfactory to a group of people, and I know crafting a law to accomplish what you wish with a minimum of side effects is not easy.

My goal in discussing the idea is to get people to think about the need for such a thing, and I have not tried to go into a lot of detail about how such a law can be constructed because I know from past experience that people will want to have input on it. I think a proper law would have to evolve from some basic ideas as people consider it and point out potential problems.

But my method for arguing on behalf of such a law uses the arbitrary number of one million users to meet the threshold of "significance."

Maybe this isn't best, and someone has a better idea for a threshold, but a million at least gives us a starting point for further discussion of the topic.

I think sites like Free Republic likely do not have a million users, while sites which are clearly becoming a threat to freedom of speech are all over a million, if not over a billion.

A system that carries public speech traffic for a billion people world wide represents a serious threat to freedom of speech if it engages in censorship, as do Facebook, Google, Twitter, and so forth.

Enforcing Free Speech rights on fb and twtr seems like another dangerous slope for us with the chance of equal time provisions and the like

More dangerous than the existing situation? I consider what we have now to be extremely dangerous in the long run. I'm not coming up with any ideas on how preventing people from censoring speech will work out worse than letting them do it.

If it's acceptable for some speech to be censored, why don't we just let the government do it?

84 posted on 02/16/2020 8:12:06 AM PST by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no oither sovereignty."/)
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To: DiogenesLamp
I think a proper law would have to evolve from some basic ideas as people consider it and point out potential problems.

Kinda like the frog in the pot thingy?

Or maybe the Two steps forward; one back" mantra?

85 posted on 02/16/2020 11:12:21 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: DiogenesLamp
I accept most of what you have stated.

If it's acceptable for some speech to be censored, why don't we just let the government do it?

I adhere to the strictly minimalist view of government. I will never trust our government regarding most things at any level. Granted, the propaganda in our public educational systems is worse than any public speech constraints you are calling for but I still don't want government controlled censorship. There has to be a better way. Legal suits for civil rights infringements? RICO charges against Facebook and the like? Other legislative constraints without a government moderator?

87 posted on 02/16/2020 12:43:34 PM PST by higgmeister ( In the Shadow of The Big Chicken)
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