Replies

“I can’t believe I’m arguing with a FReeper on property rights, and he’s not defending such rights.”

We are debating freedom of speech. You support the ability for liberals to dictate what speech is allowed and not allowed in the market place.

What property right is being violated by requiring Facebook to quit discriminating against conservative speech and news? How are the executives no longer secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects? Do you know what property is?

The only “property” you’ve been talking about is intellectual property. Intellectual property is 100% under the purview of Congress as per the Constitution. You should read it. Intellectual property does not exist apart from an act of the government.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, of the United States Constitution grants Congress the power “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”

This is the basis for patents and copyright.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 grants Congress the power “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”

This is the basis for trademarks and business names being reserved to avoid consumer confusion.

Freedom of speech is based on natural law. Intellectual property is the suspension of natural law in order to provide a benefit to society as a whole. Trademarks, copyrights, business names, domain names, patents, and more fall into this category. This is not real property. Real property is real estate (or more specifically land and what is affixed to the land).

Facebook exists as a legal construct through contract and ip laws. It’s very existence and possibility of ownership is 100% contingent upon a federal government that oversees, regulates, negotiates and enforces treaties, and generally operates to PROTECT THE RIGHTS of the public (i.e. mainly US citizens).

And right now the rights of citizens to exercise their free speech is being violated. And citizens have even lost major sources of income due to this. It is the job of the federal government to be sure that these giant companies do not abuse their power and rob citizens of their rights.

Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter and other social media platforms that are publicly traded are modern-day communication channels. They should be regulated. They must be regulated. And they are regulated.

The only debate is how regulations should impact their ability to serve the public. Right now, the regulation is inadequate.

Allowing these entities to have control over what content is allowed is unthinkable. It is not even remotely acceptable. It is like the phone company telling you what you can talk about on the phone and who you can call. Your approach is to say phone companies are property and the executives should have the right to determine who can and can not use their services and how. And your answer is that consumers are free to switch phone companies if their phone company suddenly decides to quit allowing them to have conservative conversations.

It is simply unthinkable.

Facebook is not a news organization. It is not a political party. It is not a private homestead. It is not a non-profit charity. It’s also not a retail store like Walmart. It is a communications venue for the general public.

It is a private business with access to capital in American markets that the taxpayers financially support.

“Yep, that’s not we need. .gov telling a businesses they must accept BLM on their property, either physical, or on a domain. Yep, a businesses can’t prevent commies from being on their domain.”

BLM is an evil entity, but the American citizens who join it do have freedom of speech. And they are free to exercise it within the limits of the law. (In other words, no terroristic threats, etc.) And the proper way to counter idiocy is with facts and information, not criminalizing speech.

“We need more .gov is the cry from people like you. I disagree.”

We don’t need more government. We need the government to fulfill its basic function of protecting the rights of citizens.

If Facebook had remained the private property of Zuckerberg and his investors, I would generally agree with your position, especially if their censorship policy based on liberal bias was disclosed BEFORE monetizing the personal data of their subscriber base. When he uses the markets to raise capital and grow his business globally it must be subject to regulation. The job of the government is to protect the rights of the people.