Antitrust action may be appropriate in some circumstances, but IMO anti-trust isn’t about (and can’t be about) free speech issues, but rather market manipulation and fairness issues. If Fox or whoever is gaining a monopoly, or otherwise unfairly manipulating the market, then anti-trust action may be appropriate. But not because Fox lies, or because Twitter allows bullshit and lies, or similar.
Exactly correct. You have to think of society as a set of power structures and the set of power structures is what constrains people and other institutions for that matter. If some power structures are so strong that they actually curtail liberty due to threat to life or livelihood than that is problematic to a society whose philosophical foundation is based on a set of aximotic principles of intrinsic rights. Jim Crow laws are an example of where one power center violated the philosophical foundation of our nation and had to be corrected by a greater power.
Currently, with social media and group think we are heading in an illiberal direction with regards to freedom of expression and thought. The SDMB itself contradicts it’s mission statement, if we can take this https://www.straightdope.com/21374450/a-note-from-cecil-adams-about-the-straight-dopeas a mission statement, with its heavy handedness on folks who stray too far from an ideological orthodoxy.
I wasn’t saying that antitrust regulation should literally be the framework for regulating the free exchange of ideas, although in some cases there might be overlap - I was drawing an analogy. Contra libertarians, economic markets are only free when they are well regulated.
Okay, no disagreement there.
I’m sorry @iiandyiiii but you are seeing this from a U.S. perspective. I’ll try to keep this short, as it’s specific to my country and not valid in many other places.
Sweden has the first formal law of freedom for the press, enacted 1766. With this follows the Freedom of Information, FoI, which today means that anyone has the right to contact any form of governing body (national, regional or municipal) and demand he see almost everything that is documented•. I can walk down to town hall and demand to see the e-mails of the receptionists, and they are obliged to do so••.
But what happens when the state (or other entity) abdicates or delegates their services?
Private schools in Sweden are tax funded•••. As are public schools of course. That means that the FoI applies. So anyone can contact a public HS and demand to see their budget, salaries of employees and final grades for individual students.
The private schools are most often formed as LLCs. And as such FoI doesn’t apply. They don’t have to divulge anything, even though their whole operation is funded by taxes.
Public employees also have a constitutional right to be whistle blowers and courts can’t force anyone to expose a source. It is expressly illegal for a public employer to even ask what the source is. The privately employed staff at privates schools didn’t have that protection until 2017.
So - Free Speech™ U.S. style is one thing. It is not universal.
• Except things that are classified. And no, classifying everything will not work. Courts will not look kindly on someone trying that.
•• In principle. They have the right to some limits, among which is that they are not forced to do so at any time. You have to put in a request, which will be processed.
••• Don’t ask. It’ll need a dissertation to explain.
I’ve used the SDMB as a conceptual example of a private entity that has a free speech policy that affects our rights, but can I politely ask that we not stray into discussion of what those policies actually are? Obviously that will get this conversation shut down. Perhaps your intent was to initiate/continue that discussion somewhere else, but the link doesn’t work for me.
I’ll grant that it’s possible for a non-governmental-actor to gain enough power over the apparatus of speech that they can meaningfully impact a person’s freedom of speech. But if that happens, the fundamental problem isn’t that they’re limiting speech; the fundamental problem is that any entity other than a democratic government has that much power to begin with.
I know you think you’re drawing some distinction here, but I’ve read it about 5 times and I still have no idea what it is.
You agree that the SDMB has rules that are based upon principles of freedom of speech. You agree that people can be banned for violating those rules.
But somehow you still claim that the process of losing the right to speak here has nothing to do with principles of freedom of speech?
What does “voluntarily” have to do with anything? In immigrating to America I voluntarily agreed to abide by the laws here. Does that mean that the concept of rights and freedoms does not apply to me?
I don’t agree with that. You are banned based on the rules of this board, and those rules are not a framework. They contains specific rules, not some sort of overarching set of principles by which to derive the specifics.
The entitlement part of that definition is quite important. A right is something people feel entitled to have. That anyone who deprives them of that entitlement is doing something wrong. It is not something an entity is free to permit or not permit.
I’ve never known anyone to use the term “right” to refer to what a private entity chooses to allow. Even those who complain about their right to freedom of speech being violated do so with the idea that the private entity is not entitled to have or enforce certain rules. They want the private entity punished for violating their “right.”
Sure, I agree with the first part. Yet you claim that posting on SDMB has nothing to do with rights. So if @Chronos decided to ban everyone whose name begins with R because he didn’t like the cut of their jib, are you suggesting that people would just shrug and say they are fine with it because they don’t really feel they have any “right” to post here anyway?
Again, to quote Wikipedia:
Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory.
I think it is more of a “breach of contract” thing than a “freedom of speech” thing.
It seems I have a much narrower definition of “rights” than some folks here.
I don’t think I have a right to post on SDMB. I don’t have a right to go into your bookstore. I don’t have a right to have a newspaper publish my letter. However, if someone denies me these things due to the items below, this changes.
I do believe I have the right to own property, and not have it taken from me by force or coercion. I think I have the right to live free from all forms of discrimination. I have the right to be treated equally and with dignity.
So if the powers that be tell me I cannot post on SDMB due to my race, religion, sexuality or colour, this is a violation of my rights. If the powers that be tell me I cannot post on SDMB because they have deemed me to be an asshole, then… too bad for me.
It boils down to our individual definition of what is a “right”. And the topic is very slippery.
I think the discussion gets muddled that some folks identify their individual definition of a “right” with the US Constitutional definition. And others have a much broader definition that would include the “right” to enter a private store that is inviting the public to purchase goods.
Further, some folks absolutely do define their right to free speech as a “right to free speech wherever they want, with no consequences” Not too many of these on the SDMB, but they do certainly exist out there. The bemoaning of the boogeyman “cancel culture” is evidence of this way of thinking.
You have the right to move around freely. If you break the law, the government may take away that right.
You have the right to post on SDMB. If you break the rules, the SDMB may take away that right.
This seems like perfectly standard usage to me, and conceptually analogous. Everyone has the right to post on SDMB by default, because although it’s privately run it’s intended to be a public forum open to any English speaker. It’s not “private” in the same sense as a private party where you only invite your friends.
This is a fine debate fellas, but has fuck-all to do with Scott Adams’ douchebaggery at this point. I believe you’ll find GD down the hall.
No, because “right to speak on this board” never existed in the first place. There is no entitlement that a private entity must publish your speech. If Chronos did ban all of these people, I’m sure people would be upset. But there would not be any entitlement for them to be reinstated.*
Furthermore, I already pointed out that I think you are misreading that Wikipedia quote, so posting it again doesn’t change anything. The key word I notice this time is “fundamental.” If the rules of the SDMB were fundamental, they would apply outside the SDMB.
No. But their agreement means they lack an entitlement to violate those laws. Just like people on the SDMB lack the entitlement to violate any rules of this board under some misguided belief they have a right to freedom of speech here. Freedom of speech does not apply in a situation where you willingly (without coercion of any kind) give up that right.
I reject the idea that freedom of speech applies to what a private entity like the SDMB chooses to publish, for the same reason I reject the idea that freedom of speech applies to guests in my house.
In fact, I believe that sort of all-encompassing concept of freedom of speech is exactly what leads to all of these people thinking they are entitled to say whatever they want free from consequence. Because, to most people, saying you have a right to something means an entitlement as I wrote above.
Is there more to say about Scott Adams’ douchebaggery that this is interrupting? I happy to stop if so.
So you just regularly hijack threads for your own purposes when you’ve deemed them otherwise done?
Like I said, asshole, it’s a fine debate, but maybe would be better in GD.
This was a conversation that naturally evolved from someone posting an xkcd comic. If you’d prefer a conversation more suited to the forum we’re in, you’re welcome to fuck off.
Nothing you said there appears to contradict American law. I’m sure there are plenty of details that are different, and enforcement is probably different, but almost everything you said could be said of the US as well. (Except that I’m not sure that all public schools are subject to information requests, that I’m not certain of. But where I work, for state government, what you described about information requests is exactly what we go through too.)
I wonder if the US was inspired at all by Sweden, or there was any kind of copying between the two governments either way. Very interesting.
(Sorry to hijack, I just found it fascinating to hear the perspective of another nation and how close it is to the US.)
Yet you would surely also object if you were banned for a totally spurious reason that has nothing to do with being in a protected class or being an asshole - you support a sports team that a mod doesn’t like, for example. What would your objection be based on, other than a sense of unfairness because participation/banning is supposed to be based on a set of social and ethical norms concerning speech? That you should have the same right to participate as anyone else unless you violate those norms.
Whereas if the mod were having a private birthday party, of course completely different norms would apply.
There are a huge range of types of privately owned entities (see @LSLGuy 's post above), and different norms apply to different types of entity. In some cases, establishing those norms is a debate about free speech.