That sure is quite an assumption you're making.
Governments should have zero control over speech and zero ability to impose consequences on speech. Individuals and most groups should have absolute freedom of association, which is precisely what they're exercising when choosing not to associate with some speech and some speakers
Perhaps you are an "absolute" free speech absolutist, but does that include:
- Swatting?
- Doxxing?
- Yelling "Fire!" in the proverbial crowded theater?
- Liable and Slander?
- Spreading nude pictures (real or faked) or personal medical information without consent?
- Threatening (relatively) defenseless individuals with physical harm?
- Impersonation?
- Blackmail?
Emphatically not, in the sense it's commonly used, but I think the distinction between "shunned by private individuals/groups/companies" and "prosecuted" is critically important.
I'm not going to go through all of these point-by-point, but as a couple of examples:
> - Swatting?
Inciting an action should be charged on the basis of the action and the probability of having incited it. Charge them with attempted murder. Also, fix the mechanisms that make it feasible for a person to too-easily call down excessive force on someone's home or office.
> - Yelling "Fire!" in the proverbial crowded theater?
Inciting a predictable panic that gets people injured should get you charged over the injuries. But also, the original version of that phrase was used as part of an abominably bad ruling restricting people speaking out against a military draft, so it's a bad example.
See also laws about fraud: the speech isn't the issue, the deception leading to swindling people out of something is.
Similarly, credible threats to commit a crime should be charged accordingly, not because of the speech but as prevention of an intended/planned crime. (With a great deal of caution, due to the balance between preventing it and the hazards of charging a crime that hasn't happened yet; Minority Report is not a blueprint.)
its just fine to call the cops. its not ok for the government to act on it thoughtlessly.
if people had yelled fire in that swiss club, maybe more people would have survived the fire?
why shouldnt i be able to put on an elvis costume and a bad accent?
The things you are listing really arent a big deal, and to be bad, have to include something more than just speech, eg. commerce
I suspect it goes to explain why this new bill is bipartisan. That case failed because the plaintiffs did not have a legal standing to sue.
"In a dissent that detailed emails, press conferences, and past decisions, Justice Alito painted the "jawboning" as "blatantly unconstitutional".
Wednesday's ruling, he wrote, "permits the successful campaign of coercion in this case to stand as an attractive model for future officials who want to control what the people say, hear, and think"."
Regardless if one agree with them, it do demonstrate that conservative side think that there is a risk that governments will attempt to persuade platforms to moderate content, and that this is a risk. This new bill seem to make it much easier to give people a legal standing to sue, thus allowing the supreme court to give a different verdict if a similar situation happen again.
> I suspect it goes to explain why this new bill is bipartisan. That case failed because the plaintiffs did not have a legal standing to sue.
In that case (Murthy v. Missouri), Missouri and Louisiana did not have standing to sue because they did not demonstrate a minimum of evidence that the government coerced (as opposed to requested) platforms to remove speech.
> This new bill seem to make it much easier to give people a legal standing to sue, thus allowing the supreme court to give a different verdict if a similar situation happen again.
The lack of standing was not due to something like "no law says you can sue for such a violation". This law solves a problem that courts did not consider in Murthy v. Missouri.
In fact, it seems to me that you've chosen precisely two areas between which a palpable bridge exists, contradicting the two-party zeitgeist.
HN, for all its many flaws, is one of the few places where important evidence such as the diamond princess dataset and the cochrane review of evidence of mask (in)efficacy received robust discussion and, seemingly, resulted in changed minds.
Likewise, I don't recall anyone but a few trolls suggesting that Apple's assistance to ICE in covering its tracks was a legitimate exercise of state (to the extent that pressure was a factor) or corporate (to the extent that it created market esteem) pressure.
I get the feeling we're not discussing this submission on HN
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48605139
I get the feeling it's going to be flagged/dead in short order.
edit: Subarashi! How elegant. HN has flagged it less than 30 minutes after I made this comment. So much for the bastion of enlightenment and free speech known as HN, right?
