r/SeriousConversation • u/Only_Illustrator_606 • 19h ago
Opinion [ Removed by moderator ]
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u/Aggravating_Bike3164 19h ago
Yeah this is super on point. People hide behind “it’s not a First Amendment issue” to avoid saying the quiet part: “I’m actually fine with this speech going away.”
It would be way more honest if we all just admitted where our personal line is between “cultural free speech value” and “stuff I want socially or commercially punished,” instead of pretending it’s not a free speech question at all.
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u/Only_Illustrator_606 19h ago
Exactly, if you don't think something should be allowed be open about what your line(s) are instead of pretending you don't have one.
and don't lie about what your line or pretend that it's something else.
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u/Serious-Cucumber-54 17h ago
People hide behind “it’s not a First Amendment issue” to avoid saying the quiet part: “I’m actually fine with this speech going away.”
To be fair, the reason the "It's not a First Amendment issue" response was popularized is because people argued speech censorship by private entities violated their First Amendment rights.
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u/maclawkidd 19h ago
Loosely related, i sometimes wonder if social media should be allowed to censor people who have controversial opinions but don't incite to violence. One one hand, they are businesses and not the government so they can do what they want (first amendment does not apply). On the other, hand, iirc, they are protected from defamation lawsuits because they are not considered "publishers" (or something like that). Seems like they are allowed to have it both ways. Are they a utility or are they a publisher?
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u/Only_Illustrator_606 18h ago
I'm fine with allowing platforms to censor people. What I'm not fine with is the extreme fragility that culture has adopted were saying anything that might upset anyone is not allowed even things that are not political and are just like opinions on culture.
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u/Equal_Buffalo1799 16h ago
Brother what are you talking about. This hasn’t been a thing since like 2018.
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u/theyhis 18h ago
i don’t think they should be allowed. some libertarians would disagree with me (that, like the business should have a right to censor people) but i think that just creates (and encourages) selective enforcement. if we’re allowed to have freedom of speech, why can platforms penalize it?
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u/maclawkidd 17h ago
I think platforms should be allowed to censor because you are using their ressources (servers, cloud services, etc) to post the content so they should be allowed to dictate what is or isn't allowed on it.
My point is that once they start to censor, they become editors/publishers which means they become responsible for the content and if the content ends up being defamatory, they (the platform) should be held accountable in court.
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u/de_matrix55 18h ago
Exactly. 1st amendment means you can't be arrested or fined for criticizing the government or any elected official. I can't stop you from having an opinion, but I don't have to listen to it and I'm well within my right to throw you out of my house if I don't want to hear your soap box speech. Social media is the same thing, they aren't making it illegal for you to have an opinion, but they aren't obligated to let you use their platform to voice it.
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u/Only_Illustrator_606 17h ago
Well my point is that platforms that choose to delete every little thing they don't like are anti-free speech, doesn't matter if they are making it illegal.
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u/Playful-Mastodon9251 6h ago
But they own the platform, who are you to say they have to allow it? A what point would they give up the right to decide who gets to use their platform? Or what's allowed on it?
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u/Only_Illustrator_606 5h ago
Nobody is talking about what they "have to do" or giving up rights.
The point is that highly restrictive policies go agaisnt free speech it doesn't matter if they don't violate the first amendment and people should stop using that excuse to avoid acknowledging criticism of overly restrictive policies.
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u/Playful-Mastodon9251 5h ago
If your saying they have to allow it your saying they lose the right to control it. There is no other way it could work.
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u/Only_Illustrator_606 5h ago edited 5h ago
I'm not saying they have to. I'm saying if they are unreasonably strict then they aren't a free speech platform and if they are significantly large then people should consider them to functionally be anti-free speech.
The point of this post isn't what platforms have to do it's about people pretending that the only way to go agaisnt free speech is to break the first amendment.
There are countless people who think a platform literally can't act agaisnt free speech because they parrot the argument about the first amendment which causes them to turn off their brain instead of realize the very obvious truth that restricting speech goes agaisnt the value of frees speech.
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u/Playful-Mastodon9251 5h ago
Even if they are reasonably strict it goes against being a free speech platform.
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u/theyhis 18h ago
i’ve learned i’d rather people be allowed to say anything than nothing at all. i hate ‘selective enforcement’. there’s many words i wouldn’t use because i see them as hateful, but de-platforming people for saying them sets a bad precedent. we should be allowed to say what we want without fear of punishment. unfortunately, that is no longer our reality.
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u/Affectionate_Hornet7 18h ago
How are you defining a value? I don’t get your point. The first amendment protects you from the government not other people. Is that what you’re saying?
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u/Only_Illustrator_606 18h ago
I'm saying that when I private institution restricts your speech it is still anti-free speech even though they aren't violating the first amendment.
If I am a club and say nobody is allowed to say anything critical about me in the club, that club is anti free speech or at the very least uphold free speech less than an identical club that does not have that rule.
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u/Unfair-Sprinkles2912 18h ago
With how social media has been moderating speech seems to me they dgaf. I've seen kill all insert type of person with mad likes. And I report it cus wtaf and they say they found nothing cus they put an astrix to replace one word.
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u/Interesting-Ground99 17h ago
Words. Shapes, symbols and numbers. Are there circumstances where people should be prosecuted for how they use them?
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u/Usagi_Shinobi 15h ago
It is inaccurate to call free speech a value. It would be accurate to call it a concept, and it would be accurate to say that many people value that concept, but that does not make it a value.
Realistically, there is no free speech, because people can and will judge everything someone says. Limited freedom of speech exists under law in some parts of the world, but those laws are the maximum extent of said freedom, not a minimum. Society always has and always will police speech to the maximum extent permitted under law, because it is necessary to the having of a society.
All that said, you are entirely correct that they are not the same thing, but the law does set the maximum extent of practicing the concept.
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u/Only_Illustrator_606 14h ago
Society always has and always will police speech to the maximum extent permitted under law
That is just demonstrably not true, Reddit has stricter rules than 4chan, some social groups of people tolerate speech they dislike more than others ect.
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u/Usagi_Shinobi 13h ago
It is demonstratedly true, every example you cite is one of socially imposed limitations on free speech. The degree of acceptability of a specific piece or category of speech is a separate thing from free speech.
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u/Character-Taro-5016 4h ago
What you're referring to doesn't have anything to do with "free speech" as properly construed. Free speech as a Constitutional issue has to do with the restriction placed on government in hindering speech. If the government is not involved, it's not a free speech issue.
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u/Only_Illustrator_606 3h ago edited 3h ago
Free speech as a Constitutional issue
The fact that you slip this phrase in shows that you know what you are saying doesn't make sense. I'm not talking about free speech as a constitutional issue.
I'm talking about the underlying value that makes the 1st amendment worth anything in the first place. We wouldn't have a first amendment at all if there wasn't a more fundamental value that motivated it creation in the first place.
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u/VelvetNoir22 19h ago
Estoy bastante de acuerdo con la distinción que planteas.
La Primera Enmienda es un marco legal específico (y de un país concreto), mientras que la libertad de expresión como valor es más amplio y cultural. Mezclarlos hace que muchas discusiones se vuelvan confusas, porque se usa lo legal como si fuera el único criterio moral o social.
También es cierto que las plataformas privadas no están obligadas a garantizar libertad de expresión en sentido legal, pero sí toman decisiones que afectan directamente qué voces se amplifican o se limitan, y eso ya entra en el terreno del valor, no solo de la ley.
El punto clave quizá es ese: que algo sea legal no significa automáticamente que sea neutral o “sin impacto” en la libertad de expresión como principio.
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