Social media posts inciting hate and division have “real world consequences” and there is a responsibility to regulate content, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, insisted on Friday, following Meta’s decision to end its fact-checking programme in the United States.
And what was that point? My point is that freedom of speech has nothing to do with private platforms.
I stated my point very bluntly in the comment you replied to above. Freedom of speech is not “merely a restriction on government”. It is a concept that exists outside of government entirely. And it has everything to do with anywhere speech is expressed, including private platforms.
Rights only make sense in the context of governments, which have the power to strip my rights through imprisonment. I have no right to speech on a private platform or on private property, I am there at the pleasure of the owner. So talking about rights (esp freedom of speech) makes no sense outside the context of government.
That’s why I argue that rights are a restriction (or a check) on the power of governments. Only a tyrannical government will attempt to abridge my rights.
Yes, it exists outside of government as a function of your nature, but that means nothing outside the context of an authority with the power to strip it away.
We weren’t talking about the “right” to free speech. We were just talking about free speech.
Ok, and what does that mean if not the right to free speech?
Just because the far right tries to change the definition to forcing private platforms to letting them say what they want doesn’t change anything. That’s not free speech, that’s restricting the platform owner’s speech. Free speech is a restriction on the types of laws governments can pass regarding speech (i.e. forcing a major platform to accept a user’s speech would certainly be a violation).
The political right can’t change that definition for the same reason the political left can’t force deplatforming of “hate speech.”