I’m really sorry, but the examples you’re giving don’t seem to get better.
Don’t get me wrong, what the hosting company did there is a total d***-move, and might not even be legal. But when I went to the front-page of this site, and just looked at a few of the article titles, I realized that there might be some truth to the other site of the story. The way they portray it is far away from good journalism, and the narrative just fits the site too well.
It’s definitely a problem though that these things can’t be discussed online without worrying about consequences though.
Better yet, as we’ve stated in the other thread, keep your free speech, but don’t expect it to be free of consequences.
Lastly, Twitter is not associated with the United States government. This is not a 1st Amendment free speech issue. Free speech has been twisted and turned into a modern day catch phrase.
Your freedom ends when it ends the freedom of another. Period. That’s why the right to bear arms is recognized in the United States, and a few other countries.
No, let them do whatever they want, in their corner of the Internet. As soon as it spills over into a church or a school or an airport, then you face the consequences.
Many of the so-called free speech platforms suffer badly from the same issues. It even seems like there exists a program/ active effort to spam such sites with as repulsive material as possible. We will more than likely see more of these “free speech bastions” disappear because of the lack of common sense.
Absolutely, consequence of both civil and/or legal parties. To be precise, consequence of action… Let me elaborate further, my saying something, does not directly infringe your rights.
But I will never stand for limiting your speech to say whatever you wish.
You’ve got problems with businesses, organizations, families all across the world. However, to your point, Gab is claiming they’re going to be up this weekend. More of a road block than a limit on free speech.
I’d also argue that the point we’ve agreed on culminated to its final point. GoDaddy, PayPal, Stripe, and others didn’t want to put up with the myriad of complaints. The founder on Twitter is often distasteful (I’m being very, very generous) and the vocal minority on his site has called for and committed violence.
I can get evicted from my home for leaving the trash out on the wrong day. I doubt it would come to that, warnings and what not (which Gab has received). But, again, the consequences of the founders behavior and his disciples has resulted in a bit of a mess.*
Since we’re talking about the global internet, let’s use the UN’s ideas of freedoms.
From Article 29, UDHR.
(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
I’m also not against people holding views that are illicit, as it’s their right to hold the views they want to, but I, and many others, have a problem justifying letting them use public platforms to voice their views.
There is definitely some aspect of picking and choosing by governments, companies, and the media, to shut down people and websites that they don’t like. That’s undeniable. Going by the last part in that extract I quoted, I’d argue that a lot of this is done in good faith - not to necessarily prevent publication of opposing opinion or discourse of such, but to prevent the publication of views which are illicit, and encourage actions which are immoral by our standards.
No the whole gab thing is bunk. Nobody is required to uphold their views. Thats infringement of godaddys and other parties freedom. Nobody should be compelled to listen.
I wouldn’t expect anyone but the utility (ISP) to maintain their service. They can have an IP and other than that gab is free to apply to be a domain registrar, build hosting facilities…
Even if Twitter were stupid enough to not own their domain, their site doesn’t have a mass association one way or the other. That was probably the main problem with Gab.
