How to interpret Free Speech.

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I've been dealing with this goddamn fucking thing for years; so, I'm going to try to handle this cell by cell and see who emerges as an aggressive moron.

Cell One: Completely false. The entire concept of rights is a precursor to what government is supposed to protect. The right to free speech exists whether or not there's a government to protect it.

Does the right to not be murdered disappear if there's no government to enforce it?

Cell Two: This is where there's a bit of truth to this which makes idiot libertarians share it. No, you don't need to let a skin head have the stage in your Synagogue. People have a right of disassociation.

That said, when a platform is offered, you need to shut the fuck up and let the platform be used.

A lot of people weren't happy about The Passion when it came out. You can protest outside the theater. That's free speech. You can't disrupt the screening.

Social media is more complicated and I won't get into detail here; but, regardless, there's an ethical obligation to free speech for private businesses which bill themselves as open forums.

Cell Three: This is where it goes full retard. This is where the conflation of the philosophical value of free speech and the First Amendment is attempted.

This is also where the cartoon tries its damnedest to strawman the whole damn thing. No free speech advocate worth his or her salt would claim that free speech shields you from consequences. Criticism is part of free speech. People have a right to remove you from their lives if they don't like what you say. Hitting the block button isn't a violation of somebody else's free speech; it's only a consequence of the speech.

Cracking a person's skull open for what he or she said isn't a legitimate consequence. Shaming a person to the point of suicide isn't a legitimate consequence. Doxxing people isn't a legitimate consequence.

Cell Four: Well, see a lot from three. Before I left my last job in DC, I was preparing a lecture pointing out the hypocrisy of the organization's speech codes while supporting free speech as an issue area.

Like I said, the ethical problem doesn't go away just because you're a private entity.

Youtube, Twitter, etc. are also entirely different examples than Churches, Synagogues, so-on because there are no captive audiences and there is no physical gathering - importantly, there's little to no scarcity when it comes to the sharing of thought over time on those platforms.

Cell Five: John Wycliffe, Copernicus, Percy Shelley, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King, Harvey Milk...need I go on?...were all regarded as assholes and instigators in their respective times.

Cell Six: You're showing John Wycliffe, Copernicus, Percy Shelley, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King, and Harvey Milk the door.

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