Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

> It's really hard to tell the difference between what is genuinely offensive and what is not.

You can't have both "Free Speech" and "You Can't Say Anything Offensive" at the same time, because there is too much overlap. So you have to choose. The US constitution is pretty clear that "Free Speech" is the higher principle.

"Free Speech only protects you from the government, not private companies who don't want to tolerate your hate on their platform"

I don't agree with this stance, but it is an oft-heard one defending companies who stifle speech (as long as the stifled speech was a far right Nazi website or anti-LGBT comments).

As we see, that stance is dangerous and extends to companies stifling politically inconvenient speech like "I support Hong Kong protesters".

> The US constitution is pretty clear that "Free Speech" is the higher principle.

No, the US Constitution doesn't even purport to set out social priorities outside of the relations between the government of the US and it's people.

You might believe that free speech is an important principle outside of that context, but (even if dead guys once wrote it in a document was a valid argument for a set of social priorities) the Constitution of the United States doesn't make that claim, and if you want to make it, you’ll have to make the argument yourself, not just rely on “the Constitution say so”.

It's a silly stance, even if one thinks private companies should be allowed censor who they want on their platform. It conflates "free speech" (which is a wide philosophical concept) with the "first amendment to the US constitution", which is just a particular law regulating the government of a specific country.

> the Constitution of the United States doesn't make that claim > the US Constitution doesn't even purport to set out social priorities outside of the relations between the government of the US and it's people.

I disagree. The fact that the US Constitution deals with a specific relationship between government and individual is incidental to the implicit claim. The US society therein is governed (for whatever it's worth) by the "priorities" and principles within that constitution. This is what marks the confusion. I agree there is a legal distinction between the principles and law. The principles remain.

We're free to protest the move, but I'd hardly say that Apple should be forced by anyone to actually change their stance. It's their choice where they want to stand on public opinion - much as it's our choice to boycott Apple products or protest that decision they've made.

The reason we constrain the government the way we do is that Blitzchung is still perfectly free to go on his own blog, or out in the street, or to any media network willing to broadcast him and share his view, and the FBI won't lock him up.

It's a key distinction, and yes, the media still has the liberty to not broadcast is views (because the same liberty that lets them refrain from repeating "I support Hong Kong protesters" lets them refrain from repeating all manner of "Death to all X").

Is that gameable in a multinational world where some media companies are cross-oceanic superpowers? Sure. There are other media outlets that aren't that.

It's possible the solution to these speech issues is to aggressively enforce antitrust.

> The reason we constrain the government the way we do is that Blitzchung is still perfectly free to go on his own blog

...unless Cloudflare or Amazon or whomever is hosting his blog arrives at the same conclusion as Blizzard. I would argue free speech as a philosophy doesn't work unless corporations are on board.

They don't need to be on board; they just need to be competing. "It's possible the solution to these speech issues is to aggressively enforce antitrust."

Then your definition of Free Speech is something different from the one generally agreed upon and implemented in many constitutions.

You can look at it that way: If a private entity is prohibited from deleting user content, isn't that also an infringement of free speech? And at what level are they prohibited to filter such content? Are they allowed to require an account? Are they allowed to delete spam?

No "Right to Free Speech" can be enforced between private persons or entities. Nobody can be forced to listen to you, nobody can be prohibited from taking measures to not read or hear you, just because you claim a right to free speech.

Thus the only correct level to fight against this particular instance of private censorship is indeed the private domain, and that's mainly counter-speech.