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Traster ◴[] No.23322571[source]
I think this is going to be a discussion thread that is almost inevitably going to be a shitshow, but anyway:

There are people who advocate the idea that private companies should be compelled to distribute hate speech, dangerously factually incorrect information and harassment under the concept that free speech is should be applied universally rather than just to government. I don't agree, I think it's a vast over-reach and almost unachievable to have both perfect free speech on these platforms and actually run them as a viable business.

But let's lay that aside, those people who make the argument claim to be adhering to an even stronger dedication to free speech. Surely, it's clear here that having the actual head of the US government threatening to shut down private companies for how they choose to manage their platforms is a far more disturbing and direct threat against free speech even in the narrowest sense.

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centimeter ◴[] No.23329143[source]
I think the actual conservative pain point is that they (correctly) observe that freedom of association (i.e. businesses get to choose their customers) only seems to apply when it benefits progressives - contrast Google evicting milquetoast conservatives from Youtube with no legal repercussions versus that baker in Colorado getting sued a bunch of times for not wanting to bake gay, satanist, etc. themed cakes. There are plenty of examples along these lines.

In general, the last 50-60 years have seen private individuals and businesses stripped of their rights to turn away customers, in the US mostly under the guise of the CRA, FHA, etc. YouTube finds itself remarkably (and unsurprisingly) unrestrained by these kind of (progressive) laws.

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1. kube-system ◴[] No.23330046[source]
> they (correctly) observe that freedom of association (i.e. businesses get to choose their customers) only seems to apply when it benefits progressives

This can be mostly likely summed up as self-selection bias. Discrimination laws are not being applied unequally to people of differing political opinions. It is much more common that people's political identities are self-chosen based on their own personal identity and experiences.

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2. centimeter ◴[] No.23330705[source]
The actual dominating selection bias is that "discrimination laws" were an authoritarian progressive political strategy, so they align most closely with authoritarian progressive beliefs and interests.
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3. kube-system ◴[] No.23330976[source]
So was social security and a ton of other laws, but that's pretty irrelevant in today's politics.

As far as politics today is concerned, I would sure hope that both conservatives and liberals both agree that is it wrong to deny service based on someone's membership in a protected class.

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4. centimeter ◴[] No.23340249{3}[source]
> As far as politics today is concerned, I would sure hope...

Of course, as a progressive (I'm guessing), you would hope the overton window stays firmly within the progressive comfort zone. This has little to do with the fact that progressive laws do, in fact, generally work in opposition to conservative (rightist and/or libertarian) politics, even if we can retroactively come up with some clean-sounding justification like "it's about human rights". It's not self-selection bias.