
The New Graveyards of Free Speech - andrenth
https://spectator.org/the-new-graveyards-of-free-speech/
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bediger4000
This article makes a pretense of balance. It does acknowledge the tension
between ownership and free speech:

"the conversation around censorship (especially in regard to Big Tech) pits
two important ideological tenets of standard conservatism against each other:
the right of private companies to operate as they please and the necessity for
absolute freedom of speech in the political sphere."

But it goes on to totally ignore the property rights side of the tension in
favor of what it refers to as "absolute freedom of speech in the political
sphere".

The author (or more clearly the seminar reported on, would have done well to
consider a couple of things.

First, the very recent SCOTUS decision about property rights and (essentially)
the platform owner not having to pay for your dumb FREEDOM OF SPEACH.

Second, the history of forcing platforms to "be fair" or "carry opposing
opinions" or whatever you want to call it. The USA got rid of the Fairness
Doctrine in the 80s. Collectively, we decided to put property rights first,
and free speech second. Arguably, this led to the overwhelming prevalence of
conservative talk radio and Fox News. That's the kind of viewpoints that
platform owners wanted to put out there, I guess.

I have a certain amount of sympathy with the Heritage Foundation on this
issue: I'm not a platform owner. My kind of opinions aren't very well
represented in mass media today. But until the American Spectator and Heritage
Foundation deal with having backed eliminating non-conservative viewpoints
during the 80s and 90s broadcast media consolidation, and now wanting
guaranteed access to consolidated internet media, and using two reasons that
are in tension with each other, they will just look like they're advocating
for conservative opinion affirmative action.

