In practice you will be able to talk about whatever you want in most restaurants or bars, because the owners aren't in the business of listening in on their customer's conversations and picking fights with them.
That’s why I said “publicly”, as in you’ve called attention to yourself in some way, enough for the staff to be aware and to see that the other patrons are also generally aware of you and what you’re saying.
If you go into a restaurant or bar and start yelling at strangers about pretty much anything you're going to be kicked out, regardless of topic. Exception: during a football match.
Sure, but without going too deep into hypotheticals, think of a group of neo-Nazis talking in the middle of a restaurant dining room or at the bar, sufficiently loud enough to be overheard by staff and patrons.
You would get kicked out for the same reasons as if you were a group of fanatical libertarian anarchists talking about politics sufficiently loudly to be overhead by staff and patrons.
You seem to be badly missing the point here. A forum for eating is not a place for broadcasting political views. A newsletter platform is. The two aren't comparable.
> A newsletter platform is [a place for broadcasting political views]
I'm not saying that your assumption is wrong. I'm asking:
1. Why is it reasonable to make that assumption?
2. How much say does the platform owner have over the extent to which the platform is "a place for broadcasting political views"? Put another way, how much leeway should a general purpose newsletter platform have to ban certain topics/speech, including spam?
I think our understanding of the world is so far apart that it'll be hard to make progress here. It's like asking me "why is it reasonable to assume that the purpose of the printing press is for the dissemination of views". I don't even know where to begin answering that because I can't comprehend the worldview that would lead up to asking it.
Spam isn't newsletters, so that seems like a non sequitur. Newsletters are meant to go to people who signed up for them.
As for how much say does the owner of the "printing press" have, the answer is that in a civilized society they should have the final say. In less civilized societies than the USA the government thinks it's smarter than the populace, and should control their information. History shows us that governments which smash up the printing presses were rarely smart.
> I think our understanding of the world is so far apart that it'll be hard to make progress here. It's like asking me "why is it reasonable to assume that the purpose of the printing press is for the dissemination of views". I don't even know where to begin answering that because I can't comprehend the worldview that would lead up to asking it.
Sorry, I was just too vague with my first question. A newsletter can be used for broadcasting political views. But it doesn't have to be used for broadcasting all political views, and can be used to broadcast views that aren't directly related to politics. A newsletter can broadcast only views the owners of the service tolerate (not necessarily want) on the site. It's not reasonable to assume that Substack is a place for all political views, and Substack is fully in the right to ban certain ones without banning others. I bring this up due to my personal speculation: Substack decided not to remove articles openly advocating Nazi beliefs, but had Substack gone the other way then a loud subset of anti-censorship believers would paint the opposite decision - to remove such articles - as "giving in to the mob" (or less likely, giving in to nonexistent coercion from a government) rather than as an equally voluntary, valid, and democracy-compatible decision.
> Spam isn't newsletters, so that seems like a non sequitur.
You're right. Spam was a terrible example. A better example would've been articles advocating something extreme such as complete destruction of Ukraine. Or a topic on a different axis, such as advocacy of sexual gratification (which Substack does ban).
> Newsletters are meant to go to people who signed up for them.
The Substack moderation controversy is not about who gets newsletters. It's about authors on Substack who don't want to associate with certain beliefs posted by other authors. (In this context, spam was relevant if only tangentially; I wouldn't want to write a newsletter using a platform too notorious for user-generated spam newsletters. Nonetheless, I was wrong to use spam as an example.)
> In less civilized societies than the USA the government thinks it's smarter than the populace, and should control their information. History shows us that governments which smash up the printing presses were rarely smart.
Agreed. What bothers me about the Substack controversy is that people are emphasizing the government in the conversation even though the critics of Substack's moderation policy aren't trying to make the government do anything and aren't forcing Substack's hand. Just because the complainers are forceful in their language doesn't mean they are coercing Substack into agreeing with them (unless someone's been Machiavellian enough to doxx Substack employees or threaten the employees' safety; even then, guilt generally wouldn't apply to the entire mob). An online mob is part of the populace just as people who oppose the mob are. Non-governmental requests to moderate in a certain way are equally democratic as non-governmental requests not to moderate in that way as long as Substack gets to make the final decisions. Boycotting is not coercion and is democratic. Advocacy of boycotting are not coercion and are democratic. Criticism of boycotting is not coercion and is democratic. Doxxing is coercion. Threats to personal safety are coercion. The mob did not control Substack's decision here. This would be true even if Substack had decided to agree with the mob's moderation policies.
> Substack decided not to remove articles openly advocating Nazi beliefs
They actually did. Look at my other post on this thread that examines the Atlantic's cited examples. The only one that is actually clearly Nazi is suspended for ToS violations. The others are all nothing to do with Nazis, but it's a Tuesday so the left is claiming otherwise to try and censor their opponents.
> It's about authors on Substack who don't want to associate with certain beliefs posted by other authors.
And if they succeeded then it'd be "we don't want to be on the same internet as those other authors" and so on. Those people will never stop trying to shut down people who disagree with them and will certainly lie in order to get that outcome. Never trust censors!
> the critics of Substack's moderation policy aren't trying to make the government do anything
Remember that many governments outside of America ban websites for vague reasons like "hate speech". It's not just about the USA.
> Boycotting is not coercion and is democratic
They didn't want to do a boycott, they wanted their opponents to be denied the right to speech. They might end up trying a boycott now but it's not clear what it means to boycott a service like Substack, because they weren't receiving the material they were objecting to in the first place.
> the owners aren't in the business of listening in on their customer's conversations and picking fights with them.
Customers can complain about other customers to waiters and restaurant owners. That can happen in person, in reviews, or on customers' blog articles (you know, like the articles they post on Substack, if Substack lets them). "I overheard that other customer saying that waiters get paid too much." "4 stars. I'm reluctant to keep going to the restaurant though, because the waiters do nothing about loud customers." "That restaurant doesn't kick out people wearing Nazi symbols. Boycott it." A customer's suggestions can be unreasonable. The owner can ignore (un)reasonable suggestions. The waiter can ignore (un)reasonable suggestions and decide not to let the owner know about them. But kicking out a customer on the basis of customer complaints isn't necessarily less valid than kicking out a customer who hasn't attracted complaints from other customers or letting a customer who has attracted complaints stay.
