"First Amendment Rights" only applies to the State, not private companies.
For example, Hacker News has no obligation to preserve your "First Amendment Rights" on this website. They are free to mute you, ban you, or even just surreptitiously change what you say without you knowing.
If a website which otherwise wouldn’t censor you begins to censor you because of threats from foreign nations, that’s a foreign nation pressuring an American company into suppressing rights of American citizens.
That’s a foreign nation imposing on your rights. In the past that used to require an invasion, so it was a bit more obvious what was happening, but the result is still the same.
Yes it’s through a website, which is owned by a company, which technically speaking owes you nothing.
In the digital age though, where are you going to use your speech, if not on a website?
What you (and others) are doing is trying to reduce the significance of a major transgression over a minor technicality. Way to miss the forest for trees.
The EU can stuff it on this one. And I supported (still support!) the GDPR.
Semantics are literally the only reason we write laws down and argue endlessly about exactly which words to use
Outside of law, I have never once heard "that's just semantics" in a context that made sense, or said by an intelligent person. Not once. Maybe it turns out semantics are never "just semantics", and instead it's something that always matters.
So you’re just going to accept a digital invasion happening and not care, because of some semantics and details somewhere in a document which was penned 200 years prior to the internet being invented?
I don’t know about you, but to me that seems kind of naive and short sighted.
You can still care about forthcoming invasions of one's privacy and while still understanding that the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution is only intended to prevent state and federal governments from censoring you. Not corporations.
Semantics are very important when it comes to legal matters.
You can object to the "digital invasion", but using the phrase "freedom of speech" as some sort of magical shield is pointless.
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The U.S. federal or state governments, courtesy of that amendment, have very limited authority to control your speech. That's where the legal authority ends.
So you see no problem with using jurisdiction washing like Five Eyes to remove our rights?
If we don't tolerate a government we elect abridging our freedom of speech, why would we accept a foreign government doing that?
When foreign governments try to force conpanies to abridge free speech by Americans on American soil, that is an attack on something that we deem important enough to have enshrined in our constitution.
For example, Hacker News has no obligation to preserve your "First Amendment Rights" on this website. They are free to mute you, ban you, or even just surreptitiously change what you say without you knowing.