Comment by aphextron

9 years ago

(Playing devil's advocate here)

But perhaps the web has reached a point where we have to consider it as a public service. And as such should be subject to free speech laws. There is precedent for this with the "equal time rule" for broadcast networks regulated by the FCC which guarantees air time to opposing political candidates during an election. I could easily see an argument to be made for forcing service providers to dedicate a portion of there resources to dissenting opinion on these grounds. Although obviously the line must be drawn at hate speech, I shudder to imagine a world where acceptable content for the web is determined by the whim of an executive who "woke up in a mood".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule

11 comments

aphextron

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mattnewton  9 years ago

Nazi's aren't a protected class. I don't have to sell you server space. But I also don't have the right to knock down your own server, should you set one up on the public internet.

  • int_19h  9 years ago

    A protected class is what we decide should be one. There weren't any protected classes at all, until one day there were, and we added things to that list since then.

    Nazis specifically aren't a protected class, of course. Neither are white people. But (any) race is a protected class. And (any) political opinion could be a protected class, as well.

    IIRC, this is already the case in California, with respect to employment - i.e. you cannot be fired for expressing a political opinion.

    • unityByFreedom  9 years ago

      > A protected class is what we decide should be one. There weren't any protected classes at all, until one day there were, and we added things to that list since then.

      Yes, we advanced to being a more civilized society.

      Adding "politics" to the list of protected classes is akin to removing all the other ones, since someone's "idea" can be that their race/sex/age/nationality makes them superior to all others.

      I'd never support a politician who promoted the idea of rolling back Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

      2 replies →

dragonwriter  9 years ago

> But perhaps the web has reached a point where we have to consider it as a public setvice.

To the extent that some web-related service is essential to effective communication via the web and provided by a monopoly or oligopoly , whether global or within some clear boundaries, that seems to make sense. ISPs certainly fit that. Domain registrars don't. Web hosts don't. CDN’s probably don't.

Any of these could change with evolving market conditions.

kelnos  9 years ago

CloudFlare terminating their account in no way kicks them off the web. They have plenty of other options[1]. CF has just decided they don't want to help them promote their speech.

Now, if an ISP decided to cut off someone because they didn't like their (legal) speech, that would be a problem. But that's not what's happened here.

[1] Don't give me the "but what if they didn't" argument. We're not speaking in hypotheticals here. They do have other options. If they did not, then we might be having a different argument.

nrb  9 years ago

The equal time rule exists because they are broadcasting on finite wireless spectrum that belongs to the public. It does not apply here.