Just because you have freedom of speech, it doesn't mean that anyone else has to publish it.  If I write a lengthy rant to my local newspaper, then they can publish it or not - it's their newspaper and their choice.


The social media companies want to get as many viewers as possible, because it attracts more advertisers.  It's the advertisers that are the source of their income.  But they have to be a bit careful.  If they post hate speech, then it drives advertisers away as they don't want their products associated with such things.  Also, every time something inappropriate gets posted to social media, there are fresh calls for them to be more heavily regulated.  That generally means that all posts would have to pass through a censor before they can go on-line.  That would rapidly destroy the whole interactive nature of social media.


So the social media companies walk a fine line.  They want as much stuff posted as possible, right up to the point where advertisers withraw their adverts and lawmakers start hinting at more regulation.

One persons freedom of speech must end when that speech has the intent or damaging the freedoms of many more. Think of that In the same way that burglars have no right to burgle - their physical freedom to act must end where yours and my freedom to not be attacked starts, assuming neither of us is  burglar  of course..

It is quite sensible of organisations that disseminate any sort of content, regardless of who generated it originally  to be beholden to the laws of the land that make spreading hateful, indecent  or otherwise dangerous material a crime. This should work in much the same way that if take part in a radio or TV  station phone in and  go off topic to start a tirade of obscenities , I will be cut off in short order - and if I am not the radio station bosses are taken to task for allowing the broadcast to continue, and may lose their licence to operate..

Now the internet has always run ahead of the legislation, that never foresaw this situation, in much the same way the world of radio was not regulated before the Titanic disaster, but note that it was soon after, with agreed emergency frequencies to be kept clear, listening watches, formal licensing  and so forth.

Even for deliberate obscurity, given how DNS works, there is no difficulty tracing packets at least to the point of leaving the onion router and some way back within - so be careful users of the dark web, and the current question is more about public channels, more like broadcast than a private link.

So history tells us we need the odd disaster to make folk realise what needs to be done.

This may or may not be that moment. I agree the problem is more complex, and realistically moderation can only be done after the fact, as it is on this forum. I can post, you can complain, the mods can remove it, and only concentrate of posts and or users that are complained about.. On a forum like this it is  a reasonable balance between nimbleness and regulation.

Now you could require all fora with more than say 1000 members or websites with more than so many pages  to be licensed and have a contactable moderator (thus keeping the little piddlington flower appreciation society below the threshold for action ), and make running same without the licence  an offence similar to radio piracy.

I'm sure a few folk would see that as heavy handed, but as one with a radio licence I wish to keep spotless I do appreciate internationally agreed band plans, minimal technical standards and enforcement, and see no reason why the internet should not have something similar.

Mike.

PS, Re  the USD;  I suspect it will remain, as it has for a long time, the currency of our richest, and arguably most successful former colony.

There is a big difference between editing or totally refusing to publish a comment and banning or blocking someone entirely. In the later case they 'cease to exist', it is as if a publisher has gone from cutting a line in an author's pre-print manuscript to withdrawing all copies of all that author's works ever produced.


The value of these media companies is very much what someone is prepared to pay for them, they don't have much in the way of tangible assets. If say Facebook users stopped logging on over-night they would effectively have no user base and nothing to sell.


By the way Facebook has seen a general trend of its share price increasing at $2.57per month over the last five years. This last month has seen it drop at the rate of $25.15 per month. As they say, the value of your investments can go up or down.

Dear James Shaw and Syamantak Saha,

Let me understand correctly:

In the name of free-speech, a President of a Country, sworn to protect its citizen, sows distrust amongst its population by provides lies which are thrown out by 60 different courts, causes insurrection leading to death of 5 citizens, two of whom were defending the Capitol - the highest Government building representing the country is OK and need to be protected whereas a democratic country can burn? Bravo - Hitler/Franco/Mussolini/Putin/Kim/Xi/... would be proud of you! So the free-speech should allow destroy a country, to support and create racial violence, to denigrate women, etc. etc.? Trump and all alt-rightist would also be proud of you.


James, the stock market price of Facebook dropped due to the new privacy notice of its subsidiary company WhatsApp to share personal data with Facebook leading to literally millions the world over moving to another app called Signal - nothing to do with temporarily banning Trump to stop further destruction of the country where he is supposed to guard its democracy! Let us be clear - a sitting President of a leading democratic country attempted coup d'etat (insurrection) and destroy democracy. He would have joined the above mentioned leaders of other countries.


Freedom of one man ends when it impinges on freedom of other and attempts to subjugate the other.

Kiritkumar,

Putting aside your CNN narrative, which conveniently ignores the fact that Trump's opponents have never accepted his election, to the extent that they created a fake 'Russian collusion' story that, the wheels of justice, grinding slowly, were beginning to expose all of the players going all the way up to Clinton and that no court yet has got to the stage of reviewing any evidence, preferring instead to reject the plaintiffs as not having standing, I was trying to make the general case.


The president isn't alone in being 'blocked'. These media companies have done and continue to do the same to millions of others. The result being that only the side of the 'story' that they like is published on their platforms, platforms which form virtually a world monopoly, and in doing so have shot themselves.


It has been said that Lloyds of London welcomes a disaster, even though they have to pay out. The act of paying out is an active demonstration that 'my word is my bond', that the 'city' is an institution that can be trusted.


The media moguls of Silcon Valley have just demonstrated that they cannot be trusted. It is that simple.