What is free speech's scope?

If someone’s speech (or action) damages the brand, (while using that brand) then I support the right of the brand to protect themselves. “Free speech” is such a broad, catch-all phrase.
I also support the right of that guy to set up on a street corner and spout his vitriol.

Free speech means you can stand on a corner and speak your political mind without being hauled away for expressing your thoughts. It means you can buy a newspaper publisher if you want to print things critical of the government. You can set up your own radio station to broadcast whatever philosophy you want.

It doesn’t mean you get to hijack someone else’s medium to express your thoughts.

In the private arena, it’s whatever the owner chooses. In the public arena, it’s anywhere inside the designated Free Speech Zone, even though the VERY FIRST AMENDMENT to the U.S. Constitution states that:

“Congress shall make no law… abridging… the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

But they did make laws abridging free speech. Many laws: Edwards v. South Carolina, Brown v. Louisiana, Cox v. Louisiana, and Adderley v. Florida.

Before these, ALL of America was a Free Speech Zone.

As to the present Milo thing: He has revealed his racism, misogyny and the general ugliness that is mind and his life. Inadvertently he uncovered a coterie of like-minded people. This is useful. We now know that there are a significant amount of disaffected people out there. In some cases we know where they live. This is much better than having a growing, hidden underground that can rise up and bite society in the carotid.

Well to parrot a point I made myself on Twitter, the entire point of free speech is to share ideas, not to harass. And I stand by that.

People are not using free speech to share ideas, thoughts or beliefs. They are using free speech to be obscene for the sake of being obscene. Is their a message or moral or truth to what they say? Most of the time there isn’t. Free speech is great for speaking ones minds to communicate ideas, but when it gets so intense that it becomes bullying (or in the case of the internet “cyberbullying”) we have a problem.

When “free speech” becomes hate speech and bullying, it causes all sorts of problems such as depression and suicide. This sort of anything goes attitude is basically promoting depressing others and leading them to suicide. It’s extremely serious and we should take it extremely seriously. Which is why I support Jack Dorsey’s decision to ban Yiannopoulos. And I know the conservatives will be crying out how victimised they feel about this. But it isn’t about being conservative or liberal. Its about metal health and preventing suicide. And not doing anything to prevent it just to maintain the rather large egos of others is no longer acceptable.

In terms of if this happened to someone I agree with. Let us say this happened to a liberal progressive individual and he or she got themselves banned from Twitter. If they were banned for just having an opinion that others found offensive based on that opinion alone; I would regard that as unfair censorship. However if this individual was harassing others, bullying others and supporting that others do the same. They deserve to be banned. Its a cyberbullying issue.

No speech is actually free…....

It’s a problem.

Today’s popular forms of mass communication are so ubiquitous that they act essentially as pulic utilities and public fora—but they’re private corporate entities, and are regulated largely by their whims and discretions.

Obviously the solution is to put Google, Twitter and Facebook under public ownership and control. This could be done by forced expropriation. If Zuckerberg et al don’t like it—to the Gulag they go.

If you don’t pay to use a site you are not a customer; you are the thing being sold. Apparently the site owner thought this fellow looked like defective merchandise.

@Kropotkin The only way that would ever happen if all main social networks were to become seriously bankrupted. Zuckerberg made it very clear a long time ago that he is very against selling Facebook

@SmartAZ Well I suppose thats one way to look at it. However I can confirm that Jack Dorsey spoke to Leslie Jones personally by direct message personally. It was treated as a cyberbullying / harassment issue.

But you are right about Twitter users not being customers. In fact I’m grateful myself that the service exists.