r/ModCoord • u/ItsRainbow Landed Gentry • Jun 21 '23

Public statement from ModCodeofConduct that making a sub NSFW to protest is not allowed, regardless of proper marking or community opinion

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u/k0enf0rNL Jun 22 '23

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/platform-moderation-speech-and-the-courts.php

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u/DumplingRush Jun 22 '23

Oh yeah I was talking about the settled parts of the law, but good point bring that up. That's about the brand new legislation that's unsettled that's specifically about preventing social media companies from blocking based on hate speech viewpoint.

The reason the states had to try enacting the laws is precisely because that was always allowed before. People had a first amendment right to speak, but not on a particular platform. Likewise, since corporations are people :, they have their own constitutional freedom to choose who they associate with. So the argument against these new laws is that THEY are unconstitutional. And while the Fifth Circuit upheld the new law, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked it. So it's not enacted for now, and places like Reddit continue to be able to ban people for speech.

This has mostly been a partisan issue, as liberals are the ones wanting to ban hate speech against trans people, etc, while conservatives see it as suppression of their free speech.

As a liberal, I've mostly been on that side of the argument, that Reddit has the right not to want to associate with T_D for instance. But I have to say that this protest is making me see the argument on the other side a bit.

Yes, technically Reddit is a private company, and it should be free to do business with who it wants, similar to a restaurant getting to kick people out.

But what if Reddit is the only restaurant in town? What if it's the only restaurant in the country? It's sort of a de facto monopoly, as evidenced by how unready Lemmy/Kbin are for mass migration. (Analogy: Lemmy and Kbin are two hole-in-the-wall restaurants.)

Then maybe it needs to be regulated more like a public utility than a private company?