Extremist groups, social media...free speech?

[emilynghiem]

If we defend Muslims that crash planes into buildings and these same people slam a lorry on London bridge on pedestrians, do the same in Barcelona and now, but we attack a single white guy that does the same thing in Charlotte and make it a clarion call against evil, have we lost our collective minds?

Dear MaryL if we sit down and compare all these incidents,
and see the political patterns of bias,
we just might regain our clarity and soundness of mind.

 

[Indeependent]

I stated it elsewhere...any organization which states that violence is a primary tool does not deserve free speech.

 

[Pogo]

If we defend Muslims that crash planes into buildings and these same people slam a lorry on London bridge on pedestrians, do the same in Barcelona and now, but we attack a single white guy that does the same thing in Charlotte and make it a clarion call against evil, have we lost our collective minds?

Dear MaryL if we sit down and compare all these incidents,
and see the political patterns of bias,
we just might regain our clarity and soundness of mind.

Not sure what she even means. I haven't seen anybody "defending" terrorist attacks.

I do note however that the poster describes the first three examples with a religious adjective, yet mysteriously leaves that out for the last one. Maybe she should start there. That very obviously points to a "pattern of bias" though it's not a political one.

I have yet to hear anyone, other than myself rhetorically, pose the question as to what James Fields' religion is.

 

[martybegan]

Not sure where the best place is to post this but given recent events, maybe Current Events is.

Since Charlottesville...multiple business' have been closing down sites (goDaddy, Facebook, Google, etc) associated with White Supremacists. Other financial organizations like PayPal have refused to do business with them. This seems to be only the tip of the iceberg.

Now...it isn't exactly new. They've been doing it against Islamic extremist organizations as well. But this is the first time it's been aimed at other groups.

Is this a good thing...?

On the one hand - they are private business' - they are under no legal obligation to support free speech in anything other than their own terms. They are under no legal obligation to serve all groups as long as they don't violate existing anti-discrimination laws. However - these corporate entities and their CEO's have a huge amount of power over the public, almost like monopolies.

Free speech is understood to be protected in that there shall be no government infringement on that right. Private entities are exempt I believe.

I'm kind of wondering if this is a good thing....or not? Thoughts?

This is an issue that sooner or later will come to a head. While the issue of denying hosting space on a server is easy to figure out (you can deny all you want) the real question is if companies deny ACCESS to the internet to various groups that are found to be objectionable.

Sooner or later access to the internet may have be be declared part of the commons, and thus regulated and controlled by the government, and thus subject to 1st amendment protections. The same may be said about large monopolistic social media platforms such as facebook.