As an individual, when your speech is banned, it's all the same whether it's by an authoritarian government or by private companies.

I think it's perfectly reasonable for non-American countries to impose laws on the tech businesses if they want to do business in those regions, but it's a dishonest characterization to suggest that what happens on a handful of American websites "determines what is appropriate", they don't have any such power.

The freedom of individuals is more important than the freedom of corporations.

When the freedom of people to speak clashes with the freedom of corporations to not allow that speech, it's better to side with more speech (i.e. the side of the people).

I don't see that as a good counter example. That sort of content should be illegal anyway.

That's exactly what makes it a great example. If we accept the premise that /r/jailbait was not illegal (but "merely" reprehensible), then under this new law, Reddit would have been breaking the law when they decided to ban the subreddit.

A great example maybe to demonstrate inability of current criminal code and judicial systems,

but not a good example to convince someone that privatized censorship is akchally a good thing.

Its because real life is not black and white. Its shades of gray mostly.

And while its ease to spot and codify extreme cases on both sides, its impossible for a law to clearly codify a clear line where good turns to bad.

The 'original' argument for this type of conversation is: what makes a nude picture an art piece, what makes it porn. If we were given 100 photos we would probably agree in most cases whats art and whats porn, but try to write rules for distinguishing them.

It should, but until legislators act, it's legal. That's the issue will the law.

The Constitution would need to amended.

Clothed pictures of minors should be illegal?

Why should it be illegal?

Is there a punch line? The NYT is so bad that I unsubscribed and now I can’t read any of it.

It was coordinated behind locked doors with Google and Apple which are competitors.

All companies shutting them down without so much as a hearing in court will probably lead them to build parallel societies.

Imagine a world where you could sue a business because they don't want you as a customer. It sounds crazy.

That's the case for protected classes. I just think it should be expanded.

It shouldn't be that way if media companies weren't coordinating behind the scenes to ban stuff together. But given that it's happening, it's better to have more freedom.

AWS's response was based on its legal right to shut down every customer it is biased against. Nothing was adjudicated in court.

> Nothing was adjudicated in court

Parler agreed to AWS' TOS. You don't have to go to court.

Free speech approved by media giants. Everything else will be blockaded.

Political opinions should be a protected class (certainly more than religious opinions).

I disagree since political opinions aren’t a well-defined class or even an idea. At least with religion you can restrict it to religion federally recognized by the IRS. With political opinions, literally every conceivable declarative statement could be considered a political opinion. It’s a degenerate case.

:) Political opinions are more well-defined? At least political opinions are in realm of reality.

We can’t even define reality, I would hesitate on that assertion;)