> At least in the US, this is not possible without a change in the 1st Amendment. Hate speech is protected by the 1st Amendment.

Right, which is why I'm personally mostly worried about service providers being wink-wink nudge-nudge deputized into performing a mostly-effective end run around legal protections on speech. Threaten regulation, accept a proposal to self-regulate (so we don't have to pass any laws directly forcing censorious action) and work from there.

If we're assuming that the goal is widespread manipulation of the political narrative, black-bagging dissidents isn't necessary to have a significant effect. Heck, this thread's Tiananmen example is the sort of thing that could be accomplished without any sort of overtly totalitarian stuff at all: you need a willing mouthpiece and an understanding with the folks running search results at Baidu that "not fake news from well-reputed outlets" gets bumped in the list. Consider how infrequently most users get past the first page of search results. I don't have stats, but I bet a similar thing is true just for whatever's the first result. Even if it's totally possible for someone to go off to another source and get their facts there, you've just rewritten history for everyone who didn't read past the top result.

I think this story is particularly interesting because it's an example of a method of government speech control and propaganda that, unlike many of China's heavy-handed measures, has a nonzero chance of being applicable in a Western democracy without being an overt violation of protections around political speech.

> Right, which is why I'm personally mostly worried about service providers being wink-wink nudge-nudge deputized into performing a mostly-effective end run around legal protections on speech.

This is totally within their right - in fact the 1st Amendment guarantees it. Freedom of speech isn't just freedom to say what you want, it's also freedom from compelled speech - freedom from the government saying "you have to say X, Y, and Z". To mandate that platforms host content isn't an "end run around legal protections on speech", their ability to refuse content is guaranteed by the legal protections on speech.

I assume you're talking about platforms here. Telecoms are utilities and are required to transmit content because they're government-backed. While I think there's a debate to be had about what parts of internet infrastructure should be regulated as utilities (I think hosting providers or at least domain providers should, they're filling a similar infrastructure role as ISPs in my view) it's incorrect to say that platforms' refusal to host certain content is circumventing freedom of speech.

> it's incorrect to say that platforms' refusal to host certain content is circumventing freedom of speech.

I think there's an argument to be made that this stance is incompatible with Marsh v. Alabama given the reach and impact of certain platforms, but I digress.

My real point was less that platforms should be mandated to host speech and more that extra-legal pressure from governments is a convenient method for suppressing or promoting information, especially when mechanisms for doing that within platforms already exist. These aren't incompatible- you could, for instance, really trust the moderation team of a particular platform and want them to be able to implement their moderation decisions (i.e not engage in compelled speech by being forced to not delete white supremacist content) while also not wanting those moderation decisions to be unduly influenced by government pressure.

It has always intrigued me that in the U.S. hate modifies the category of a crime.

It's one thing to assualt somebody; it's another thing to assault them out of hate.

It's one thing to kill somebody; it's another thing to kill them out of hate. If you can somehow prove that you didn't hate the person you intentionally killed, you face a lesser penalty.

Also, under fascism, speech may be protected in government contexts, but if the government turns over large swaths to corporations, and the corporations aren't required to protect speech, that's not the government's problem.

> Also, under fascism, speech may be protected in government contexts, but if the government turns over large swaths to corporations, and the corporations aren't required to protect speech, that's not the government's problem.

Corporations aren't required to host all speech, or be subject to any kind of government control in what speech they host (short of taking down illegal content like copyright violations and cse). In fact, requiring someone or a company to host speech is a violation of the 1st Amendment, because it is compelled speech. If you run a forum, and you ban someone for views you don't like the government can't step in and say "no, you're required to host this content". And legally, there's essentially no difference between your hypothetical forum and Facebook.

The only exceptions to this are utilities. An electric company can't just decide to stop doing business with someone that they don't like, since most customers have one choice for utilities. Laying electric wire, plumbing, etc. almost always requires approval from the government to in some sense utilities companies are indirect arms of the government. There's arguments to be made that hosting providers and domain name providers should be moved into this category. This would mean that a website can't be kicked off the internet as was the case with the DailyStormer for a while. But it seems like an extremely far fetched argument that sites like Facebook should be considered utilities.

It is a matter of the larger injured party as opposed to mere hate. Lets use Martians as a detached from real world context.

* If you crucify someone you are a depraved murderer who killed the victim.

* If you crucified say a martian over say how often they mowed their lawn it would be hatred related and psychopathic but not a hate crime.

* If you crucified a martian and wrote "Go back to Mars!" in their blood then you not only murdered them but also threatened the entire Martian community and that would be a hate crime. That is why it is a separate crime on top of it.

It intrigues me that murder, even pre-meditated murder, is more tolerable than hateful murder.

We only need to add the stiffener because we actually tolerate pre-meditated murder. But we draw the line at hateful murder.

It's very much in the same vein as premeditated murder vs plain old murder.