You are mistaken. The U.S. constitution grants you free speech protections from the government, not from private entities. If you go enter someone's private property and start saying things they do not like, they have the right to tell you to be quiet or else they will ask you to leave. If you refuse to comply, they then have the right to call the police and report you for trespassing. This applies to both private homes and private businesses. For example, since malls are on private property you have no right to free speech while inside of one. If you are wearing a shirt they deem offense, they have the right to tell you to remove the shirt or leave and, again, if you don't then leave you can be charged with trespassing.
The same applies to private online companies; they have every right to restrict speech as much or as little as they like because you are granted access to their services through their privately run servers. If you do not comply with their terms of service, they have the right to inflict whatever consequences they like, including removing your speech or barring access to their services altogether (insomuch as they can given it's the internet and all).
Conversely, you are free to disagree with these policies and fight them by advocating change (although you're not necessarily free to do so on their platform - again, that's up to them) and by both boycotting their services and encouraging others to do the same to try to force change. But you don't have a legal protected right to free speech while using their services. Rather, your free speech is given or denied to you by a privately owned company and which direction they lean toward depends on what is best for their business model.
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Painbow
8 years ago
Except THIS SITE is not the one asking him to curtail his speech or leave; it's another user reporting him to the site. The site then blindly deletes his post. This forum has made it very clear that people are free to say whatever they want -- it's reports from other users that results in deletion, not a moderator/administrator who is an expression of the sites wishes.
If we all agree to report your post for example, it will be deleted... does that mean it was an offensive post?
To use your own anology, if I come round to your house and say something that insults one of your other guests (but not you) and that guest asks YOU to kick me out... whether you do or not is irrelevant. What matters is, the guest that asked you to... is a massive dick.
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AylaMM
8 years ago
lolwat.
I would kick you out because you insulted one of my guests.
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