> there have always been community standards in any society.
When Meta says "community standards" they aren't actually community standards at all. Meta unilaterally decides what their "community standards" are. I've had posts about lighting a campfire for my family, and showing off vegetables from my garden flagged as "violating community standards". We're not even getting into sex, religion and politics, which I also believe are areas of life that we need to be able to have open conversations about in public forums, rather than having an unaccountable organization unilaterally decide for us what is right and wrong.
> The expectation of unfettered freedom of speech is at best naive, especially when the things people say incite violence.
Given the tendency for violence to be associated with calls for free speech, I understand how you could assume that I'm talking about speech that incites violence. But actually, I'm talking about much more innocuous things like talking about non-traditional relationship styles, alternative lifestyles, body positivity, open medical data, thought experiments and well thought out challenges to the status quo.
> open conversations about in public forums, rather than having an unaccountable organization unilaterally decide for us what is right and wrong.
You will not find me to be an apologist for social-media business. That said, a for-profit company has "rights" too, or at least a team of lawyers to defend the operation on behalf of the ownership and/or shareholders.
A social-media company has operational goals other than ensuring that you and I can say what we want, however we want, at our convenience and on their dime. And those rules will likely conform to many (if not all) the values of society.
Even HN itself restricts debate. Do you object to this too?
When Meta says "community standards" they aren't actually community standards at all. Meta unilaterally decides what their "community standards" are. I've had posts about lighting a campfire for my family, and showing off vegetables from my garden flagged as "violating community standards". We're not even getting into sex, religion and politics, which I also believe are areas of life that we need to be able to have open conversations about in public forums, rather than having an unaccountable organization unilaterally decide for us what is right and wrong.
> The expectation of unfettered freedom of speech is at best naive, especially when the things people say incite violence.
Given the tendency for violence to be associated with calls for free speech, I understand how you could assume that I'm talking about speech that incites violence. But actually, I'm talking about much more innocuous things like talking about non-traditional relationship styles, alternative lifestyles, body positivity, open medical data, thought experiments and well thought out challenges to the status quo.