<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>ghaff</author><text>A problem arises when those private companies--especially in the aggregate--elect not to do business with you. At some level I suppose you don&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;need&lt;/i&gt; to do business with Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon... But most would find it difficult. Maybe add the one ISP you have available.</text><parent_chain><item><author>HL33tibCe7</author><text>You’re confusing the First Amendment — a particular law about the government’s requirement to uphold the principle of freedom of speech — with the principle of freedom of speech more generally.&lt;p&gt;In this context, the First Amendment is irrelevant - it doesn’t apply here; it says nothing about the actions of private companies. Instead, people are discussing the principle of freedom of speech, and in particular the extent to which private companies should be able to limit speech.</text></item><item><author>ellen364</author><text>&amp;gt; A private company should not be making decisions on essentially freedom of speech.&lt;p&gt;This comes up a lot and makes me think I’ve misunderstood US free speech dynamics. I thought the USA traditionally limited the government’s ability to regulate free speech, leaving it to private &amp;#x2F; social regulation. In other words, it was up to individuals, communities, companies and so on to decide what was acceptable.&lt;p&gt;But perhaps that’s a misunderstanding. Can anyone recommend books or papers to better understand the history of free speech in the USA? I guess The Federalist Papers are often a good place to start?</text></item><item><author>zaptheimpaler</author><text>The deplatforming logic is practical but pretty shaky as a long term strategy. Kiwifarms absolutely may have been a despicable place causing real harm to people. In that case, the police should initiate a request to take them down that Cloudflare or ISPs etc. are obligated to follow. The problem is the government is completely ineffective and regularly offloads their responsibility to platforms like Facebook, Cloudflare etc. A private company should not be making decisions on essentially freedom of speech. Its just one more responsibility that law enforcement has completely shirked leaving others to clean up the mess.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>I ran the worlds largest DDoS-for-Hire empire and Cloudflare helped</title><url>https://rasbora.dev/blog/I-ran-the-worlds-largest-ddos-for-hire-empire-and-cloudflare-helped</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>XorNot</author><text>&amp;gt; and in particular the extent to which private companies should be able to limit speech.&lt;p&gt;This is incoherent with the idea it&amp;#x27;s not a government matter. If it&amp;#x27;s not a government matter, then there&amp;#x27;s nothing to talk about - Cloudflare can do whatever they like because the law does not bind them otherwise.</text><parent_chain><item><author>HL33tibCe7</author><text>You’re confusing the First Amendment — a particular law about the government’s requirement to uphold the principle of freedom of speech — with the principle of freedom of speech more generally.&lt;p&gt;In this context, the First Amendment is irrelevant - it doesn’t apply here; it says nothing about the actions of private companies. Instead, people are discussing the principle of freedom of speech, and in particular the extent to which private companies should be able to limit speech.</text></item><item><author>ellen364</author><text>&amp;gt; A private company should not be making decisions on essentially freedom of speech.&lt;p&gt;This comes up a lot and makes me think I’ve misunderstood US free speech dynamics. I thought the USA traditionally limited the government’s ability to regulate free speech, leaving it to private &amp;#x2F; social regulation. In other words, it was up to individuals, communities, companies and so on to decide what was acceptable.&lt;p&gt;But perhaps that’s a misunderstanding. Can anyone recommend books or papers to better understand the history of free speech in the USA? I guess The Federalist Papers are often a good place to start?</text></item><item><author>zaptheimpaler</author><text>The deplatforming logic is practical but pretty shaky as a long term strategy. Kiwifarms absolutely may have been a despicable place causing real harm to people. In that case, the police should initiate a request to take them down that Cloudflare or ISPs etc. are obligated to follow. The problem is the government is completely ineffective and regularly offloads their responsibility to platforms like Facebook, Cloudflare etc. A private company should not be making decisions on essentially freedom of speech. Its just one more responsibility that law enforcement has completely shirked leaving others to clean up the mess.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>I ran the worlds largest DDoS-for-Hire empire and Cloudflare helped</title><url>https://rasbora.dev/blog/I-ran-the-worlds-largest-ddos-for-hire-empire-and-cloudflare-helped</url></story>