> The safest business decision would be to remain neutral, respond to law enforcement requests if presented with one, and otherwise do the job you're paid to do.
Have you considered that it might not be about money? What if the decision-makers and operators of Hurricane Electric just have certain people they just want to censor, and use their position to do it at the expense of money. Money is just a means to the end, and if they're getting to that end by foregoing money in business rather than spending it, that seems logical enough to me.
And if the government is ideologically aligned with the operators of the company, you won't find any protection from them. And in many cases it's just the government and large companies working hand-in-glove to get to their ends. Some political outsiders threatening your political monopoly? Pull some strings and have their social media accounts removed and banking taken away; but there's no recourse since "muh private company" even though they're getting direct orders from government officials.
So a good reason to be on the side of "free political speech" is that we don't want the people with the most money controlling what we can and can't say, and we don't want the government to have free reign to shut down criticism or challenges.
I want to propose a way it can be both money and ideology.
Let’s say you were the governor of a very large state. You have a ton of influence if not sold discredtion on how your state’s $500 billion pension fund is invested. You are an ideologue puppet put in place by people desperately trying to reset the world in their image.
Now… let’s the banks and companies don’t care about your cause - but you have disproportionate sway over them. It can be about money if that is your leverage.
If they choose not to host a platform that they don't like, isn't that free speech? Ironically, appealing to authority to enforce an internet service provider to provide speech they don't want to transmit seems like an imposition on a private entity operating freely.
> Ironically, appealing to authority to enforce an internet service provider to provide speech they don't want to transmit seems like an imposition on a private entity operating freely.
They get to make that choice when I get more than 0-1 alternative choices on which ISP I can use the access the internet in my area.
Until then, saying their actions are "free speech" isn't too different from the days before water and electricity were owned by private corporations. I strongly believe primary ISP tubes should be a public service instead of owned by private corporate interests.
This isn't a consumer ISP like Comcast where there's an effective monopoly over the underlying physical infrastructure. Hurricane Electric is a wholesale IP transit provider. Any datacenter worth its salt is going to have several independent IP transit providers on-site, competing for your business.
Have you considered that it might not be about money? What if the decision-makers and operators of Hurricane Electric just have certain people they just want to censor, and use their position to do it at the expense of money. Money is just a means to the end, and if they're getting to that end by foregoing money in business rather than spending it, that seems logical enough to me.
And if the government is ideologically aligned with the operators of the company, you won't find any protection from them. And in many cases it's just the government and large companies working hand-in-glove to get to their ends. Some political outsiders threatening your political monopoly? Pull some strings and have their social media accounts removed and banking taken away; but there's no recourse since "muh private company" even though they're getting direct orders from government officials.
So a good reason to be on the side of "free political speech" is that we don't want the people with the most money controlling what we can and can't say, and we don't want the government to have free reign to shut down criticism or challenges.