This harkens back to the very old analogy of why you're not allowed to scream "Fire!" or "There's a bomb!" in a movie theater, and that restriction isn't considered an infringement on free speech. Ergo it is possible (e.g. to deplatform a member of high authority) without it being an infringement on free speech.
Also your comment doesn't really point out specific flaws in their argument. All you do is tack insulting words onto it without any meaningful substance.
The "[falsely] shouting fire in a theater" argument places emphasis on the wrong part of the problem with free speech maximalism.
Most people don't realize "falsely shouting fire in a theatre" was first used to justify locking up peaceful anti-war demonstrators under the flimsy justification that it slowed down the war effort. That's the first clue that it's a bad argument.
Also, Oliver Wendell Holmes was later convinced this was a bad argument[0].
You, and most others, also commonly leave out "falsely" part of Holmes's argument, though it's still implied if not present. (Nobody is arguing that alerting people to the presence of a real fire would be the wrong thing to do. Delaying an evacuation until the fire is violently apparent is more likely to cause a panicked evacuation vs. shouting, no matter how forcefully one can shout. Also, analogies are like cars... they only go so far.)
The (stated or implied) falsely part is the crux of the problem. There are countless cases in history where the majority consensus was very wrong, and stopping someone from speaking because it's considered both wrong and dangerous is bad policy. It's just too easy to find something dangerous in any situation to justify silencing. It's much better to condemn all calls for (non-state[1]) violence, regardless of the truth or falsity of their arguments.
It's much better to set crystal clear criteria for what constitutes too dangerous speech, regardless of its truth. Incitements to (non-state[2]) violence is at least a lowest-common denominator. Maybe it's not great, but other lines get murky very quickly, and people quickly disagree over the level of danger.
[1] Or, if you're a strict pacifist, simply all calls to violence
[2] Sorry strict pacifists, it's just not practical for the government to ban calls for war or calls for the police to use the state's monopoly on violence to protect people in physical harm.
You've been using HN primarily for political battle. We ban accounts that do that. I had to go back as far as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24231151 to find a comment that was using HN as intended: for curious conversation.
We've banned this account for political flamewar. That's not what this site is for, and we ban accounts that do it regardless of which politics they're battling for. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. This is a site for thoughtful, curious conversation on topics of intellectual interest—not bashing enemies.
> Also your comment doesn't really point out specific flaws in their argument. All you do is tack insulting words onto it without any meaningful substance.
The disturbing part about these bans is they seem to be done unilaterally if not coordinated by private for profit tech companies.
Drifting from the original comment here but:
Consider this twitter and facebook unilaterally decided to ban the president of the united states... what message does that send to the other world leaders?.
Last I checked nobody elected Zuckerberg and Dorsey.
> Consider this twitter and facebook unilaterally decided to ban the president of the united states...
Note that “ban” here is “from using their respective platforms”.
> what message does that send to the other world leaders?
That private parties operating in the US with the freedom provided by its Constitution may choose not to amplify their speech despite their position of authority?
> Last I checked nobody elected Zuckerberg and Dorsey.
Last I checked, the freedom of speech and the press meant you didn't need to be elected to a position of government authority to have the right to decide what messages you were willing to use your resources to amplify.
