I did some very small experiments on such a thing a while ago. One was an example of someone being unjustly detained in violation of their rights [1] and another was an actual example of government censorship [2]. The first one was flagged and killed immediately, the second received zero response.
On HN, all of the 'free speech' stories I see always pertain to the far-right and/or incredibly vitriolic individuals getting removed from platforms. They receive massive amounts of votes and spur on large flamewars. HackerNews unfortunately is just as prone to falling into certain narrative traps as other websites and one of them that seems to come up more and more frequently is free speech and individual rights but only as it pertains to the far-right.
The discrepancy could be because Hacker News cares more about technology platforms than Alabama public TV. For an example of HN getting upset about government censorship on a technology platform, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223219
I'm not sure that's the case. Some examples looking back on some of the most popular HN stories tend to align well with either tech platforms or issues dealing with personal rights. Such as [1] or the Snowden and Julian Assange situations [2] [3]. Or for the sake of not cherry-picking, when the Supreme Corut legalized same-sex marriage [4]. Although perhaps somewhat morbidly, the top comment seems to demonstrate one of the problems I find with HN.
With my first story I figured it would fit well with the people that tend to advocate for personal rights because it was an example of an American citizen being wrongfully detained for three weeks, but it ended up flagged because I think people tend to circle the wagon around anything tangentially related to immigration.
The second example was about a direct example of government censorship and the inconsistency of free speech advocates. Google's actions and bending to China for the sake of maintaining profitable behavior is bad, yes, but they also are not the government. The government should be held to even higher standards and yet it seems people are not willing to do so for this administration. An example of that is that people here were praising the administration's threats against Twitter as some sort of pro-freedom move.
all of the 'free speech' stories I see always pertain to the far-right and/or incredibly vitriolic individuals getting removed from platforms
That's because getting people shut down, cancelled, censored, is a left wing tactic, so of course it always seems to be the right getting censored. Free speech is a value the right hold and the left do not, systematically so throughout history.
That is incorrect. Censorship is on the orthogonal spectrum to to the right-left one. It is in liberal-authoritarian spectrum, where authoritarian end usually has state censorship and liberal end usually has freedom to individuals/corps to their own selective "censorship" (by definition censorship is only by state entities, so the term should be different).
Both left and right can be liberal and authoritarian. And in the middle are centrists.
Given the amount of state violence used against left wing protestors over the last month and the number of active political leaders championing that violence... I really don't agree. Leftist speech is silenced with guns. And the free speech supporters sit silent.
Many of the people who raise objections based on “free speech” every time a private entity declines to actively participate in amplifying right wing speech have been actively cheering the events you describe, and arguing they need to be intensified, not sitting silent.
