ANSWERED What is the boundary of free speech?

[space5 2]

If AirVPN claims to protect free speech, then it should define what free speech is. Without a defitnition, it can be whatever people want it to be. Thus, if there is no objective definition, the definition will be controlled by those in power.

Free speech should be protected. What is the boundary of free speech, then?

Once you start making direct threats of violence upon people, your speech isn't protected. Direct threats and verbal coercion are violence. Announcing your intention to inflict violence is not free speech.

Hate speech is still protected. Just let people make whatever deluded religious claims they want as long as they are not making threats like "I will send thugs after you if you try to compete with us."

What is violence, then? Violence is initiation of harm. Self-defense is using force to defend yourself from violence. Self-defensive force can be deadly. Not all uses of force are violence. Everyone has a right to self-defense.

Airvpn forums don't protect free speech, though. Moderators say airvpn forums aren't for free speech.

[Staff 9972]

5 hours ago, space5 said:

Airvpn forums don't protect free speech, though. Moderators say airvpn forums aren't for free speech.

Hello!

Totally correct. AirVPN forums ("News", "How-To" and "Databases") are technical and service forums where a new thread can be started only by AirVPN staff. "News" is restricted to announcements and news regarding AirVPN and its infrastructure, "How-To" is restricted to guides for the customers, and "Databases" pertains to geo-routing db as well as residential ISPs around the world, to report their behavior and blocks against VPN or Tor. So they are totally inappropriate for any "free speech" purpose.

The community forums are a gift of AirVPN to the community, mainly managed by the community itself with self-proposed, voluntary moderation. AirVPN basically provides the infrastructure and cover its expenses. Ads are forbidden, netiquette is enforced, but we do not monitor these forums closely, except for "Troubleshooting", dedicated to technical problems and their resolutions, where we can intervene (if we have the time) before the professional support team is involved through a ticket. However most problems are resolved by the community itself without our intervention. Of course you can't abuse the community forums for generic "freedom of speech" as they would lose their purpose: community member support by other community members. They could also become unreadable if all topics were allowed!

In the community forums you also find the "Off-Topic" forum where you can post various arguments, even not specifically related to AirVPN. Ads prohibition and netiquette enforcement stay even in "Off-Topic" of course.

More in general, we provide you with an infrastructure to aid free speech trough a layer of privacy and even anonymity, as anonymity as been recognized both by the UN and by the USA Supreme Court as an essential tool in order to exercise freedom of expression and information. We also support or supported monetarily other tools which aid directly freedom of speech, such as PeerTube, Mastodon, Tor, and organizations which support freedom of speech (for example EDRi and EFF).

All of the above is in accordance with our mission https://airvpn.org/mission : it's not in our mission to maintain and deliver directly tools to exercise freedom of expression, but it's in our mission to "Deliver a service capable of providing a strong anonymity layer in order to exercise the Right to Remain Anonymous (*), which has been widely recognized as a key to freedom of speech". Specialization is essential in this case given our resources: do one thing and do it well. If we dispersed our resources in more and more projects with too many purposes, we might end up being ineffective in all areas.

Kind regards
 

[space5 2]

It is free speech that protects VPN companies from governments.

It is in your interest to protect free speech and to maybe even mention free speech as an indirect goal in the mission because you won't survive financially without free speech.

If alternative media outlets die, governments across the world will shut down VPNs in a few years, and genocides will occur. Wars and genocides aren't natural. Humans aren't naturally genocidal. Historically, they were driven by centralized media outlets. It is too dangerous to let a few people own and control media outlets. Those who control media outlets control human species.

[Staff 9972]

6 hours ago, space5 said:

It is in your interest to protect free speech and to maybe even mention free speech as an indirect goal in the mission because you won't survive financially without free speech.

Hello!

This is exactly what we do, if you read the mission page you can see it, including the organizations we support through 1) active infrastructural management, 2) monetary support and 3) logistic support with free access. We also support services which are technical, essential platforms for media outlets or single individuals to exercise freedom of expression. Freedom of speech is explicitly mentioned in the mission as we already wrote with the citation in our previous message.

Kind regards
 

[space5 2]

Okay. I wasn't reading carefully.