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This is actually a topic I've been wanting to write about for months now but I of course didn't get to it until now when it is a relevant topic in regard to curent events. I believe that free speech is incredibly important and I am against the censorship of ideas. I know that without free speech it is impossible for the people to hear all sides of important stories, and without being able to see all sides of a story it is impossible for a person to make an educated decision on anything. Despite this belief in free speech I, unlike many others who share my opinion, know that free speech has never, and will never exist on the internet in the way that most people think it should.
Of course when most people are talking about freedom of speech they are refering to the first amendment to the United States Constitution, so lets read the relevant part of it, "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech." Now looking at that who is not allowed to tamper with the freedom of speech in America? Congresss, or the government. Now who is allowed to restrict freedom of speech? Literally anyone else, and this makes perfect sense. Let's say your a father and you have someone at your house saying bad things about women and using fowl language around your children, you're probably going to want to kick him out of your house and it would be completely wihin your right to do so, it is your house and you set the rules as to what type of speech is acceptable in your household. The same applies to buisnesses, if somebody is in your buisness is going around telling your customers how terible your buisness is you are going to show them the door. Now wheter or not speech can be restricted in a government funded entity such as a public universtiy is a more complicated discussion, but for the most part as long as you are on somebody else's property you do not have free speech, if you upset the owner of whatever property you are on it is fully within their right to kick you out.
This same concept applies to the internet. This website is my property and I decide what can and can't be put here, right now I'm the only one who has ever put anything on this site, but that could change, I'd be open to hosting things for other people, but it should be obvious that if I don't like it then it won't be here. This is my site that I pay for and it's on a server which I have root access to. I'm not saying this to sound mean or anything, I'm putting this in as clear terms as possible so that you can hoefully understand that this same concept applies to companies like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Now do I believe that these sites should allow freedom of speech? Yes I do, but I understand that they have no constitutional obligation to do so and that they are the ones paying to keep the servers running, they are the ones developing the technology which allows you to connect with others on their platforms, and they are the ones who are letting you use their services for free. It is completely within their right to kick anyone off of their platforms if they desire to do so, just like it is completely wihin your right to kick someone out of your house if they are doing things you don't like. Even within federated alternatives like Mastodon, or completely anonomys sites like 4chan you can be shut up.
Now I guess that the title to this article is not entirely true, I have free speech on the internet because I have my own site. Whatever your opinon may be on Alex Jones, the fact is that he still has free speech on the internet despite having been banned from every from every social media platform because he has his own site, the same cannot be said about most other people who have been banned in a similar way. Free speech on the internet is not free, you only really have it if you have your own site. I can't remember if I've recomended this video here yet but it does a great job at describing how easy and benefical it is to have your own site. You can set up a site inexpensively in less than an hour and begin reaping the benefits of having one. Even if you care nothing about having free speech for yourself on the internet it is very rewarding to have your own slice of it where you can do whatever you want.