Ah, what if your phone company or internet provider decided to filter your ability to voice your opinions?

At some point a private company that allows you to post amateurish videos or 140 character messages becomes public utility used by millions and if they decide not to allow you to express your opinion your opinion becomes effectively unavailable to others.

Public utility is firmly defined, at least in the US, by the FCC. Even the Internet itself is no longer protected under such definitions, let alone your "right" to speak on a private companies website.

I would absolutely love for the top ~20 sites to all be rendered public utilities. But that would require legislation regulating these private websites as newly minted public institutions and I'm sure the operators of these cash cows would have a word or two to say about the government seizing control of their businesses, even if indirectly through regulation.

Right now, legally, Google can do whatever they want on youtube with impunity - if we want that to change, that will require state involvement, because all these sites are way too big for a crowd of nerds on a forum to influence the business models of in profound ways.

There are still some filters on what they will allow over their lines but as a carrier of communication they have been regulated by the government to allow everyone's data across (mostly). There is the option to buy a domain and host your opinions yourself, google and youtube are not preventing that from being an option (and google will even index your site and help people find it)... So theoretically this isn't an issue.

In actuality I think society has reached a point where the ability to post something to facebook or youtube is actually a specific form of expression that should be protected as a public institution. That said, spreading dangerous misinformation is not wholly protected by free speech, if you are a weatherman and advise (with malintent) commuters fleeing an incoming storm to take a highway that is known to be dangerous then your speech is not protected, the government may silence your speech and you will likely face legal repercussions for doing so.

I think freedom of speech is very important and I do acknowledge that this issue is littered with slippery slopes but, not all speech is free and there are some forms of speech that should be controlled. The problem of how to do that as a society while not impeding free speech is extremely hard and unsolved, the best current solution might be to assume all speech is free until a court rules otherwise but that is not an ideal solution.

The key here is "government may silence your speech" (or should it be "judiciary"). It is very different when it is a private company that decides this.

The correct course of action here is for our leaders to grow a spine and publicly acknowledge this is a problem.

Of course speech should be free until court rules otherwise. How otherwise you expect minority opinion to be safe from majority? It is not free speech if anybody with more power than you may shut you up.

If you were to tell a police office you were about to go into a crowded square of people rioting against a city government and announce your intention to pay one million dollars to whoever shoots the mayor first, how should that officer respond?

Should he submit a request to have the case reviewed to the DA and ask a judge to allow him to stop you from taking that option?

The courts cannot be expected to individually guide every action (although law enforcement should be cognizant of the types of speech previously ruled to be free or restricted and respect that ruling with penalties for knowingly violating that precedent).

This stuff is complicated and making blanket statements is just silly. _Most_ speech should be protected, but some speech is limited.

Soliciting a crime like that is already directly punishable and not free speech. Very bad example.