Mrthdrb

This is a common misconception. Freedom of speech does not mean that everybody can say whatever they want, whenever they want and wherever they want. It means essentially that people cannot be legally punished for expressing their opinions, except if said opinions infringe on other freedoms.

This means that people are allowed to express their opinions, but it doesn't imply that any public or private organization has to offer their platform for them to do so. For example, if I write a political article it's up to me to find a support who agrees to publish it, I can't sue a newspaper because they refuse to publish it. Similarly, if I have my own website where people leave comments, I'm allowed to delete any comment I want since I'm the owner of the publication.

The same applies to Google or Twitter: they provide a platform but they can decide what kind of content they accept or not (users agree to their rules when they validate the terms of use).

This is why "freedom of speech only applies to the government", in the sense that only a government could prosecute somebody for expressing their opinions. In western democracies, governments are not allowed do that since freedom of speech is protected. By contrast, there are many countries where people can go to jail for expressing their opinions: this is what the absence of freedom of speech means.

Consider where your line of thought will lead:

• You own or have rented a house or apartment, I presume. Would it be censorship if you stop me from painting political slogans on your bedroom wall? Or would it simply be you exercising your right to determine how your bedroom is to be used?




• Say you invite a couple of friends for a party. Would it be censorship if you stop me from coming in and singing loudly and badly? Or would you simply be exercising your right to determine whom to invite and whom to throw out?




• Imagine that for the next election, I put a campaign poster on your front lawn. Would it be censorship if you stop me from doing that? Or would you simply be exercising your right to use your front lawn as you see fit?

These three examples were about the private living place of an individual citizen. But think through the same examples with a mom-and-pop grocery store.

There are some reasons why it is not quite straightforward to extend this to Facebook, Google and the like:

• Most countries have different laws for telecoms providers and news media. News media may e.g. be required to distinguish between editoral content and paid advertising, and they may be sued if what they print breaks laws. Telecoms providers are generally not liable for the content of communication which goes over their services, but they must not look into the content, either.
  The big internet companies seem to pick-and-choose if they want to be considered news or a telecommunications provider.
  


• Either way, they have reached a size and market share that would justify anti-trust measures to break them up. Of course doing that would make the concept of a Facebook or Twitter impossible -- there could be no platform where "almost everybody" talks.

Freedom of speech is a fundamental right of any person to express themselves. It is one of the human rights defined by the UN charter, and it is a right expressed in most democratic constitutions, separately.

To take the latter first - governments that guarantee freedom of speech defines it as a right to not get arrested, fined, censored or otherwise violated by the government as a reprisal to any spoken opinion. It does not protect you in case your speech is considered as an attack (violence) upon others - and it is fairly easy to see that in light of the philosophy that one persons freedom ends where another's begins. It also is so that (while I have not investigated all constitutions... the ones I have agree that) the freedom of speech is also a freedom not to speak - i.e. nobody can be forced to speak. Although, again, there are cases where you can be subpoenaed to do so as a part of some due legal process.

Now, that last bit is important. Persons, and legal persons (companies) can not be mandated to speak anything by anyone else except through a legal due process. So a person cannot force a newspaper editor to print an article, force a publisher to publish a book, force an online platform to post. This is in fact protecting the freedom of speech, not breaking it.

Now, as for the UN - their rules apply only to signatories (governments) - and let's face it: They are guiding principles at best.

Erwan answer is correct to the extent that it covers the liability of corporations under US law for the content they publish.

There is however a separate regulation, one where there's a distinction between a platform (where anyone can post anything legal, it can be demonetized or unsearchable, or not show up in recommended but still available) and a publisher (where the owner decides which content is ok for them to have there).

Namely, (Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996)

It states, among other things, that

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

Being a platform means that You are not responsible for anything people put up and all you have to do is be reactive (someone flags content as say, copyright infrigement and you take it down).

Being a publisher means that You are responsible for what Your users upload (so you can be sued for someone uploading an episode of "Friends" to Your site).

Youtube, Google, Facebook, Twitter etc... want to be platforms but also police content as a publisher would. This causes uploaders and consumers to be outraged at the censorship those companies because either You do not police legal content and are a platform or you police content and are a publisher.

The outrage is not as much about the fact that they're censoring the content, rather that they claimed to be free, independent media where anyone can post anything (legal) and "have a voice". That "promise" has been broken, or at least strained which causes the whole issue to be important at the moment.

Edit:
If content is illegal in say pakistan its okay if its not available in pakistan.

Edit2:
Many claim that selective censorship could be interpreted as a form of authoring the content on Your website (selecting content with a particular agenda can be interpreted as authoring the "message" Your platform expresses) thus making the site an "information content provider" (publisher) instead of platform thus making the site liable for any breaches of law connected to the uploaded content.

This is the argument I've seen most often used to claim Twitter, Youtube, Facebook etc... should either stop their censorship practices or be liable.

The UN thingy may be rather broad... trouble is you can't sue anyone anywhere based on it. The case of the US has been covered by Erwan (and is well known). For Europe, there's article 10 of the ECHR

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.




2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

As you can see it largely mirrors the US idea that protection is against interference by public authorities, rather than private actors. And if you look at the notable cases listed there, they're all of the form X vs state-Y.

I'm also mentioning this because (as it's probably obvious) the ECHR wording is a lot more similar to the UN one (than the US 1st Amendment is), but still the European Convention added the important caveat about the interference being by public authority. So they "fixed it" [the UN wording that is], if you like.

The much newer Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, in article 11, while dropping most of the caveats/verbiage, did keep this one about public authority:

Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.
The freedom and pluralism of media shall be respected.

By the way the (1950s) ECHR applies to some 47 countries, the (2000) Charter (entered force in 2009 actually) only to the EU.

Also, an UK charity has an interesting page on the meaning of "public authority" as it pertains to ECHR (the UK included ECHR into national law). Basically, Westminster left the term largely undefined as to apply to as many circumstances as possible... and some litigation ensued surrounding the meaning thereof. Basically the courts ruled that contractors for various governmental agencies don't count as a public authority. The UK charity is pretty critical of this, arguing that the government can basically "outsource" violations of human rights in this way. I don't know what the situation might be in other European countries in this respect.