Quoting: The_Ultimate_Pielord
Free speech doesn't mean people have the right to a platform, it means they have the right to say what they want to say. It also gives people the right to decide what speech they want to give a megaphone to.
Let's say you have a twitter account with 8947298471984718974281 followers and I have one with like 10, and I say something you disagree with, which you somehow see. Do you retweet it? No, you don't, because why would you? My free speech rights aren't violated here, you decided that my random ramblings about Ceci sucking don't merit you giving me a platform.
It's a similar situation with Don. He can say whatever he wants, but it's Sportsnet's right to decide what to air. For a better analogy, would my free speech rights be invalidated by Sportsnet refusing to give me an intermission segment where I break down Dougie Hamilton and Andrei Svechnikov for half of it and spend the other half campaigning for Jaghmeet Singh? No, it wouldn't.
Don's free speech allows him to say whatever he wants. Sportsnet's free speech (or that of the people that own it) gives them the right to stop airing it if they don't agree with the speech or don't like the reaction it generates or don't like his suit or decide to run 20 minutes of ads instead or whatever. People have the right to say what they want, the right to amplify whatever voices they choose, and the right to grant/deny platforms as they see fit if these platforms aren't government owned.
To quote Randall Munroe:
"The right to free speech means the government can't arrest you for what you say. It doesn't mean anyone else has to listen to your bull****, or host you while you share it.[...] If you're yelled at, boycotted, have your show cancelled, or get banned from an internet community, your free speech rights aren't being violated. It's just that the people listening think you're an asshole, and they're showing you the door."
wrong.
They put him on the air for commentary. They know he will speak his mind, that's why they put him on the air. Lets not pretend Sportsnet has not benefited from his lose cannon commentary before. It has.
He gave commentary, as he always does, as per his job, it was just commentary they didn't want to hear. It didn't fit the PC narrative they want to push down your throat that people like you happily swallow.
For that they fired him. Wrongly.
It would be one thing if he was treated equally for all his other commentary. But he wasn't and there lies the problem and why your narrative falls apart. He has always been given a position where he's free to comment. He has never been treated such ways before for any comments he has made. Lets not pretend none of them couldn't be taken as offensive.
When you hire for commentary you get commentary. And there in lies the problem for your argument. Ask yourself, would he have been fired for the exact opposite commentary. When you realize he wouldn't have, then you realize why it's business terror. Because if he's free to comment about a situation one way and nothing happens, but not the other, then it is indeed a violation of freedom of speech.
Your point on these platforms not being government owned is also false. All cable, radio etc.. requires an license. In the US it's the FCC. There is also a Canadian version. Simply stating it's not government owned does not account for how that really works. You would never be allowed to broadcast 24/7 isis recruitment simply because you are a business, you would be thrown off the air. It's why things like RT news are no longer allowed on TV.
The truth of the matter is it is an attack on free speech. When a person who is paid for commentary is somehow treated different because his commentary is only offensive in that it disagrees with a political view point. Such acts are what china, USSR, or nazi germany does. It is not what the free world does. To constantly have a "get them we disagree with them" attitude is the very opposite of the values that any free country holds.
The whole point about free speech is that even if it is offensive, you still have the right to do it. Much like players kneeling in the NFL doesn't mean they should be fired and kicked out their contracts and bared from the game for life.
Such actions would be wrong.
It is clearly a double standard in the way in which things are treated. It is terror. And it does in fact violate freedom of speech.
You may not pick and choose how you wish to apply things based on your personal narrative. Which is exactly what you want to do.
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