@DecaturNature The shopping mall angle led to some legal decisions ~1980s, possibly before. I don't know if there's been any subsequent online equivalent. I can't point at anything specific (though I may be able to turn something up on request). But that's where I'd start looking.

Pruneyard v. Robbins is the canonical case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._Robins (SCOTUS, 1980), finding for the plaintiffs that a free-speech right did exist.

This is probably the remit of the EFF / ACLU / EPIC and similar organisations.

For the record I've long had an issue with the notion that free speech rights are only a matter of direct government action. There are a few reasons for this:

• The right to exclude speech from private property ultimately relies on government sanction for that exclusion.
• Spatial monopolies, whether of commercial, educational, recreational, or even residential spaces, trade private control (and powers and limitations) for public ones, whether or not those private concerns are for-profit or not-for-profit. E.g., what are the free-speech rights on a private school or university, or a religious institution, or a park, or a residential complex?
• Common carrier provisions were enacted in transportation, and later communications systems, specifically because those systems, though privately held, exercised so much power over commerce, travel, and communication. The idea that free speech is absolutely limited to government interactions in that context strikes me as ludicrous.

#FreeSpeech #PublicSpace #Enclosure #EnclosureOfTheCommons #ThirdSpaces #PrivateProperty

This is a beautiful essay on #Capitalism, #enshittification, and the #EnclosureOfTheCommons (information commons, commons of community); and the use of open, public tools like @openstreetmap to counter that enclosure.

Strongly recommended!

https://bikepacking.com/plog/when-we-get-komooted/

@nzakas As an example: in Microsoft's hands, GitHub repository code search is now for logged-in users only.

Please don't put more code behind their locked gate.

https://news.itsfoss.com/microsoft-github-open-source-code/

#WalledGarden #EnclosureOfTheCommons