Reddit's got it right: free speech is an ideal independent of laws
Attributed to Reddit administrators:
We stand for free speech. This means we are not going to ban distasteful subreddits. We will not ban legal content even if we find it odious or if we personally condemn it. Not because that's the law in the United States - because as many people have pointed out, privately-owned forums are under no obligation to uphold it - but because we believe in that ideal independently, and that's what we want to promote on our platform.
From a comment Further down the page:
Free speech is a concept that exists outside of the Bill of Rights and isn't wholly defined by the government.
All from http://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/23c1dq/xkcd_free_speech/
We stand for free speech. This means we are not going to ban distasteful subreddits. We will not ban legal content even if we find it odious or if we personally condemn it. Not because that's the law in the United States - because as many people have pointed out, privately-owned forums are under no obligation to uphold it - but because we believe in that ideal independently, and that's what we want to promote on our platform.
From a comment Further down the page:
Free speech is a concept that exists outside of the Bill of Rights and isn't wholly defined by the government.
All from http://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/23c1dq/xkcd_free_speech/