Global freedom declines for the 17th consecutive year.

[F1fan]

No doubt there is hateful speech based on bigotry and such.

But cries of "hate speech" has also become a tool for authoritarians and totalitarians.

It's not difficult to understand the difference between the two for well informed and stable minds.

How would you propose dealing with such speech? To me censorship marks the beginning of the end of freedom.

I suggest better education in schools teaching kids critical thinking skills. And mental healthcare access so people of all ages get life management advice. Both bullies and the bullied will find ways to behave with better options.

Much of the censorship I support is for users who are children. Kids need to be monitored in all areas of social life to make sure there aren't behavioral problems and harm. Censorship is often a matter of business models. Even parler could not avoid censorship even though they advertized themselves as no censorship. The hate speech is too much a temptation for disturbed users.

And the end of freedom coming from censorship? No. It comes to too many people abusing the freedom their society has given them. It's like a credit card, if you abuse it, you lose it. The same applies for other areas of life. If you act up on an airplane, you get banned from flying. If you commit crimes, you get arrested and tried.

There's no ideal and absolute freedoms or rights. They are all conditional.

I would agree that free speech is no guarantee of a platform. And the internet does provide a way for haters to join forces, sad but true.

Holding more abusers accountable will hopefully become a lesson.

 

[icehorse]

It's not difficult to understand the difference between the two for well informed and stable minds.

Not talking about you, but for many on RF it appears to be difficult to understand the difference

I suggest better education in schools teaching kids critical thinking skills. And mental healthcare access so people of all ages get life management advice. Both bullies and the bullied will find ways to behave with better options.

yup

Much of the censorship I support is for users who are children. Kids need to be monitored in all areas of social life to make sure there aren't behavioral problems and harm. Censorship is often a matter of business models. Even parler could not avoid censorship even though they advertized themselves as no censorship. The hate speech is too much a temptation for disturbed users.

I agree we have to expose kids to harsh materials only when they are sufficiently developed to understand and deal with them.

But I usually don't think of children when I worry about censorship.

As for websites, I don't think we can view them as "the public square". In other words, as hosts, they can choose what to publish.

And the end of freedom coming from censorship? No. It comes to too many people abusing the freedom their society has given them. It's like a credit card, if you abuse it, you lose it. The same applies for other areas of life. If you act up on an airplane, you get banned from flying. If you commit crimes, you get arrested and tried.

There's no ideal and absolute freedoms or rights. They are all conditional.

Here I think we disagree. To be clear, I'm mostly concerned about our ability to criticize those in power. And I'd say we can never have too much of that.