Free speech is a discussion that brings out a lot of different people with a lot of different takes on it.
You have people that believe in unmitigated free speech. (this is free speech)
You have people that believe in free speech except for illegal speech, but who decides what's illegal and what's illegal constantly changes.
You have people that believe in free speech, but not violence or bigotry.
You have people that believe in free speech, but then ban anyone who they decide is a shill that posts MSM shill business.
You also have people that believe other people should only believe or write what they themselves believe, no questions asked. You see this in many countries ran by full on authoritarian governments.
Then there's the matter of private property. Should you be allowed to yell whatever you want on someone else's property, whether it be a home, a car, a business or a website. No matter what people try to convince you of, a website is private property, it is owned by someone or a corporation, they pay the bills.
Do we force private companies to pay the bills to host content that they do not want?
Also take note on this fact: Any site that has allowed very very little moderation always turns into a shit show or stormfront. There are many many many examples of this. This alone shouldn't be a problem, however, constant bigotry and aggressive insults to anyone who doesn't share those views is a very good way to chase everyone away.
Some people will say great! We don't want those faggots here! Then all you're doing is jerking each other off to the exact same ideas, which results in zero growth and mostly just a big pile of jizz on your own face.
So what is an acceptable level of free speech to everyone here?
EDIT: Woke up today banned form the Donald. Never even posted there. LOL
Either be a "platform" and allow all speech or a "publisher" and police the speech of everyone and be held liable for any repercussions of that speech.
It's pretty simple. You can have one but not both.
Liable for repercussions? How so? What kind of repercussions for what kind of speech? And who decides?
Legal repercussions. For instance, if someone got hurt/violated directly from the speech of a user on a website and nothing was done on the part of the administration of the website.
If that website were seen as a publisher of that content (ie. They have final judicial oversight of the words they choose to put into the public eye) then they could be held liable in a court of law for consequences of that content.
I'm not a lawfag, but that's my understanding.
How could speech directly hurt a person? Like hurt feelings? Or physical harm? Same question for being violated. How could I violate you with my speech?
Who are you saying is liable if my speech on this site has hurt or violated you? Me or the site? Or both? Are websites that allow for content from users now tasked with making sure to limit liabilities from potential speech that could potentially violate another person? Who in their right mind would have a website at that point? Do sites like Amazon need to monitor the reviews of products and Q and A portion of their sites because someone's opinion was hurtful or damaged their reputation because the product sucked? Peoples reviews could hurt the feelings of the makers of the product and even make them lose money and potentially feel violated by honest reviewer making him and Amazon both liable for it.
A call to action for instance. If I were to communicate with a bunch of other people to raid someone's house on a specific day and time, that could be seen as a call to action.
But I'm not saying your speech hurt or violated me. I firmly believe that anyone should be allowed to say whatever they want at any opportunity.
I'm taking this opportunity to tell you to chill the fuck out and stop acting like I'm attacking you.
Why can't you have both?
Why can't I make a site that's open to discussions I agree with?
If I make an open website for discussing cats and you come on it and start writing rape fantasies and I get rid of them, am I a platform and a publisher? Do I have no right to get rid of bullshit I don't agree with and don't want since I'm paying the bills?
My point is that you cannot have free speech while also censoring speech. It's in the definition.
If you set up a site for cat posting and you censor rape posts then you're acting as a publisher. And that's fine.
But if you set up a website dedicated to free speech then, by definition, you cannot censor viewpoints you disagree with. Otherwise you're still acting as a publisher and not a platform.
A publisher takes an active role. A platform is passive.
But there are no unmoderated platforms anywhere, so by your definition platforms do not exist, except maybe the dark web. Nothing "known" by the general population.
Because it's a remarkably tricky subject to handle fairly.
Everyone walks around pretending you can either be completely for or against it, but what we'll have to settle for is something in the infinite shades of gray.
I personally want something as close to truly free speech as possible. I know there are stupid cunts out there who will ruin that idea immediately, but I'll always prefer more speech than less.