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
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.
I completely agree with that. This all or nothing mentality does not work for almost anything in existence since life is all shades of grey.