No, people who say they want free speech want whoever the hell is currently stifling people's speech to fuck off.
Some may be absolutists and some may understand that the concept of free speech is a gradient and that absolutism has some extreme limits that are negative to society (eg. Fraud and Perjury). That doesn't mean they want the reigns of the current thought police regime, literally anyone currently crying "free speech!" not "hate speech!" wants the trend of ever more crushing control mechanisms dismantled and reversed so that more speech is objectively protected, not personal control over the subjective areas.
And fuck the "it's not the town square" and "this is all entirely new" bullshit, it's the same picture on a different canvas. It seems to me that's just an excuse to completely disregard a long history on the philosophy of free speech full of compelling historic arguments and even more compelling results from following their conclusions.
I'd rather live under a dictator who generally believes in and espouses the principles of free speech - and enforces it inconsistently and subjectively because it's always going to be subjective - than a committee of busybodies who publicly hold contempt for the very concept and admit to wanting to limit broad categories of speech for the "safety" of communities because somehow words are dangerous.
Right, but you have to be aware that dictator doesn't stay there forever either. A benevolent dictator works only as far as they stay in power until someone takes it over
Basically that "structure" that allowed the benevolent dictator to control us will simply be replaced by another group who will utilize that same structure to censor us. Which is why a "wild west" approach to the Internet is way more important and decentralization and a lack of ANY kind of dictator is always better for the free movement of information.
No, people who say they want free speech want whoever the hell is currently stifling people's speech to fuck off.
Some may be absolutists and some may understand that the concept of free speech is a gradient and that absolutism has some extreme limits that are negative to society (eg. Fraud and Perjury). That doesn't mean they want the reigns of the current thought police regime, literally anyone currently crying "free speech!" not "hate speech!" wants the trend of ever more crushing control mechanisms dismantled and reversed so that more speech is objectively protected, not personal control over the subjective areas.
And fuck the "it's not the town square" and "this is all entirely new" bullshit, it's the same picture on a different canvas. It seems to me that's just an excuse to completely disregard a long history on the philosophy of free speech full of compelling historic arguments and even more compelling results from following their conclusions.
I'd rather live under a dictator who generally believes in and espouses the principles of free speech - and enforces it inconsistently and subjectively because it's always going to be subjective - than a committee of busybodies who publicly hold contempt for the very concept and admit to wanting to limit broad categories of speech for the "safety" of communities because somehow words are dangerous.
Right, but you have to be aware that dictator doesn't stay there forever either. A benevolent dictator works only as far as they stay in power until someone takes it over
Basically that "structure" that allowed the benevolent dictator to control us will simply be replaced by another group who will utilize that same structure to censor us. Which is why a "wild west" approach to the Internet is way more important and decentralization and a lack of ANY kind of dictator is always better for the free movement of information.