Here in Canada, we have the Internet, and with the click of a mouse I can find lots and lots of web sites explaining that the holocaust is a giant conspiracy and didn’t happen.
Nevertheless, it’s against the law for me to print them in a book and sell them in Canada. We know that people can read all that stuff, but there’s a statement being about what is and isn’t legal to publish.
It’s not so much the information that we are trying to block, it’s the signal I would be sending if I opened a bookstore and started selling copies of my book in broad daylight. The meta-signal of selling the book in public is telling people that holocaust denial is no different than any other point of view.
Canadians believe there is value in blocking the meta-signal, even if the signal itself flows somewhat freely across the country’s borders.
Not everyone agrees, of course. I imagine that most Americans regard Canadian hate-crime laws as being a horrible infringement on civil liberties, right up there with gun control and socialized medicine.
I’m not trying to convince anyone to abandon their principles and adopt the Canadian approach, I’m just pointing out that there can be a value in banning the publication of a work even if the work itself is available on the Internet.
Whether that value outweighs the other considerations in play is, of course, a public policy decision.