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Comment by billylindeman | Hacker News Reader

It scares the living shit out of me how many people in tech are actively fighting against free speech.

Censorship is evil. It is a power that will be abused for political gains (as we're already seeing). That is pretty much a constant throughout human history. The internet itself was a platform for free speech. That's what made the internet of the 90s so great. Now look at it. A handful of mega corporations spying on everyone all day every day, and controlling what they're allowed to see and talk about.

It's all very 1984, and everyone seems asleep at the wheel.

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There's a rather large gap between "Maybe we shouldn't let people plan genocide online" and 1984.

And we already accept limits on free speech. For example, can I publicly lie about someone as "free speech"? No, it's libel/slander.

There is not a gap. It is all just speech. When there are limits placed, then someone has to decide where they are, and therin lies the rub. It is only libel when you can show damages, only conspiracy when you make some action toward the goal, and only a threat when articulated. The laws exist and are clear.

Saying "There is not a gap" does not make the gap disappear. Applying limits to free speech is not absolute totalitarianism, unless the limits themselves are totalitarian.

For example, if criticizing the government is banned, that's totalitarian. If saying "All members of group x should be tortured to death" is banned but criticizing the government is not (unless the government is torturing group x to death), then it's not totalitarian.

Nobody was forced to visit or read Gab, just as nobody is forced to listen to what I say to a few friends in my living room.

Do you intend to control the latter as well, in the name of your "community"?

I think the damages are clear enough when eleven people are murdered.

Speech is never "just speech": it enables and compels people to take actions. That's why free speech is important in the first place. In the same spirit, that's why free speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences.

Speech does not compel. People have free will, which is why they are held responsible for their actions, and judged accordingly.

You can't have your cake and eat it. If speech doesn't have power over people, why do authoritarian governments fear it and seek to curtail that freedom?

compel: force or oblige (someone) to do something

Speech can motivate, encourage, inspire, disgust, leave indifferent, irritate, and so on -- but people who act on a given idea do it of their own free will. What authoritarian government fears is that people use their independent minds, allow disagreement and debate, and choose to act in defense of their freedoms.

A distinction without difference. Some people can use their independent minds to disagree, debate, and then decide to defend their freedom by cleansing their country of lesser races. That's what we all fear.

I've heard this kind of argument a lot. I heard it when someone was defending the Charlottesville tiki torchers surrounding a synagogue with torches as "free speech" because they were standing on a public sidewalk. By that logic, it's okay for me to point a loaded gun in your face, as long as I don't actually pull the trigger. That intimidation and threats are just "free speech".

The "limits" are being placed here by other organizations that don't want to touch Gab with a 10-foot pole.

Gab is perfectly free to entertain whatever politics they like, unfortunately for them, the eco-system around them is also free to react by refusing service to them.

Maybe they'll need to switch to a listserv? Whatever the case, it is perfectly OK to deny Gab services, just as it would be OK to deny doing business with Facebook or Twitter.

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