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Comment by colonelpopcorn | Hacker News Reader

Pretty sure we're already here. Ignorant or evil folks won't become enlightened or good if they can't use the internet.

Well, but they can use the internet. It's just that people who don't want to hear them (which is most people) won't hear them using the internet, and that is okay and not a restriction of free speech. They can communicate freely with people who care about their viewpoints over the internet, with people who want to communicate with them, but not on the platforms whose subscribers don't want to communicate with such people.

The right to free speech doesn't include the right to force your speech on people who don't want to listen to you.

Were we still talking about platforms like Facebook or Twitter, I would agree with you. But I think it's a bit different now that platforms like Gab are themselves getting deplatformed, because those are the places these people would go to communicate with people who share their viewpoints.

I have no desire to listen to that speech, so I just don't visit Gab. It's not like I've ever been forced to.

No, but they will be isolated, and an isolated person is powerless person.

Seems like a recipe for creating a lot of people with very little or nothing to lose.

Nah, I think the real danger is when they find others who re-affirm their convictions.

You are advocating isolating, deplatforming, etc.. These are tactics that hurt. Hurt people hurt people. If people are allowed to be heard and socialize, they gain happiness and are less likely to hurt people.

Really? You can't think of any isolated groups or individuals who have wrecked hell with bombs, guns, virii, etc? Or nukes for that matter.

They are not isolated from each other, they are just detached from those who don't what to hear them.

Imagine that you have a piece of rotting meat. It's unsightly and it stinks. So you hide it under the carpet. Now it's gone from view, and the smell is nearly gone. But it's still rotting down there, and at one moment you'll have to face what it will turn into.

Your analogy fails for me because the rotting meat you refer to are free people. You speak of these people as if they should be controlled. Where is the room for their inalienable rights?

Given that just shy of 30 years into this whole Web thing we're seeing it fuel probably the largest wave of white nationalism/authoritarianism/facism since WWII, it seems like that's the exact opposite of how it works.

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