Criminalizing free speech limits our ability to think and arrive at the truth, and that can’t be good for anyone long term.
I haven’t heard of a good rebuttal to the above reasoning.
If you come to believe that the time humanity's brain spends occupied with these pursuits leads to negative real world consequences then I don't think the argument you've presented is very compelling. Put another way, if I were someone's therapist and my patient confided in me that, the more time he spends thinking about shooting up his school, the more he feels like actually doing it - I might advise him to spend less time thinking about shooting up the school. If I had the power, I might forbid him from thinking about it at all.
Really, what, but the amusement of edgy people, does humanity gain from entertaining these dark conversations? Perhaps such conversations play a role in the detection or prevention of bad outcomes. For example, police detectives are sometimes taught to identify with the criminal to understand their behavior, and so maybe having access to dark thoughts would help in that regard.
To me, the question of moderation hinges on whether you think permitting speech will be, on net, positive or negative. I don't have data or solid evidence - but I do have intuitions.
As an aside, if someone’s thoughts are ill-intentioned, you should be able to dispel them by forcing an honest examination of everything.
Unfortunately the human brain doesn't work that way. It tends to resist new information -- even if logically presented and supported by hard evidence -- that contradicts its world view.
And I'm not even talking about people who suffer from some sort of mental illness, or who are poorly educated, or anything of that nature. Everyone's brain works this way.
I write short stories, some are EXTREMELY dark. None deal with murder but I have done a rape story... well the two were lovers and he thought she wanted to be raped, so he did it. But still very dark no?
Wait I was wrong, of course I've done murder in shorts, but not for years and years.
But, neither does anyone have a right to an audience. And that’s what this is really about. Cloudflare is not depriving 8chan of their freedom of speech; they are just declining to assist 8chan in finding an audience.
I also disagree that speech is the highest form of thought in humans, but that is a sort of a side topic.
Free speech includes the right to be heard.
That's why the government is allowed to kick you out of political rallies/meetings if you're just there to protest or whatever; you're not allowed to try to shout over someone else to prevent them from talking, rather if you disagree with them then you need to go find your own followers to try to convince.
edit: To all the people downvoting me, do you not realize I'm literally just paraphrasing the relevant supreme court ruling?: https://www.thefire.org/say-it-again-for-the-people-in-the-b...
8chan's hosting isn't even being yanked, only their access to an edge caching CDN. I'm really struggling to see a "free speech" issue here. What if Google Analytics decides not to offer 8chan analytics? Does that also interfere with the right to speech?
The comment I was replying to was about what the constitutional right to free speech entails, not about what CloudFlare is required to do.
Certainly there are forms of restricting someone's ability to be heard that would infringe on their right to free speech, but the former does not necessarily imply or require the latter.
However if I don't want to hear what you say--or I don't want to help you say it--the government is not going to step in and force me to do it.
The distinction is really about depriving vs. providing.
People get it mixed up in their heads when it comes to contractual relationships like Cloudflare. On one hand it is grammatically correct to say that Cloudflare is "depriving" 8chan of their service, since 8chan used to have access to it. Legally, though, 8chan never had any right to Cloudflare's service. It was a privilege that was revoked.
Correct. However, the main/only service CloudFlare provides is preventing DDOS attacks, which fall plainly into the category of unconstitutionally depriving someone of their free speech.
Providing services to 8chan isn't furthering their mission in any way, and the only "advantage" of cutting them off is that it empowers the people who would deprive the 8channers of their constitutional right to free speech.
Thus, limiting a speech when it first comes out is never good. Any point of view should be discussed, debated, and its truthiness assessed. However, if something has been deemed untrue over and over, it would be pointless to keep bringing it up and trying to assert it as truth. At that point, it deserves to be censored out as to not interfere with the other ongoing legitimate pruning processes.
In the US, we are currently undergoing the Democratic primaries, and consequently are having many televised debates. Almost anyone in this country who has watched one would scoff at the idea that an unmoderated debate would arrive at anything approaching truth. As it is, I've heard many people criticize the moderators in previous debates for not being more heavy handed in what blatant mistruths they allow the candidates to say on stage. You can't arrive at the truth if one member of a dialogue is not interested in getting there.
All important philosophy and epistemology has occurred in countries with free speech restrictions.
I think I get your point though: It’s not an absolute game. You can do a lot of useful thinking even under some restrictions, so we’re forced to consider everything with more nuance.
Since ideas are just as viral and as deadly there is nothing inherently wrong with limiting the spread of some.
What then?
We can arrive at truth through dialogue, but dialog can also lead to propagation and affirmation of misinformation. One does not necessarily converge on truth.
Though, to entrust any government to control free speech to that end is an entire different point.