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Comment by avancemos | Hacker News Reader

Free speech is overrated. Speech can be dangerous and therefore we need to regulate it on every level. Not just Facebook either; we need to ban speech and public commentary whenever it’s problematic. Books need to be screened too. Hopefully we’ll be able to monitor and correct people’s thoughts as well when the technology becomes available. When people have the freedom to choose, they choose wrong.

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Uh no. The problem today isn't free speech, it's that the limits on how you transmit and disseminate it, favors the tiny, loud, misleading, ignorant few who can generate the most 'engagement'. Like you for instance. You're hear calling free speech dangerous, and that is such an absurd and ridiculous point of view I feel the need to respond.

Free speech has worked great for 100s of years. You don't give up wheels because people have started driving cars into buildings.

I sincerely hope that was all sarcasm.

It was all sarcasm.

The last line is a direct quote from The Giver.

Gotta use the /s homie.

I didn't realize this was sarcasm until I read the replies. In fact I'm still having slight doubts.

Someone will probably comment soon to explain how your proposition is not at all absurd. A theater will be mentioned.

The number of people that are getting hypothetically trampled is too damn high!

Time to shut down the free speech.

> Free speech is overrated. Speech can be dangerous and therefore we need to regulate it on every level.

I know you're being sarcastic, but this is kinda true. Prior to social media, speech was regulated at every level though a hive-mind of individual choices about what to disseminate and the fact that broadcasting was expensive enough that systems of peer review (of the speakers or their works) had to be implemented to access it out of necessity. Social media took the peer review out of broadcasting, which does not seem to have been a positive development in many respects.

The speech part of free speech is overrated, and the editorial function of the broadcasting peer review systems is greatly underrated.

Your arguments apply just as well to voting; people express their views though voting without the benefit of peer review and those votes have an effect on the public as a whole. By your logic, perhaps secret voting is not a "positive development" and we need to "regulate it on every level" (your words) as well? I hope not.

(Note: I get the sarcasm) A lot of valid points here, I think the problem is in the size of the platform for the message. There was a lot of self reflection by Vox over the last year about “yes shining a light on bad ideas can disinfect them but there is a danger in amplifying the message”. Sure every idea should be able to be voiced but should every idea be amplified to billions of people without context?

HN guidelines are to not be snarky. Personally, sarcasm rarely adds to a conversation. Dang explains it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21187460

A lot of these leader are not too far off from this viewpoint they'd say it nicer and with more fluff but they'd come close to agreeing.

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