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Man, it's sad that HN is going down the reddit rabbit hole, spam downvoting these kinds of well-though-out posts that (admittedly) go against the zeitgeist of SV "know-better-than-thou" elitist mentality -- with absolutely zero discussion or counter-arguments. The arguments here are sound:

- Free speech is a virtue worth striving for

- Disinformation -- to the detriment of the public -- is a price we're willing to pay (barring some narrow cases)

- The alternative is draconian authoritarianism

As Juvenal asked almost two millenia ago: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? I'm sick of programmers that never picked up a philosophy or political science book in their lives think they just solved the world's problems by giving Google or Facebook carte blanche to censor as they see fit (because you happen to agree with the outcome today).

I'm guessing that it was down-voted for the vitriol and personal attacks which aren't relevant to the arguments.

It is not a well-thought-out post. It uses a bunch of emotionally-loaded but content-free trigger phrases like "elitist bullshit" and "nanny-state toadies" rather than well-supported arguments, and is being spam-downvoted for that reason.

It definitionally is elitist bullshit though -- Mattheij's entire post implies that he knows better. Sure the term might trigger you, but that doesn't make it any less true. To wit, I personally would've been much more scathing: I mean, has he even heard of John Stewart Mill? There's been a lot of trial and error here, and the blog post conveniently ignores it all.

>has he even heard of John Stewart Mill

I read On Liberty recently in the hopes of shining some light on the moderation debate. Unfortunately it came up short. I think Mill either ignored or did not anticipate just how dangerous a viral bad idea can be on a global scale.

The closest he comes in the essay does argue that inflammatory speech should be punished:

>No one pretends that actions should be as free as opinions. On the contrary, even opinions lose their immunity, when the circumstances in which they are expressed are such as to constitute their expression a positive instigation to some mischievous act. An opinion that corn‐dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn‐dealer, or when handed about among the same mob in the form of a placard.

Is there some other writing from him that you're referring to that provides more relevant info?

Read “Kindly Inquisitors” by Johnathan Rausch and then read it again. It should be required reading in schools which, ironically, would be against his entire argument.

Are you able to briefly summarize the ideas presented in it? "Go read $book" sort of ends the conversation otherwise.

“ His 1993 book Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought (published by the University of Chicago Press; expanded in 2013) defends free speech and robust criticism, even when it is racist or sexist and even when it hurts.”

From the authors Website. Simple to Google - it has been reprinted Ted countless times and is very popular since being published in the early/mid 1990’s.

Sure, the point isn't for me to Google it but to have a conversation here. Thanks for the info, though.

I have another post in this thread that touches on its ideas.

Thank you, a drawback of “read this public domain book” is that (while I should read it anyway) the HN thread will be long dead when I finish.

Yeah, but I can guarantee that you own't have to wait long around here (or elsewhere) for the principles of that book to be relevant to a conversation.

> I think Mill either ignored or did not anticipate just how dangerous a viral bad idea can be on a global scale.

I'll be as charitable as I can here, but the fact that you're even willing to call an idea "dangerous" tells me that you didn't quite understand Mill. Ideas, even though they might be "good" or "bad" -- do no harm. Ideas are meant to be thrown in the marketplace where the stifling of ideas hurts not the idea itself (or its inceptor), but rather everyone else. So an idea like "Bill Gates started COVID" might be a bad one, but Mill's argument is that I would be deprived if, say, Facebook or Twitter, would censor it.

Mill has no problems with ideas, but he does have a problem with harm (this is much more narrow). See, for example, how he differentiates between the two when he writes about the French Revolution[1].

[1] https://www.laits.utexas.edu/poltheory/jsmill/diss-disc/fren...

You're not arguing against the post you replied to. You say "Mill says ideas are not dangerous". The poster said "I think Mill didn't know how dangerous they can be". The poster has already acknowledged what Mill's position was, and has said that they suspect that his position is wrong.

> You're not arguing against the post you replied to

Yeah, I'm not granting the premise that an idea can be "dangerous" (neither would Mill) -- I think the burden is on @tyrust proving how/why/when ideas are "dangerous" because that's kind of a tall order.

It is a tall order! To make it a little easier (and hopefully clear up a potential semantic misunderstanding), I don't mean the idea itself, but its communication and implied call to action. Ideas rattling around in your head certainly aren't going to cause any harm.

The trite example is shouting "fire" in a movie theater. Hate speech or other inciting speech are other examples; this article mentions recent destruction of 5G towers.

Mill argues that the truth will win out, but doesn't (to my recollection) acknowledge the consequences that happen in the meantime.

(I haven't had a chance to read the French Revolution thing you linked, I'll reply to that comment once I do)

> The trite example is shouting "fire" in a movie theater. Hate speech or other inciting speech are other examples; this article mentions recent destruction of 5G towers.

These are edge cases that are well-covered by laws that are already in place. People blowing up 5G towers? Send them to jail. Censorship shouldn't even part of the discussion here; that's destruction of property.

Now you're not acknowledging the consequences, too.

I'll be as charitable as I can here, but the fact that you're even willing to call an idea "dangerous" tells me that you didn't quite understand Mill.

Positioning myself as an implicit authority, the fact that you're willing to write something I can subtly misrepresent allows me to switch rhetorical tracks and 'explain' a rudimentary concept in order to gain the appearance of superior cleverness.

Your unnecessary mental masturbation aside, Mill would never call an idea (or speech, to be precise) “dangerous” — ever under the most lax of definitions. I’d invite any evidence to the contrary.

Your red herring is stale and unappetizing.

The statement you took issue with was I think Mill either ignored or did not anticipate just how dangerous a viral bad idea can be on a global scale.

Nobody argued that Mill held ideas to be dangerous; if anything, that is being suggested as a shortcoming of Mill's philosophy. There is no good reason to solicit evidence for a proposition which nobody was making to begin with.

Sorry, it's not immediately obvious to me how this excerpt is relevant. I don't really know anything about the French Revolution, so that's probably part of my confusion.

I think my key takeaway from it is:

>Men are not to make it the sole object of their political lives to avoid a revolution, no more than of their natural lives to avoid death. They are to take reasonable care to avert both those contingencies when there is a present danger, but not to forbear the pursuit of any worthy object for fear of a mere possibility.

And I can get behind this.

I think the key difference, though, is that there is not really much equivalence between the liberal ideals of the French Revolution and a misinformation campaign to burn down 5G towers. As Mill says, the former "did not choose the way of blood and violence in preference to the way of peace and discussion", but the latter certainly has. The intent behind each are just so wildly different.

It‘s even worse than elitist, it‘s ultimately totalitarian and fascist. Any notion of freedom that doesn‘t include the freedom to be wrong is absurd and meaningless.

Do I really need to think hard about my support for basic human freedoms, every single time I see someone write a "well thought out" post about why they want to take them away? Is this kind of tensiment worthy of some kind of "well supported argument"? Will citing the great philosophers of history change any minds here? Do I need to quote S. G. Tallentyre, will her tired catchphrase strike home?

If the article had been about how we don't deserve the right to vote, or the right to free association, because we might vote for the wrong people or hang out with the wrong people, would you react the same way? Those rights are just as important, I believe.

There comes a point at which the feeling is, oh great, here we go, we've found yet another moneyed professional who has decided that because they personally agree with everything the establishment says, does, and wants, there can be no reason why anyone would want to dissent without being immoral and evil and so forth. Time to shut down people's freedom so they stop saying such annoying things, and then we can finally relax, all the problems in society will be gone!

If only we can make sure that only the Ministry of Truth vets every single thing before people say it, then we can make sure that pandemics never happen, that nobody ever gets mad enough to harm someone else, that nobody ever has a bad day ever again. It will be fantastic! It will be like LinkedIn, everywhere! Nobody will have anything negative to say, and so therefore nobody will ever have anything negative to think. Perfect. Can't wait.

Yes, he's a nanny-state toady. Anyone who wants to use the powers of surveillance capitalism to tell me what I can and cannot say and think is precisely that. It's not meant to be a nice thing to day, it's meant to engage you emotionally, because your freedom is being threatened as much as mine is by sentiments like this.

How much of an argument do I need to summon, when generations of my ancestors and those of many, many people in the west fought for these rights as a new pinnacle of human achievement? Do I really need to expend a ton of personal effort explaining to you why I don't think giving corporate HR departments the ultimate arbitrary authority over what is acceptable to say is the proper way to run society? Are you so hoodwinked? Are you a proud, outspoken person who somehow has zero critique of the current social order?

Agree with everything you said.

My only concern is the political aspect. I see mainly establishment media, elites and politicians are the ones pushing for the censorship because they're afraid of free dissemination of information online. Most others are pushing for the exact opposite, except for some fringe groups who wish to weaponize censorship.

The problem is that Google/Facebook now have to choose which side of a deeply political issue they will lie on, so of course they're siding with the powerful - the alternative would be risking breakup or regulation. No matter what they choose, a large number of people will be against them.

> Free speech is a virtue worth striving for

Whether or not something is virtuous is irrelevant when trying to predict the likelihood of future regulation. Instead, ask yourself:

• How does free speech help grow the economy?

• How does free speech keep the population docile? (the most likely reason for restrictions, see other comments in this thread from "free speech absolutists")

• How does free speech help elites retain power?

If free speech doesn't enable or support those three objectives it will eventually be regulated into something that does, using whatever mechanism (government, education, propaganda, or private enterprise) that's best.

I think elites would prefer we talk within a prescribed (Overton) window, in ways that don't inflame passions, and on topics that increase our GDP, so I expect elites to aggressively pursue restrictions inline with those principles.

What non-elites want or think is virtuous is ultimately irrelevant when it comes to speech, as it is in every other area that has economic significance….

Update: For people who doubt me, consider current speech restrictions in Europe. That's our future once the demographics shift enough—only crusty Anglos have majority support for unregulated "free" speech in the US according to multiple Pew polls, so restrictions are coming. Nevertheless, we'll always be allowed to talk freely about any topic (e.g. science, technology) that's needed to grow the economy since open and free inquiry is the best way to proceed.

>As Juvenal asked almost two millenia ago: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Part of the last 2000 years has been the attempt to development systems of government which inherently reduce the importance of this question. For example, by enforcing churn on "custodes", by creating a culture in which radical transparency is the norm, by encouraging highly participatory democracy.

Now, I will concede that these efforts have not born much fruit. Certainly not enough fruit to make Juvenal's question moot. But we are now in a situation where we may be faced with "draconian authoritarianism" because of the social and psychological impact of social media and its manipulation, so I'm not convinced that this "free speech vs. draconian authoritarianism" dialectic is really useful in an analysis of this issue.

Asserting that there are only two ends of the spectrum: free speech or draconian authoritarianism is very typical American thing to do; other cultures have a much easier time dealing with the idea that while the slope may be slippery, we can choose to take some steps down it and then stop.

(I'm not saying that I know you're American, merely that this sort of perspective is much more typical in the political and civic culture of America than most other countries in the world).

And frankly, I don't think your arguments are sound, because they hinge on a hand-waving claim:

>Disinformation -- to the detriment of the public -- is a price we're willing to pay (barring some narrow cases)

You (and I, and the rest of us) don't know what that price really means.

and to whoever decided to downvote this, how about you step up and explain what you think is wrong with it, rather than just hiding behind the downarrow?

>Part of the last 2000 years has been the attempt to development systems of government which inherently reduce the importance of this question. For example, by enforcing churn on "custodes", by creating a culture in which radical transparency is the norm, by encouraging highly participatory democracy.

Majority of the last two thousand years in Western Europe was inept Roman dictatorship followed by Germanic warlords duking it out. More like the last 500 years, no? Saying 2000 years lends an air of credibility that shouldn't be there, though you may just be going for word play in response to the grandparent

There's nothing inevitable about freedom of speech. China is 4000 years old, and they still don't have it. It WAS hard fought for. Speaking and thinking are the same thing. A society that cannot speak without fear of censorship is one that cannot think. It cannot ask difficult questions. It cannot speak truth to power. It is as much a cultural value as a legal one. It should be promoted and celebrated.

Promoted, celebrated, and continued to be fought for.

If you tautologically define "freedom of speech" as the compromise we have in the US, then that's true that we "have freedom of speech", but if you think at an objective measure of absolute freedom of speech (which would include any combination of words you could say, including what we would call libel, hate speech, copyright infringement, etc), then freedom of speech doesn't really exist anywhere.

There are just variations of restricted speech, some more than others, but also some different than others.

> Mattheij hasn't looked at what's happening in Belarus, in India/Pakistan, and what happened during the Arab Spring when governments decided to use the power at their disposal to shut down on the people's ability to freely converse with one another, even about Unapproved Topics, even with Officially Illegal Opinions.

For an example that's less dramatic but closer to the western world, take a look at the Croatian (an EU country) authorities arresting a journalist over some tweets: https://www.total-croatia-news.com/politics/38478-duhacek-jo...

Journalists are also regularly getting sued and fined on the count of "hurting someone's honor and reputation", mostly by politicians and (seriously) court judges.

I am mostly a free speech absolutist but let me take one of the example you gave, India.

Only yesterday, there was a FB post which said something negative about Islam. This led to people from that community rioting in Bangalore in which 3 have died and parts of city have burnt. [1]

This is not the first time a social media post has caused this over there. I would say the issue is very nuanced specially in areas where the social fabric is not that strong and if some amount of moderation can help, be it. But as always, who will watch the watchmen.

[1]: Warning: Cancerous ads: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/riot-hit-...

I think you can stay absolutist (albeit, being a bit cold about the situation). The principle of free speech is that it's paid for in blood because it's the least worst choice.

Edit: I personally think the reasonable limit is calling for violence or organizing genocide. But those have never really been protected in common law.

Easy for you to say, because you aren't a Rohingya and don't have to worry about people organizing your genocide on WhatsApp. We have to be able to criticize the government and debate polices, but when blood is involved (trying to get people killed) there has to be a line.

If people are organizing your genocide on WhatsApp, WhatsApp is not the problem.

But how do you reconcile with things like this. Free speech is better, but how much blood is worth it.

Again, going with the current example. Indian subcontinent has had a tumultuous history mostly in the last millenium. It has been ravaged by conquests involving destruction of a lot of things that the pagan culture(now referred as a religion) held dear. Even though now the part of the subcontinent that is India now is majority that religion. There is resentment for/from every religion that came from outside. There are still unresolved things which can cause things to flare up easily.

We have seen this flare up in US, say LA riots. Imagine a culture which has had issues about their identity and injustices in the past for far longer. Imagine people allowed to build narratives that incite violence freely and spread them like wildfire. It can turn deadly fast and has in the past.

> But how do you reconcile with things like this. Free speech is better, but how much blood is worth it.

I mean, the only possible answer a free speech absolutist can honestly give is "as much as necessary."

As with any absolutist position, one cannot permit valuing human life over the ideal. Once you do otherwise, you're a relativist, and the ideal is diminished.

And let's be fair - even most self-described free speech absolutists are relativists at heart.

Not easily, but I think it's the only reasonable stance. Anything else is too subjective and easily falls into slippery slope territory. Long term, I know harm will be minimised through free speech.

I don't really want to go Godwin on you, but do you really think that you can justify allowing the demonization of (e.g.) Jewish people because the eventual genocide perpetrated against them is "the least worst choice"?

The words aren't the problem (unless it's a rally to violence), the action is. Any culture that can pivot to genocide from being exposed to the written word has bigger issues.

Issues that may be intimately and inextricably bound up with the "free" speech occuring within it, perhaps.

You're also dramatically simplifying the processes that lead to things like Holocaust. The usual pathway involves several years (or more) of general speech-based demonization to soften up a population to the idea that the "other" is ... well, somewhat sub-human. The call to action comes much later, after you've sown the seeds necessary to have a significant population that says "yeah, well, i always did think there was something about those people ..."

Considering that the Holocaust was committed by a fascist regime where dissent and resistance was punished as treason, where an average citizen would be deathly afraid to question the regime even to their neighbors and children, it's quite a stretch for you to frame the Holocaust as a consequence of free speech.

Eugenics support and anti-semitism had been present in public discussions across the world for decades and decades, but it didn't lead to the Holocaust until a charismatic politician swept into office by convincing the German people that his noble goals - the restoration of Germany - justified any means; absolute power, suppression of dissent, the permanent silence of many people, it's all worth it, all for the sake of a greater German society.

That's how it starts. That's when the stupid and cruel thoughts in German citizens manifest into something destructive. Because these thoughts are no longer opinions, judgements are no longer subjective, disagreements no longer tolerable. Anyone who disagrees with the Nazi party is a traitor to his brethren. Anyone who supports the Jews is destroying the country.

We're obviously right, they're obviously wrong, and we need an authority to stop them! They shouldn't be allowed to talk about P̶i̶z̶z̶a̶g̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶Q̶A̶n̶o̶n̶ the Jewish agenda! The i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶n̶e̶t̶ printing press has made it possible for every individual to communicate with every other individual! The boring truth hasn’t even put on its shoes before sexy Jewish lies have made it halfway around the world and back. This is real, it is happening now and we are simply unprepared to deal with it! And boy, do we have a solution for you.

If you're incapable of differentiating between speech that disparages individuals or groups, and speech that advocates batshit crazy ideas that don't require the disparagement of groups or individuals, I can't help you.

I think there are risks to Pizzagate or QAnon speech too, and they are underestimated and likely not well understood. But they are completely different than the risks linked to "jewish/black/other people are devils" speech (of course, this elides the extent to which PG/QAnon speech is actually just this, in contrast, say, to flat earth speech)

I agree with you, however, that it's not appropriate to frame the Holocaust as a consequence of free speech, and was not attempting to do that.

It's so easy to think it's easy to figure out the "right" speech, just the "good" speech. I can't express it any better than the "What you can't say" essay:

> It seems to be a constant throughout history: In every period, people believed things that were just ridiculous, and believed them so strongly that you would have gotten in terrible trouble for saying otherwise.

> Is our time any different? To anyone who has read any amount of history, the answer is almost certainly no. It would be a remarkable coincidence if ours were the first era to get everything just right.

There are always risks to free speech, and there are always those who want you to believe that it's worth the cost of free speech. It'll improve society, they say. What constitutes "bad" speech is as obvious to you as it was to Nazi supporters: it's speech that they deem to be b̶a̶t̶s̶h̶i̶t̶ ̶c̶r̶a̶z̶y̶ ̶i̶d̶e̶a̶s̶ bad at the time.

Step 1: immediately dismiss certain speech with cocksure confidence that you'll always be right. Check

Step 2: mock others as "incapable" of differentiating good speech from bad speech like you can. Check

Step 3: demand the silence of obviously bad speech. Pending...

The problem with your entire approach to this is that is effectively in denial of what the proponents of the most controversial speech actually say.

They do not subscribe to the scientific method. They do not believe in the use of historical analysis. They do not, in fact, believe in free speech at all.

I'm happy for there to be speech from people who believe in controversial ideas that I do not agree with, on the condition that they agree to a methodology by which we can establish truthiness

But the nature of today's most controversial speech is that is utterly denies any attempt to establish a methodology.

I don't want to "dismiss certain speech". I want to avoid speech that is predicated on denying its own fallibility, on denying that there can be any independent investigation of its own truthiness, on asserting that it is based on secret knowledge that if the listener could only share would immediately establish the utter truth of it all.

The conspiracies that have become popular on the right generally fall into this category. You cannot question QAnon, you can only believe. You cannot question "there is no anthropogenic warming", you can only hand-wave.

Useful speech is always subject to interrogation. Is always subject to self-doubt. Is always subject to invalidation. Is always contingent.

So ... I don't care what the content of speech is. I care about what the conditions for speech are. Speech that does not admit to interrogation, self-doubt, invalidation and contingency is bad, regardless of its content.

I am not advocating for the silencing of speech that counts as "bad" by this metric, I am asserting that its presence in our culture causes problems.

> They do not, in fact, believe in free speech at all.

And when they appear on HN and other forums to advocate for the removal of free speech, I'll defend and advocate for free speech just the same.

Beyond that, it doesn't matter what they say or think, nor does it matter how insane or infallible you believe their speech is. I'm not going to pre-emptively silence them to prepare for a world in which they hypothetically silence me.

> I am asserting that its presence in our culture causes problems

Sure I guess, although that seemed fairly obvious to me. A lot of things cause problems, what matters is how we deal with them.

If you're not advocating for the silencing of speech that you count as "bad", then we're in agreement. This thread is about limiting free speech on social media, and I'm glad to hear you don't support that.

You're basically saying that we-all-together are a pile of unfixable trash (sorry if this summary is inexact). And yes, that aligns well with what I think about "us". But that's only when you look at it in stasis. This force that tfa represents is one of the forces that glues everything together. If not this "elitist bullshit", who would gonna go and prevent minds from leading into the opposite bullshit? It is easy to blame an apple for falling on your head, but had you turn off gravity, you'd left with not much time to regret.

I'm not even sympathetic to that hn jacquesm if that's him, but it's in our nature to fall into another bullshit pit right after someone pulls us from one. Discussing and questioning methods for balancing between the bullshits is important. You're just conflating that with an actual totalitarianism, because two vectors appear to be aligned atm.

Humanity has to make true information accessible (not only technically, but psychologically accessible, filtering out a complete bullshit noise that overscreams a signal). It's only ten+ years since we found ourselves in this mess,it's not an old thing. People were fed with wrong/insane ideas before, but it never was a world-wide self-sustainable viral phenomenon that no one really controls (as in tv). You're all for people doing their business and leaving them alone, but now many have no basis to rest on, and if that's not a problem for you right now, chances are it will quickly become one.

I don't think anywhere in this post talks about whether or not Mattheij has looked at those events, read those books, thought those thoughts, and what his opinions are on them as related to Free Speech. Assuming the worst of your intellectual opponent is extremely uncharitable and doesn't reflect well.

> Yes, there's bullshit about COVID and chemtrails and aliens all over the internet. Why do you care so much? You're so worried that people are going to make their own choices, live their own lives, make mistakes that impact others?

Umm, yes?

People are extremely vulnerable to misinformation distributed by platforms and people they trust, even if that misinformation will harm themselves or people near them.

Facebook-propagated lies about COVID-19 risks and fake treatments kill both the people who believe them and the people believers are exposed to.

Facebook was essential in embedding false information into the minds of informationally vulnerable people in order to create the dual democratic disasters of 2016: Trump and Brexit. Feeding seniors a constant misinformation diet of 'vote Brexit or your country will be overrun with Syrian terrorists' until they vote to destroy their children's economic future causes real harm.

Reporting on Facebook's failure to act in response to its platform being used to incite the Rohingya genocide[0] should also put to rest any thought that Facebook, as it is currently operated, is compatible with human rights.

Making people believe in UFOs and bigfoot is harmless; spreading propaganda that incites people to destroy their own democracy (pro-Trump), destroy their children's futures (pro-Brexit), or kill their neighbors (anti-Rohingya) is not. If Facebook won't do anything about their platform being used for these purposes, then Facebook should be shut down.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...

> Umm, yes?

So patronizing. Okay, people are "vulnerable" to misinformation; there's an unstated implication here that you've ascended to some higher level by virtue of consuming your daily dose of establishment media, and that you're no longer personally susceptible to this, and that there's no chance that any of your institutionally approved sources could ever misinform you.

> Facebook-propagated lies about COVID-19 risks and fake treatments kill both the people who believe them and the people believers are exposed to.

Well, that's tough, isn't it? If you're so afraid of that, maybe you should get a proper respirator, and only emerge into public to buy groceries, and then just live in full lockdown for the rest of your life. Sounds like you don't trust people to consume the information they want and to make their own risk judgements; too bad you're not in control of their actions. What a utopia that would be, eh? I'm sure you'd never misinform anyone, or say something and then have to walk it back a week later, or anything else.

Blaming Facebook for this is like blaming your municipality, or your car dealership, when you get into a car accident. Yeah, they built the roads, they sold you the car, but it's on you - it's your risk, ultimately, because it's your life. Yes, you can do risky things; yes, you can even do things that increase risks for others. That's life. It's all part of the fabric of living in a free society. You can only actually protect yourself, and even then, only partially. Controlling what other people can say or think isn't actually going to afford you that much more security.

> Reporting on Facebook's failure to act in response to its platform being used to incite the Rohingya genocide

As if these things wouldn't take place without Facebook; as though there wouldn't be some other way for people who are already morally in the position of wanting to kill others for their differences wouldn't just find some other way to kick it off. Again, you're blaming the medium for the message, and you have the misguided idea that somehow, if the right censoring moderators clamped down on discussion just a little bit more, that event wouldn't have happened. Of all the small-souled bugman mentalities, this is truly the worst.

> spreading propaganda that incites people to destroy their own democracy (pro-Trump)

I'm not an American, and so I have no real dog in the fight, but as far as I can tell being in favour of an establishment political party is kind of bread-and-butter democracy, isn't it? How is someone being in favour of your democratically elected president "destroying democracy", and how is acting like that's the case not in and of itself just as anti-democracy a thing to do?

Maybe, just maybe, you Yanks could stop frothing at the mouth about Orange Man Bad for ten minutes, and _use_ your freedom of speech to actually engage with people and find out what motivates them, what their fears are, why they've arrived at their conclusions, and maybe build some common ground so you can actually start to understand the underlying economic problems that have put you in the position you're in. The things that destroyed small-town Main Street are not too far off the things that destroyed the inner city, really....

> If Facebook won't do anything about their platform being used for these purposes, then Facebook should be shut down.

How about this: if Facebook won't do anything about your personal bugaboos, you should follow my lead and just delete your Facebook account and move on with your fucking life. Why do you feel this intense need to enforce your own personal qualms about what people say onto others? It's so easy, bro, just click that big X and go outside for a couple minutes. Get some perspective.

Because otherwise, you're asking for one of the most important freedoms ever won to be thrown away just so you won't be uncomfortable for a couple moments here and there. I can't imagine being so fragile.

I don't have a Facebook account to delete. This does not protect me from Facebook being used to mobilize the information deficient to vote to destroy the society I live in, or, in the worst case, protect me from Facebook being used to mobilize a lynch mob to kill me as a target-of-the-day. Individual actions, like not having a Facebook account, are not solutions to collective problems.

There is no inherent right to incite the destruction of society. That precedent was set when when the people behind Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines were sent to the Hague for crimes against humanity.

> This does not protect me from Facebook being used to mobilize the information deficient to vote to destroy the society I live in

The problem is that there are other people with polar differences in politics from you who also think that the society they live in is being destroyed, for the exact opposite reasons. Facebook should just butt out and let people have their own conversations; they should have no role in curating or doing anything about what people are saying as long as it's not absolutely illegal.

If you don't like it, then you've already made your choice to not have an account. Find some other outlet for your activism if you're so worried that society is being destroyed.

Not all viewpoints have equal value.

There is a very real difference between disagreeing over how to interpret actual reality (e.g. disagreeing over what is an acceptable level of income inequality in society) and disagreeing over manufactured issues created by feeding lies to people to make them fear for their society because of threats that do not exist.

There was no legitimate argument over whether pre-Brexit UK was on the verge of being invaded by Syrian terrorists, whether Obama is an American citizen, or whether there were 'caravans' of migrant-criminals approaching the US-Mexico border. These entire concepts, and the 'polar differences' they created, were entirely fraudulent inventions that Facebook was used to fabricate.

This is the face of the political use of Facebook, and for that it should be shut down.