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Comment by zelly | Hacker News Reader

Richard Stallman was right. The computer (smartphone) for millions of people has become a prison. The smartphone has been a tragedy for the human species.

"Oh it doesn't matter they went after people I disagree with"

Okay wise guy, what happens if the other side takes power? Think that's never happened historically? Then they'll come after you and I. How about we just not give this kind of power to anyone and let people make their own choices.

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It has been shown time and time again that giving unrestricted uncensored access to billions will lead to the worst ideas proliferating. Look at QAnon and conspiracy theories running wild. Look anti-vaxxers and how America, one of the most advanced countries in the world, is now having Measles outbreaks after decades of having nearly 0 cases. Look at how simple things such as wearing a mask has become a controversial topic.

Yes, everyone would obviously prefer a fully open and uncensored platform, but the reality is that those are very easy for bad actors to take advantage of. So many things on the web is disappearing thanks to these bad actors. Public APIs are getting locked down, Catpchas everywhere, passwords and 2fa are getting increasingly more complicated, and so on.

If you really think every platform should be 100% open, you live in an idealistic universe that is not this one. The whole idea of "the solution to bad speech is more speech" simply does not work. It just doesn't.

It's easy to blame all the flaws of human character on its most highly available and proximate expression which is speech. There is violence, anger, hatred, envy, all kinds of evils in the world, the world isn't perfect, man isn't perfect, and trying to control others' thoughts isn't going to change that. That would actually be regressing several hundreds years back to the Dark Ages. If your assumption is that banning free speech would improve things, I would say that is the idealistic fantasy. There's no proof that it would work or wouldn't have the same unintended consequences as before. The more these platforms push back against their users, the more they turn the public against them, the more opportunities they create to be disrupted. In a recent poll 3 out of 4 Americans said they were willing to die for free speech.

> trying to control others' thoughts isn't going to change that

Controlling the spread of misinformation is not "controlling others thoughts".

> your assumption is that banning free speech would improve things

Banning specific content such as anti-vaxx is not "banning free speech". If anything, let it go rampant on your platform is actually helping promote it. Private platforms have no such obligation. It's like if I came to your house and forced lies about you to your family, and when you threw me out, I claimed that you were trying to ban my free speech.

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