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Comment by tw04 | Hacker News Reader

I'd posit two things:

Who on earth says they need or deserve a "public channel to express themselves"? The world seemed to get by just fine before social media existed, and I have no doubt we'd all be perfectly fine if it were gone tomorrow. If the white supremacists are stuck going back to physically mailing letters around and struggling to organize that's a net win for society...

Where exactly did you come to the conclusion they're expressing themselves peacefully? So far we've had the Capitol stormed, and a thwarted attempt at kidnapping and murdering a state governor. Neither of those two events are anything resembling "peaceful".

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> Who on earth says they need or deserve a "public channel to express themselves"?

This is prime "Free Speech for Me - But Not for Thee".

You're making a very easy generalization. Not any significant portion of people expressing themselves contributed to any of the events you are mentioning. It's funny because you can read the exact same thought process from the opposite side, against say the BLM protests.

>This is prime "Free Speech for Me - But Not for Thee".

That was a pretty bold assumption on your part, and couldn't be any further from the truth. I don't participate on Twitter or Facebook, and I'm getting by just fine. Somehow I don't feel my freedom of speech has been in any way limited. So I can tell you with 100% certainty that you can in fact get by just fine without having a "public channel to express yourself".

>You're making a very easy generalization. Not any significant portion of people expressing themselves contributed to any of the events you are mentioning. It's funny because you can read the exact same thought process from the opposite side, against say the BLM protests.

It doesn't actually matter if it was "a significant portion" - they allowed the organization of what became a violent protest and will likely be de-platformed as a result. Freedom of speech doesn't apply to private companies. I have literally no idea what BLM has to do with any of this other than you're making another poor assumption that I'm OK with violent protests if it's by a certain group. You'd be wrong.

I may have made some assumptions about you personally but the points still stand.

You can speak for yourself with regards to your need for social media or platforming of any kind. Just remember that where we're going, there are no limits. Next you're off HN. Next is hosting providers. Then it's the internet (ISPs). So sure, they're all private companies but to ignore that fundamental impact is odd to say the least.

I will assume then, that you also concluded that BLM supporters as a group did not "express themselves peacefully" as there were plenty of linked violence, in aggregate well beyond what we witnessed a few days ago. It would be a breath of fresh air if that was really the case but I struggle to find consistency of principle among people these days and making that comparison is an attempt to highlight that.

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