> But I do think that physical violence resulting in part from the amplification of voices by algorithm would have been hard to foresee. I too would be curious if his thinking would have evolved. Sadly, we'll never know.

Something that always seems to be accepted without question in these conversations is that censoring violent language will reduce violent behaviour.

Are we sure this is the case? For example, if you believed the election was stolen and all the platforms which would allow you discuss this civilly have banned you and those who think like you - what do you do?

Sometimes I wonder if restricting peoples ability to express themselves freely (and also talking about them like they are scum for holding certain view points) might actually motative some number of people to make their voices heard through acts of violence.

I also dislike how I've been pushed on to what I'd consider extremist platforms in recent months because a few people I follow have been banned from platforms like Twitter and YouTube. I think I'm strong minded enough to resist the constant bombardment of anti-semitic and racist content I am now exposed to, but I suspect some people are likely to be radicalised by this.

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To your point though, I often wonder how Aaron would have felt about the internet today. I've seen many people's opinions on free speech change over the years (including my own). Tech platforms when they were the underdogs were overwhelming in favour of free speech - I know early on Reddit and Twitter explicitely expressed their support of freespeech. But in recent years they have become far more powerful and it would seem their opinion on what they will allow us to say has now changed. Ironically they've moved so far on this that if Twitter, Facebook or YouTube were started today they would probably be shut down because of how much extremist content they platform - I remember there was a time when Reddit was full of child porn and even allowed a subreddit dedicated to it to operate.

I guess we'll never know how Aaron would have felt about all of this, but I know if there was anyone would could have proposed a workable solution it would have been him. It's a great shame he's no longer around to contribute to the future of the internet in the same way he did the internet of the past.