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Comment by ruthmarx | Hacker News Reader

> No it’s not. The US is consistently banning free speech - including are you rightly say banning books in schools.

Some states are doing that at a state level in limited contexts. Individuals are still free to post or publish whatever they want.

> It’s just that the restrictions the US has are determined by Americans to be the right levels and other restrictions (for example laws against glorifying nazism) are the wrong levels.

No, it's that in the US this kind of freedom is significantly more protected and culturally important.

> The sad thing is Americans believe the propaganda that they have freedom and nowhere else does and therefore their restrictions on speech aren’t real but others are.

I would say the sad thing is anti-US sentiment can be so high that people won't debate something like this in good faith and look at the various cases and histories.

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Isn’t it too early to declare anti-US sentiment here?

Challenge one: Could it be that previous commenter touched certain dogma? (One possible definition from Wikipedia: “Dogma, in its broadest sense, is any belief held definitively and without the possibility of reform”)

Challenge two: please try to stretch the definition of “censorship” a bit till you can say that USA has SOME censorship, maybe in disguise. (One possible definition from Wikipedia: “Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information.”)

(No need to report results or reply / just try the exercise for elasticity of the mind)

BTW. A bit related, hopefully interesting, random fact you did not ask for:

“Freedom” is defined quite differently by people in different countries. While the U.S. often focuses on freedom from government interference, in France, freedom also includes the idea that the government has a role in ensuring social justice and protecting individual rights, and in Baltic countries the freedom usually means freedom from a certain country.

> Isn’t it too early to declare anti-US sentiment here?

Maybe, but in my experience it's usually the dominating factor. Anti-US sentiment can be high, and a lot of people from western countries are skeptical that the US can be any more free than their own in any capacity.

> Challenge one: Could it be that previous commenter touched certain dogma?

I don't believe so. The comment I replied to was using state schools banning some books as an example, even though I mention that in my comment and explain why it doesn't apply.

You'd have to be clear on what you think the dogma here might be, but whatever it may be I'm confident my position is backed by facts and reason.

> Challenge two: please try to stretch the definition of “censorship” a bit till you can say that USA has SOME censorship, maybe in disguise.

I never claimed the US has no censorship, just that it has a lot more freedom due to cultural and legal reasons in contexts like we are discussing here.

> No need to report results or reply / just try the exercise for elasticity of the mind)

Critical thinking is an important step in reasoning and a great way to keep a mind sharp, for sure.

> “Freedom” is defined quite differently by people in different countries. While the U.S. often focuses on freedom from government interference, in France, freedom also includes the idea that the government has a role in ensuring social justice and protecting individual rights, and in Baltic countries the freedom usually means freedom from a certain country.

That is interesting. I would say that latter definition applies in the US as well though. For example, we all expect to be free of crime due to police and such, even if that expectation is not always met.

Holocaust denial or vaccines have microchips or other nonsense is one thing. The two things that are censored so I can't post them (not that I want to) are CSAM and Disney Movies.

CSAM, I would argue is an active harm so that's a little different from speech, although protected IP is a good example. I'd still say it's a little different and not exactly censorship, as it's not exactly 'speech', but certainly IP laws need an overhaul.

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