[hellbanTHIS]

This is a few years old, the online world has evolved a little since then - as an extreme example the other day I searched the name of the trans swimmer who won the national title on Reddit and saw nearly every thread was locked. They’re not allowing it to be discussed on any subreddit.

So no, free speech can’t be moderated and still be considered free speech. Not for long anyway, the rules get tighter and tighter and the punishment for stepping out of line gets more and more severe.

I think people are picking up on this though and we’re starting to see a resurgence of old fashioned liberalism. The challenge is always how to allow free speech and not have everything turn into a sewer, but that’s a problem as old as the Enlightenment.

[atoav]

Don't you think it had to do with the fact that the internet grew so fast? I mean it is a mixing pot of the near immidiate brain streams of totally unrelated people — mostly in text form, mostly in the heat of the moment.

I'd love to imagine a fruitful discourse that would happen in the reddit posts you quoted, with everybody arguing their points about society rationally and topic oriented without verbally hurting anybodies human dignity. But if it was like that, it would probably not be locked.

Now it has been locked, and as I see it probably nothing of particular great value has been lost, no rare intellectual gems, no thoughtful debate or great discussion — on the other hand however a few people had a nicer day because they didn't have to read stuff that attacks their human dignity.

I am all for free speech. In a country where Nazi paroles are actually banned I am the one that would say talking to Nazis is not useless. What is useless however is to try establishing good discourse in the communicative equivalent of a gas station robbery: Everybody is screaming and all for different reasons.

But over here in Europe we have a fundamental human right to our human dignity. If someone tells you you should die because of your religion, skin color or sexuality, this is a breach of someone elses rights. You have the right to speak freely, but you don't have the right to rob others of their dignity.

If someone can't lead their discourse without robbing others of their dignity, maybe their voice is not one a free society should be willing to hear?