[three_seagrass]

What's even more fascinating is how hot-button an issue Free Speech has become.

Just look at some of the inflammatory replies to your comment that just mentions it. There's more going on with the semantics of the phrase being used to irrationally rile people up to outrage, rather than actually being about the definition of free speech.

[gtowey]

"Free speech" has become a hot button issue because for the first time in history, oligarchs are in danger of losing the absolute control they have had over media and communication throughout history. What they actually want is to ensure that their propaganda cannot be silenced, while simultaneously still silencing voices they don't like. Calling it free speech is a way to make it seem like their fight is somehow in the interest of the common folk too.

It's all part of the game where they get to tell a story about how they're successful because they are smarter or more deserving or better than the rest of us, while the reality is that they are robbing us blind and making sure that we have no choice but to work for them to make them rich.

Events like the Panama Papers leaks are terrifying to them because is exposes how universally corrupt the rich and powerful are and how badly they are using their wealth to screw us. If that kind of information becomes commonplace then people would realize that our fight isn't between ideological left vs right, it is, and always has been rich vs poor.

[d23]

> What they actually want is to ensure that their propaganda cannot be silenced, while simultaneously still silencing voices they don't like.

They've been so used to being above the law and above the rules it drives them crazy that they can actually be held to account somewhere. Most of them still get away with far more than the average person would ever be able to (see "Do Not Take Action on User Without Consulting With SIP-PES"), but even that is not enough.

[kmeisthax]

About a decade ago, the extreme far right realized they could rephrase their violence as speech, which meant that removing calls to violence was now "censorship". This subtle semantic shift has happened so thoroughly that "free speech" is now a codeword for "we can drop dox on trans people and get away with it".

Of course, this is absurd, because dropping dox on someone is one of the easiest way to censor them.

Conversely, a lot of actual free speech arguments have been recouched in the language of social justice purely for the sake of not getting confused for the far right. When you hear phrases like "hearing marginalized voices", you don't think of free speech. But it is a free speech argument: due to past acts of violence, a group of people are not allowed to speak, so we should let them speak.

And this isn't the first time this has happened, either. Remember that quote about censorship and the Internet[0]? That itself was propaganda for the hacker movement. The Internet does not actually interpret censorship as damage, nor can it "route" around it. Hackers do that, individually, and at a non-zero cost.

I personally think this particular rhetorical shell game has enabled some of big tech's abuses today. It's difficult to sell alternatives to big tech because that requires making a free speech argument, which means a lot of extra work on agreeing if we're talking about free speech[0], free speech[1], or free speech[2]. Because at a minimum, the Internet is not usable without a minimum level of justifiable censorship: i.e. banning spammers, deleting dox, and shutting down DDoS services. That requires making value judgments about what is speech, what is abuse, and what is violence.

[0] "The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it"

[1] "It's about ethics in gaming journalism"

[2] "Listen and believe", "silence is violence", and so on

[skoopie]

It's actually the far left that characterizes speech as violence. Even silence has been called violence by the left. I don't want to defend any actions taken by the far right but I've never heard of anyone successfully defending violence as being a free speech issue. Could you provide some examples?

[mindslight]

> how hot-button an issue Free Speech has become.

What has really happened is that a major political group has gone from having views basically supporting the mainstream power structure ("conservative") to having views at odds with the mainstream power structure ("reactionary", to use Moldbug's own label). They're shocked that their viewpoints are suddenly being censored by the mainstream media, and chalking it up to a conspiracy by the other political party rather than the mutually interested oligarchic behavior that's been there the whole time. For anyone who came up having their politics at odds with the mainstream power structure, the censorship dynamic of mass media (which now includes social mass media) isn't a shock.

(I suspect there's a similar pan-political shock for the generation that grew up with social media primacy, but before social media had been fully captured by the incumbent power structure)

[mylidlpony]

It's not because of free speech, if you look at every top comment in this thread you will find plenty less than agreeable ones, more than usual for hn in fact. I would argue the same thing happens on every thread related to Musk, Trump and Ye. Perhaps it is a coincidence, or even just inherent consequence of the demographic they target. I believe there might be an easier explanation though, especially if you consider how conservative politicians as of late have been getting a lot of loans and coaching in pr strategy. Some russian oligarchs even publicly made statements of similar nature. After all, what's a little shared botfarm between friends?