The idea that it's important to have a mainstream and consequence-free venue for all forms of speech may be your belief but it is not mine.
My belief is that public forums with reach into the tens or hundreds of millions are fertile ground for nationalist and genocidal movements, and they will be used for that purpose if it is not actively prevented.
Moderation of wide-reach public forums with the goal of preventing movements causing mass death and misery is perfectly consistent with my own beliefs about the value, conditions, and limits of free speech. You might believe differently, even oppose these beliefs, but the idea that the only correct stance is yours and all moral, rational people will converge on it is ridiculous.
> My belief is that public forums with reach into the tens or hundreds of millions are fertile ground for nationalist and genocidal movements, and they will be used for that purpose if it is not actively prevented.
Yes, we must crush all opposition so your side can have absolute power!!!
Let them speak?
Not one chance, where shall you draw the line? Where only your side wishes to draw the line, of course. Perhaps, the only choice then is to crush the other side, for if you don't they will use the forum for "nationalist and genocidal movements". So you see, they must be eliminated in their entirety. Wiped from the existence of all forums, wiped from participation in establishing truths. Or maybe, since they always seem to find support, always seem to find people willing to fight for the rights they represent, always seem to come back when you try to silence and silence and silence every mouth that exists, instead of repeatedly ineffectively trying to suffocate a voice that wishes to speak, maybe what you need to do is to eliminate them all, all of them from existence. This is the only way you will ever prevent genocide.
> the idea that the only correct stance is yours and all moral, rational people will converge on it is ridiculous.
I never said that. Conversations exist to be had, good ideas should be promoted and bad ideas disproven and cast aside. Ideas should be considered and judged on their merits, even ones I don't agree with. There's certainly no requirement for any individual to engage.
Despite calling me out, there's irony inherent here in that you believe your stance is the only one that deserves to even be considered. Censoring those that do not believe as you do is the definition of believing you have the "only correct stance".
People do and should have the option to curtail speech in their spaces as they see fit. I choose to converse on platforms that limit my and other's speech minimally. That's not an endorsement of "nationalist or genocidal movements".
> Moderation of wide-reach public forums with the goal of preventing movements causing mass death and misery...
Claimed goals are always rosy until they aren't. Individuals habituated to not having to determine truth for themselves are ultimately doing themselves a disservice. That said, if people prefer platforms that censor certain content, then those platforms will thrive; that's fine and they have. I don't think though that information freedom is on most people's radars when they choose a social media platform. A lot of this legislation that requires mandated strict moderation will only work to entrench big players that can pay to do so.
I'm not a racist genocidal nationalist and I don't follow nor broadcast their content. I still don't want their existence in the public sphere to limit my expression. They're not that important and we shouldn't make them out to be.
> I still don't want their existence in the public sphere to limit my expression. They're not that important and we shouldn't make them out to be.
See this is the key thing and a conflict I pretty much expect and accept. I think they are important, on the metric of their body count over the last century. I'm willing to accept some limitations to public speech, both mine and yours, to reduce their power and risk in the future.
You don't accept that tradeoff, which I find a consistent and reasonable position that I also oppose. But your first comment did imply that it was the only valid position for reasonable people to have ("better stewards of their beliefs"). You may not have intended that meaning but it's the one I read.
> The idea that it's important to have a mainstream and consequence-free venue for all forms of speech may be your belief but it is not mine.
Well, imagine that you got kicked off the internet for saying what you just said? You’re only allowed to express your disagreement because of free speech principles
I have frankly radical political beliefs and am outspoken about them: getting banned and censored is not a hypothetical situation for me but an experience I have actually had many times.
Nevertheless I remain committed to preventing the growth of nationalist, racist, and genocidal movements, and I've come to believe that this requires moderation of large-scale public internet forums.
There is no fair, reasonable, effective content-neutral strategy here. All moderation is ideological, including the choice not to moderate at all. And every choice within that constraint will have consequences. We are better off looking at the consequences we want to prevent and working backwards, than we are starting from a specific ideology and moderating the way it demands.
"No moderation at all" isn't a virtuous abstinence from making this choice or being responsible for the outcomes, it is just one option among many, and one I find to have unacceptable consequences.
> You’re only allowed to express your disagreement because of free speech principles
Sort of true, but it doesn't make sense not to re-evaluate how we apply those principles when we encounter dramatic changes in communication patterns. You can believe in freedom of speech as an end in itself, or you can believe in freedom of speech as better than the alternative. If you think of it as better than the alternative, then you should be consistently measuring to ensure that is still true.
My belief is that public forums with reach into the tens or hundreds of millions are fertile ground for nationalist and genocidal movements, and they will be used for that purpose if it is not actively prevented.
Moderation of wide-reach public forums with the goal of preventing movements causing mass death and misery is perfectly consistent with my own beliefs about the value, conditions, and limits of free speech. You might believe differently, even oppose these beliefs, but the idea that the only correct stance is yours and all moral, rational people will converge on it is ridiculous.