" ... but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Sure Facebook makes it worse, but the whole American cultural idea of free speech itself is already

" ... but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Sure Facebook makes it worse, but the whole American cultural idea of free speech itself is already optimized for outrage. Every single discussion about free speech I see Americans gloat and pride themselves over specifically defending the most offensive types of free speech, because, just like self-flagellation, it shows of dedication to the cause (in spite of common sense or decency). I'll never forget the time when some extremist religious cooks wanted to bully the funerals of gay US soldiers, and the entire fucking country came to the defence of the bullies' right to freedom of harassment (I mean, speech), instead of the grieving families. Yeah that story is a bit old, but the cultural phenomenon hasn't changed a bit. This was just the first time that I realized (again) that the blind acceptance of anything as a fundamental truth (or right) is dumb as hell when you take it to the logical extreme. The more outrageous the type of speech is, the more vehemently Americans will defend it, which they see as a point of pride. And it is this culture that built the world's largest social network platforms, so you'll see this behaviour reflect there. It also just happens these platforms are particularly fertile ground to both these types of behaviour, so the entire problem gets broadcast, amplified and generally just worse.