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> Free speech as a principle isn't about hearing stuff you like. It's about hearing stuff you don't like. Free speech is not about the "right to be listened to
by Shank 6y ago
> Free speech as a principle isn't about hearing stuff you like. It's about hearing stuff you don't like.
Free speech is not about the "right to be listened to," it's a very specific concept that means that the government cannot punish you or restrict your ability to make speech. If one person has a wildly unpopular idea, that is simply what it is: unpopular. To quote the first amendment of the United States Constitution:
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The true problem in all of this is that the right to "speak freely" is not something that was conceived thinking it would be possible to immediately transmit speech over thousands of miles to millions of people. We have so far enshrined corporations with protection and simultaneously not created any government backed properties for people to share ideas (akin to a digital public square).
If anything is a problem it's that there is no equivalent to a public square because most Internet forums are privately owned places. It would be like if the only land that people didn't own was the sidewalk to city hall.
- hubert1234 6y ago> Free speech is not about the "right to be listened to" well it is on some level because if your argument is that free speech still works okay if it is never allowed to leave the four walls of my skull then we are basically at Stalin levels of mental contortion. > If anything is a problem it's that there is no equivalent to a public square That's actually the first time I heard the idea that the government should create its own content hosting platform and it may be a necessary solution tbh but I also still like the idea of forcing everyone to host all content but you can put it behind filters. The situation right now can maybe be compared to entire towns being company towns. It's not that surprising that there is anger when the company makes some rule for your life and you cant escape that rule because the entire town is owned by the same company.