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Western societies believe freedom of speech is the root of all that is good in the world. Healthy discussion leads to good governance leads to wealth, power, an

Western societies believe freedom of speech is the root of all that is good in the world. Healthy discussion leads to good governance leads to wealth, power, and status. China believes freedom of speech is just a leaf on the tree. Wealth, power, and status are the roots of a society that can weather the chaos of dissent. Dissent is like a source of entertainment to keep people distracted to be sprinkled strategically where people are too well fed to uproot the system. So of course wealthy and tech savvy costal urbanites are given more leeway on censorship than a poor farmer in the interior.

dgellow 6y ago
> Western societies believe freedom of speech is the root of all that is good in the world. That’s not the case for all western societies. Talking for the ones I’m the most familiar with, neither Germany, nor France, nor Switzerland is based on freedom of speech as the root of what is good and they have a good amount of legal and social rules regulating speech. As far as I’m aware only the US, and maybe British classic liberalism are that focused on freedom of speech as the most import concept. As a free speech advocate living in Europe I can tell you that’s not really something people embrace easily in that part of the world.
- the8472 6y ago
  The free exchange of ideas is still held as enlightenment value. Having some limited exceptions to the rule does not negate that. The US has them too, see hate speech or the thing about shouting fire in a theater. Freedom of thought and expression are articles in the charter of fundamental rights. Arguably the tradeoffs made when different fundamental rights conflict are different, but they're still held as fundamental rights.
  - catalogia 6y ago
    > The US has them too, see hate speech or the thing about shouting fire in a theater. America has limits on free speech, but those aren't them. "shouting fire in a theater" came from a SCOTUS case about protesting the draft not being free speech; that was thankfully overturned decades ago. And America doesn't have hate speech laws like Europe. Libel/slander isn't protected though.
  - dgellow 6y ago
    My point is that you're talking about US specific concepts. But your initial comment was about "western societies" as if they are one bloc. I can tell that a bunch of so called western countries aren't that concerned protecting free exchange of ideas as soon as you start to make people feel uncomfortable. Freedom of speech is mostly a US obsession (not saying that's bad, I personally would like more of it in Europe), here we have whatever we consider to be reasonable and decent speech as a criteria for what is acceptable.

dgellow 6y ago

> Western societies believe freedom of speech is the root of all that is good in the world. That’s not the case for all western societies. Talking for the ones I’m the most familiar with, neither Germany, nor France, nor Switzerland is based on freedom of speech as the root of what is good and they have a good amount of legal and social rules regulating speech. As far as I’m aware only the US, and maybe British classic liberalism are that focused on freedom of speech as the most import concept. As a free speech advocate living in Europe I can tell you that’s not really something people embrace easily in that part of the world.

the8472 6y ago
The free exchange of ideas is still held as enlightenment value. Having some limited exceptions to the rule does not negate that. The US has them too, see hate speech or the thing about shouting fire in a theater. Freedom of thought and expression are articles in the charter of fundamental rights. Arguably the tradeoffs made when different fundamental rights conflict are different, but they're still held as fundamental rights.
- catalogia 6y ago
  > The US has them too, see hate speech or the thing about shouting fire in a theater. America has limits on free speech, but those aren't them. "shouting fire in a theater" came from a SCOTUS case about protesting the draft not being free speech; that was thankfully overturned decades ago. And America doesn't have hate speech laws like Europe. Libel/slander isn't protected though.
- dgellow 6y ago
  My point is that you're talking about US specific concepts. But your initial comment was about "western societies" as if they are one bloc. I can tell that a bunch of so called western countries aren't that concerned protecting free exchange of ideas as soon as you start to make people feel uncomfortable. Freedom of speech is mostly a US obsession (not saying that's bad, I personally would like more of it in Europe), here we have whatever we consider to be reasonable and decent speech as a criteria for what is acceptable.