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The funny thing about social media companies censoring is how they keep making the case for free speech over and over again without realizing it. Mill: > Firs
by slibhb 5y ago
The funny thing about social media companies censoring is how they keep making the case for free speech over and over again without realizing it.
Mill:
> First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility. Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied. Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds.
The last point is the least obvious. Pro-Rittenhouse views were "held in the manner of a prejudice" by those who had them because they were censored. When those views aren't censored and there's a healthy back-and-forth, moderacy tends to prevail.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoFacebook can choose to host whatever opinions they like as they own the platform. Obviously as long as those "opinions" are legal and not such things as terroristic threats, etc. That also is free speech and the right to with your property as you like.
- slibhb 5y agoEveryone is well aware that the first amendment does not apply to Facebook. The question is whether Facebook should censor not whether they legally can. The passage I quoted from Mill is an argument for free speech in general, not only with respect to the government.