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> I'm an individual who's opinions on unfettered anonymous speech have changed over the years, so I'll give my take. Alternative take: you never supported free

> I'm an individual who's opinions on unfettered anonymous speech have changed over the years, so I'll give my take. Alternative take: you never supported free speech and were just upset Bush era policies censored porn, gays and contraception. Once those things stopped being censored you stopped caring. I'd imagine the people who are now pro-censorship would turn back to free speech zealots if we banned all mentions of homosexuality online like they have in Russia.

banannaise 4y ago
> I'd imagine the people who are now pro-censorship would turn back to free speech zealots if we banned all mentions of homosexuality online like they have in Russia. Of course people who believe there should be specific limits to free speech are specific about those limits. It's already pretty common for activists to be in favor of allowing sex work while also wanting hate sites like Stormfront removed from the internet. If you remove both, then they'll focus on allowing sex work because the Stormfront problem is presently solved. That doesn't mean they stopped believing Stormfront should not exist on the internet.
- thrown_22 4y ago
  Then those people never supported free speech, they were just annoyed they weren't the ones deciding what to censor.
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
> Alternative take: you never supported free speech and were just upset Bush era policies censored porn, gays and contraception. With all due respect, what are you talking about? I think this is pretty silly, primarily because as someone who lived through that era I don't ever remember being worried that Bush era policies were "censoring" porn, gays or, especially, contraception?? I may have strongly disagreed with Bush policies on some of these topics, but I certainly watched plenty of porn, including gay porn, and never had problems looking up contraception information, and I never had any fear that my right to discuss those topics freely would go away due to Bush policies.

banannaise 4y ago

> I'd imagine the people who are now pro-censorship would turn back to free speech zealots if we banned all mentions of homosexuality online like they have in Russia. Of course people who believe there should be specific limits to free speech are specific about those limits. It's already pretty common for activists to be in favor of allowing sex work while also wanting hate sites like Stormfront removed from the internet. If you remove both, then they'll focus on allowing sex work because the Stormfront problem is presently solved. That doesn't mean they stopped believing Stormfront should not exist on the internet.

thrown_22 4y ago
Then those people never supported free speech, they were just annoyed they weren't the ones deciding what to censor.

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

> Alternative take: you never supported free speech and were just upset Bush era policies censored porn, gays and contraception. With all due respect, what are you talking about? I think this is pretty silly, primarily because as someone who lived through that era I don't ever remember being worried that Bush era policies were "censoring" porn, gays or, especially, contraception?? I may have strongly disagreed with Bush policies on some of these topics, but I certainly watched plenty of porn, including gay porn, and never had problems looking up contraception information, and I never had any fear that my right to discuss those topics freely would go away due to Bush policies.