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> But the "free speech absolutists" who used to bark about this are nowhere to be seen. Anti censorship absolutism is a dream. The idea is that if you just pul
by brucethemoose2 3y ago
> But the "free speech absolutists" who used to bark about this are nowhere to be seen.
Anti censorship absolutism is a dream. The idea is that if you just pull back the moderation barriers, the surpressed truth will pour out like a flood.
But... It does not. Maybe you get some interesting niche commentary like you very, very rarely find on 4chan, but mostly you get a cesspool in a bubble. But the negative results do not kill the dream.
- atoav 3y agoIndeed: It is an illusion that a space without rules will lead to a more free communication. It will lead to a different communication, and funnily enough these spaces too have their ad-hoc rules and conventions. Only naive people truly believe that the communication on something like 4chan was ever a free one. Sure it certainly is a different communication, and there are discourses you can lead on such a platform you hardly could lead anywhere else — but there are also discourses you could lead somewhere else that you can't really have on 4chan. E.g. try having a sincere debate about literally anything on there. Free speech absolutists are like people who believe if only there was the right of the stronger we would be more free, when in fact it would very likely be much worse. That being said, as someone who grew up in a right wing environment: for them free speech, like all other freedoms, are just a tool they will abuse till they have the power to take these freedoms away from others. They don't care about free speech, they care about ruling.