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Do you consider anti-government Chinese people, such as Falun Gong members or general pro-democracy activists to be bad actors and that censoring their speech i
by EnigmaFlare 2y ago
Do you consider anti-government Chinese people, such as Falun Gong members or general pro-democracy activists to be bad actors and that censoring their speech is important to protect institutions from them? I'm trying to point out that you can't simply decide who's good and who's bad. Censorship entrenches whoever happens to be in power regardless of their merits. Maybe you think democracy is the important part and autocratic governments are wrong to do censorship while democratic ones are wrong to allow free speech?
- a_victorp 2y agoThat's a very black and white view of ways of restricting speech. Aside from the US most democracies have some sort of limits to free speech and not all of them have turned into autocracies. To counter your argument, absolute freedom of speech allows whoever controls the media to create narratives and manipulate public opinion without consequences
- EnigmaFlare 2y agoWhat's wrong with manipulating public opinion? People aren't complete idiots and are still responsible for their own beliefs and how they vote. They'll only believe lies that they want to believe. The Soviet Union used to control all the media and its people famously didn't believe what it told them.