> It’s a slippery slope to give a subset of people control over what is allowed to be said.
Hate speech is also a slippery slope, as the Rwandan genocide and many other genocides/massacres attest to.
For those arguing for unfettered speech on social media, if you're going to convince me of your argument, you at least need to acknowledge that this history exists. If you're focused only on the risks associated with clamping down on free speech (which I agree are very real risks) and ignore the flip side of that coin, then it's hard to take the argument seriously.
The best I've heard from people making your argument is hand-wavy sloganeering of tired, unoriginal memes like "the best disinfectant is sunlight" or "the solution to bad speech is more speech", with at most one small anecdote provided in support of this idea.
The Rwandan genocide happened in 1994. What makes you think the Internet or unconstrained speech on the Web had anything to do with it? Social Media wasn't even a thing by that point. You're still in pervasive dial-up and chatroom territory.
If you're talking one of the more recent ones, (last decade or so) that Facebook shoulders some of the blame for, you'd literally have to surveill Every. Last. Communique. Which everyone with any sense should recognize as an Orwellian Dystopian nightmare, and a fruitless moving target, because as soon as groups of interest realize they are being monitored, arms races and coded communique come into play.
So it isn't moving goalposts. It's a simple statement that the individual's desire for a hate-speech free Internet is not so great it warrants laying the technical foundation and infrastructure which in the wrong hands will absolutely be abused. Certainty factor of 1.
Technology empowers everyone equally, especially those already in a position of power that we really don't want to make exercising control practical for. That's the people problem that no application of technology can fundamentally solve for.
> What makes you think the Internet or unconstrained speech on the Web had anything to do with it?
That is not what I think. Hate speech is the causal factor that I'm talking about, not the medium. People used the most effective tools that were available to them at the time. Before it was radio, print or film. Now it's social media.
> Orwellian Dystopian nightmare
I agree that speech restrictions can progress into an Orwellian nightmare.
But, again, you've ignored the flip side. Hate speech can also progress into an Orwellian nightmare. It's happened throughout history.
So we have two opposing things that can each potentially lead to an Orwellian nightmare. Yet in your argument you've ignored the latter, only focusing on the risks of the former. That's why I am unconvinced by this line of argumentation. It is ahistorical in the way that it downplays the causal factors that lead to genocides and massacres.
To convince me, you'll have to explain why the former is more likely to lead to a bad outcome than the latter, while keeping true to history.
I believe strong language can escalate things, but there is no causal relationship to conflicts as it was believed for the longest time. Especially if you look at different online communities, vulgar language doesn't even seem to have an effect on conflicts. Sometime people even calm down after having had the ability to vent.
Wars happen for different reason. I wouldn't know of any war started by strong language.
One point of the conflict was that speech was restricted too much as far as I know, that can easily escalate a conflict.
Are you saying that there is no causal link between hate speech and genocides/massacres? Because that's historically not accurate. Here's a recent example:
What conservatives ignore (and I consider myself pretty conservative-leaning) is that there's a grey area of speech that doesn't rise to direct incitement to violence but that nevertheless contributes to a climate that leads to genocide.
Other examples: The Der Sturmer publication in the 1920s Germany, and the hate speech being broadcast on public radio in Rwanda, among other examples. This speech galvanizes the general public against a group, which can lead to a not-so-great outcome for them.
Who but the audience has control over whether or not to be convinced?
This is the part I won@t budge policywise on. I won't accept a Big-Brother-Knows-Best arrangement where some nebulous group gets to wield absolute control over what things people say get to be heard.
For every untouchable, despised viewpoint in the town square are instances beyond number of parents warning children to take that individual as an example not to be. Or instances of a future being moved to counter the movement. Life, and by extension free-speech, is risky. We know this. We've known this. We will hopefully teach our children the same so they too will know.
Ours is not the right to forge their chains. Liberty is important, hard won, and easily lost, and difficult to reclaim. Does that mean unpopular movements gain momentum? That lives may be lost? Yes. Does that mean we should abandon all semblance of commitment to Liberty, and erect the illusion of a safe world only to have it be shattered again and again in a self-reinforcing spiral whereby more and more liberty is ceded to authorities so they can deliver more safety?
Hate speech is also a slippery slope, as the Rwandan genocide and many other genocides/massacres attest to.
For those arguing for unfettered speech on social media, if you're going to convince me of your argument, you at least need to acknowledge that this history exists. If you're focused only on the risks associated with clamping down on free speech (which I agree are very real risks) and ignore the flip side of that coin, then it's hard to take the argument seriously.
The best I've heard from people making your argument is hand-wavy sloganeering of tired, unoriginal memes like "the best disinfectant is sunlight" or "the solution to bad speech is more speech", with at most one small anecdote provided in support of this idea.