> Everyone agrees there certain types of speech that should be moderated or banned.
Setting aside direct calls to violence, there’s plenty of free speech absolutists that are fine with idiots saying whatever they’d like to whoever they’d like.
> 65% of Americans support tech companies moderating false information online and 55% support the U.S. government taking these steps. These shares have increased since 2018.
> Americans are even more supportive of tech companies (71%) and the U.S. government (60%) restricting extremely violent content online.
> Democrats are more supportive than Republicans of tech companies and the U.S. government restricting extremely violent content and false information online. The partisan gap in support for restricting false information has grown substantially since 2018.
Well, for some people it's more like "Everybody's a free-speech absolutist until the speech causes them ~~to get punched in the face~~ shoot someone in the face for trying to punch them in the face." And even then some of them probably still are free speech absolutists.
The common thread behind people wanting to restrict speech (be it violence or porn or whatever) is fear. People fear other people and want another organization (the government) to protect them or make someone else liable. It's practical and efficient, rather than moral. Same kind of short term thinking is why global warming will not be uniformly addressed for many generations...maybe never.
> The common thread behind people wanting to restrict speech [...] is fear.
I'm resistant to this framing because I think it could lead to some facile arguments, since ultimately "fear" (anticipation of future harm) is also behind huge swathes of laws/restrictions which are generally uncontroversial and moral.
> People fear other people and want another organization (the government) to protect them or make someone else liable. It's practical and efficient, rather than moral.
This also applies to when someone points a loaded gun at your head and screams that you've insulted their mother for the last time: You fear that other person and want another organization (the government) to protect you and make them liable!
However that doesn't make it unreasonable, surely assault with a deadly weapon should continue to be a crime.
Setting aside direct calls to violence, there’s plenty of free speech absolutists that are fine with idiots saying whatever they’d like to whoever they’d like.