Yes but once people mess up and choose the wrong thing it’s very hard to go back. There are plenty of examples of countries where bad actors have taken over all institutions and what then? There are not takesies backsies
And you think censorship will solve this? You’ll just get a different sort of monster. One that probably appeals to your worldview in the short term because you fit the typical person you think will be controlling it forever and you think the scope will somehow to be constrained to a small group of things you don’t like.
Well intentioned, but extremely naive. Something our society will sadly have to relearn every century or so.
Text from the 1st amendment: "or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"
You see that part that says "The press"? Thats what a media company is.
Yes, if the government punishes "The press" for its speech, and threatens it with legal action, that is by definition something that effects free speech and is censorship.
Definitionally, I cannot think of something that could be more accurately be described as censorship.
> Yes, if the government punishes "The press" for its speech
That wasn't the case, the case was "the press" covering criminals. Being the press don't give a company free pass to commit crimes and Xitter is paying for that.
PS: "1st amendment" is an American term that doesn't mean anything outside of american jurisdiction (and maybe not even inside, see Tiktok).
> That wasn't the case, the case was "the press" covering criminals.
If the government makes it illegal to publish certain things, that would mean that it is both a crime and censorship. So yes, that would be the case and my previous statement applies.
The government making it illegal for the press to publish certain things is definitionally what censorship is. There is literally no more clear example of what censorship is than that.
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?
That'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
What'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.
The US is a ~250 year old continuous democracy. Almost no European states can say the same. After WW1 a lot of democratic European states popped up. Two decades later half of them were autocratic.
I think it's half that our governments don't want to give away control, lest the peasants become uppity. And the other half is that that's just how the dice landed when the laws were first created.
> I see no reason why someone should be allowed to spread obvious lies
The right to lie is fundamental to the principle of freedom of speech. Also the lies you think are “obvious” are almost certainly not obvious to everyone - they rarely are. And if someone cannot share a different view then you can’t arrive at the truth.
I wasn’t calling it absolute. I used the word fundamental. My meaning was that giving people this freedom means giving them the freedom to lie as well. I agree that we can debate specific exceptions, which I feel SCOTUS precedence has explored in very nuanced ways. But that’s not where I was going. I was making the point that even if you think something is a ‘truth’, what you perceive as a ‘lie’ must be allowed since only through that debate can people find their way to the truth. A truth that is just unchallenged feels more like propaganda.
> giving people this freedom means giving them the freedom to lie as well. I agree that we can debate specific exceptions
We can. But we don't and never have. Anyone arguing for the freedom to lie without consequence is off the deep end. There has never been a society that doesn't punish lying and fraud. (What constitutes a lie is a deeper question.)
> even if you think something is a ‘truth’, what you perceive as a ‘lie’ must be allowed
Why? Also, where? Ever?
If I go and commit a bunch of fraud, I'd expect--at best--riotious laughter from anyone with more than two brain cells if I offered, as my defence, that I cannot be punished for defrauding everyone because I'm part of the truth-finding process.
> truth that is just unchallenged feels more like propaganda
Propaganda is regularly challenged. A truth that cannot be challenged is an article of faith. This entire debate reeks of arguments from faith on both sides.
Fraud isn't just lying, it also has to be for some sort of personal gain, typically financial. You're taking their money too. If you tell people that if they invest in your pyramid scheme they'll get rich but you have no actual pyramid scheme and don't take anyone's money, then it's not fraud and shouldn't be banned in my opinion. But it is a lie.
Well OK but he still sold the house. If you're not doing anything, just talking, it's not fraud. People often offer to sell a bridge to somebody as a way of saying they're gullible. That's not fraud because they're not actually selling the bridge.
> he still sold the house. If you're not doing anything, just talking, it's not fraud
Let's edit the premise. No sale occurs. The agent spins some yarn, but you catch on and report them to a regulator. Do you expect them to go unpunished simply because it was all talk? Should they?
> Do you expect them to go unpunished simply because it was all talk? Should they?
If there was no house to be sold, and the agent wasn't even an agent, and they had no way of accepting that money, then of course they should not be punished.
As an example, lets say it was a youtuber who did this, and they recorded the video as a funny prank to post on the internet.
This would not be illegal and they would not be punished.
Real estate agents have stricter ethics requirements from their professional body than the general law for everyone else. They might be punished for doing that. I don't know if they should or not.
I learned that tweets by nobodies on topics such as Hunter Biden's laptop or Russiagate or Israel's behavior in Gaza have more credibility than the entire mainstream media. I fully understand the danger of lies (more than you ever will) and that is precisely why I support free speech for ordinary people.
In Arizona a giant home builder complained about a home inspector called CyFy posting tiktoks showing their shoddy construction. What you consider bland and unobjectionable they get very upset about.
