You should give my position more thought before being dismissive.
The billboards contribute to an overall campaign backed by billions of dollars to create a chilling effect. If you are unfamiliar with the chilling effect:
> The "chilling effect" means that people are being discouraged or intimidated from engaging in expression for fear of negative consequences, such as social disapproval, retaliation, or lawsuits.
This is a well-established phenomenon and a direct threat to freedom of speech in the US.
Very real threats of violence, disruption and social ostracization have been levied and sometimes carried out against conscious dissenters of the ongoing Palestinian genocide. If the ultimate effect of something is to chill free speech, then it is textbook restrictive.
> billboards contribute to an overall campaign backed by billions of dollars to create a chilling effect
I’m not sure how anyone listening to the American discourse around Israel and Gaza can conclude there is a chilling effect around anything in the public space. (Note: not academia.)
More specifically, this argument
—one side is trying to chill the other by speaking too much—could be used to justify censorship around anything.
Speech around Gaza is absolutely being suppressed. But billboards aren’t evidence of that.
> I’m not sure how anyone listening to the American discourse around Israel and Gaza can conclude there is a chilling effect around anything in the public space
You're just not being targeted, aren't exposed to it or aren't paying attention.
In my comment, I said, "People in other cities who voice this same concern are getting kidnapped or become the subject of targeted harassment campaigns that include vans rolling around with the names and faces of dissenters hoping to inspire local stochastic terrorists to commit violence against them."
"The “doxxing truck” appeared days after the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups, a coalition of Harvard student groups, earlier this week released a statement that held “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,” following the attacks by Hamas that have killed more than 1,200 Israelis and more than 25 American citizens. More than 1,400 in Gaza have also been killed since Israel started strikes on Gaza following the deadly Hamas attack.
Some students and their groups have since distanced themselves or withdrawn their endorsements from the statement amid an intense backlash inside and outside of Harvard."
If you watch the entire video, you will see people talk about the chilling effect they personally experience regarding publicly expressing their dissent against the genocide.
There is a chilling effect, it's not debatable, and it's not debatable that they are the result of well-financed disinformation campaigns seeking to protect the US-Israeli colonial empire. This is all open, well-documented information.
> More specifically, this argument —one side is trying to chill the other by speaking too much
No one made this argument. That is a straw man provided by you seemingly out of nowhere. The billboards aren't about "speaking too much", they're subtle propaganda campaigns. You have not even seen the billboards I'm talking about, have not asked me about them, you're just dismissing them out of bias before even understanding their content, purpose or who is paying to have them literally cover my local highway. They are actively creating a conflict narrative.
The aim of the billboards I am speaking of is to confuse the semantics between anti-Israel speech and antisemitism, and to normalize ostracization of those who do either, effectively contributing to the chilling of speech over time by forcing dissenters to be more careful about when and where they denounce they genocide.
You are taking for granted how many of these damn billboards have cropped up recently and how prominent they are. Don't you make the connection to McCarthyism? We've seen all of these tactics before, and road signs have long been a prominent medium for controlling public opinion.
The billboards contribute to an overall campaign backed by billions of dollars to create a chilling effect. If you are unfamiliar with the chilling effect:
> The "chilling effect" means that people are being discouraged or intimidated from engaging in expression for fear of negative consequences, such as social disapproval, retaliation, or lawsuits.
This is a well-established phenomenon and a direct threat to freedom of speech in the US.
Very real threats of violence, disruption and social ostracization have been levied and sometimes carried out against conscious dissenters of the ongoing Palestinian genocide. If the ultimate effect of something is to chill free speech, then it is textbook restrictive.
Further reading:
https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/chilling-effect-overv...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect