It is not. You’re used to countries with strong law and order. Countries where this doesn’t exist, free speech often leads to devastating results.
> Banning opinions have never worked ever and it will never work.
It absolutely works. There’s a reason Nazi propaganda is banned in Germany.
Edit: Before everyone just points to communist states as what happens when you have censorship, you also need to acknowledge the extreme violence that happens when speech is unrestricted in every case. For example Rohingya genocide was fueled by unrestricted “opinions” on the internet.
https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-...
Besides, some form of restrictions on speech absolutely exist everywhere in the world. People look at censorship as either complete freedom or Soviet Russia, but in reality middle ground does exist.
>Countries where this doesn’t exist, free speech often leads to devastating results
Never anything as bad as the murder of tens of millions of their own citizens committed in countries with no free speech like Stalin's Russia and Mao's China.
>It absolutely works. There’s a reason Nazi propaganda is banned in Germany
If that's your metric for success it's absolutely failed, given the "Alternative for Deutschland" is now polling at over 20%.
As much as I personally dislike the AfD, claiming they're breaking the law by doing Nazi propaganda is going a bit too far.
They definitely straddle the line, but no court has judged them as Nazi yet. There were however other parties, like ANS, NO and FAP (amazing name) that were banned in Germany because of that. Perhaps that's why AfD has wised up.
If you have a government unwilling or unable to even enforce the laws against violence, they will be similarly unwilling or unable to enforce the laws against thoughtcrime, or will enforce them against the victims of the atrocity.
Or you've got a case of someone in country A filing suit over something happening in country A under the laws of country B. Now what is the company supposed to do if the laws in country A and country B conflict? Was following the laws in the country where they're operating (i.e. the country committing the atrocity) the outcome you wanted? What about leaving that country, so that people there have to use a service which is in that country?
"Everybody has free speech" doesn't solve every problem, but censorship doesn't solve any of those problems either, it just creates wicked new problems.
The constitution of United States, in the first Amendment prohibits certain speech, speech inciting violence is one of those prohibited speech. The argument that censorship creates new problems is true, however there are absolute cases when censorship is needed. In this case, it was the country’s Supreme Court requesting removal of users and it was related to speech causing violence. The same request would have been completely legal in US as well.
> The constitution of United States, in the first Amendment prohibits certain speech, speech inciting violence is one of those prohibited speech.
No it doesn't. The First Amendment constrains the government from prohibiting most speech. It doesn't require any speech to be prohibited. If the US Congress wanted to be free speech absolutists, they wouldn't have to change the constitution.
> there are absolute cases when censorship is needed.
There are cases where most countries sanction it. That doesn't prove that it's needed.
Can you even name a case where it would be necessary as opposed to being possible to solve through e.g. vigorous enforcement of the laws against violence?
You're also avoiding the question. Sure, sometimes the same thing is illegal in both the US and China, but that's not the common case for free speech questions.
And putting aside the absolutist position, that's not even what you're arguing for here. The government can punish a direct speaker for imminent incitement of violence without imposing a prior restraint or putting intermediary liability on a third party who is merely a common carrier.
It does because I learned this in the law class I took in undergrad. A quick google search would’ve told you that there are limitations to first amendment.
> The constitution of United States, in the first Amendment prohibits certain speech
It does no such thing. It prohibits Congress from making laws that abridge the freedom of speech. Congress is not required to make any laws constraining speech, even if it is allowed to, and the First Amendment itself does not prohibit any speech.
> The constitution of United States, in the first Amendment prohibits certain speech, speech inciting violence is one of those prohibited speech.
It does? Here's the full text of the First Amendment:
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Which part of it says that? I don't see it anywhere.
>It absolutely works. There’s a reason Nazi propaganda is banned in Germany.
You can't know that for sure. If Nazi propaganda was not banned and the Nazi never took over again then free speech would work as well. We just don't know if banning speech has made less people pro Nazi.
you're 100% correct. seeing comments like yours downvoted and greyed out makes me very worried for the state of the internet, i can't tell if it's bots or people have really begun to believe that free speech isn't a fundamental pillar of democracy.
The battle against free speech (I am in favour of free speech) has been being furiously waged pretty much since the concept was enshrined in law. The fact that the US 1st amendment still stands and appears to be broadly respected is very much the exception, not the rule.
"When our opponents say: Well, we used to grant you the [...] freedom of opinion - yes, you to us, but that is no reason that we should do the same to you! [...] That you gave it to us - well that is proof of how stupid you are!"
The take above is a classic well-meaning, but ill-informed opinion from an American with a lack of understanding of how the Nazis actually operated and how they could've been stopped.
Let's not act as if free speech doesn't have various definitions and limitations even in the land of the free. You can't get two Americans to agree to the same definition.
When our opponents say: Well, we used to grant you the [...] freedom of opinion - yes, you to us, but that is no reason that we should do the same to you! [...] That you gave it to us - well that is proof of how stupid you are!
> Banning opinions have never worked ever and it will never work.
It absolutely works. There’s a reason Nazi propaganda is banned in Germany.
Edit: Before everyone just points to communist states as what happens when you have censorship, you also need to acknowledge the extreme violence that happens when speech is unrestricted in every case. For example Rohingya genocide was fueled by unrestricted “opinions” on the internet. https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-...
Besides, some form of restrictions on speech absolutely exist everywhere in the world. People look at censorship as either complete freedom or Soviet Russia, but in reality middle ground does exist.