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Defending free speech is not the same as defending or supporting the content itself.

Free speech wouldn't need to be a right in the US constitution if it only applied to stuff that wasn't offensive to someone.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"




That is a grossly overused quote, that usually ends up used to defend harassment.


"That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a Maxim that has been long and generally approved."

I think this applies here. Freedom of speech is the right above all rights and limits to that right need to be extremely precise and generally agreed upon.

The western world is drunk on politics. Concepts of racism, harassment, violence, fascism and the like are creeping into inappropriate territories. This is not a time to start making decisions about what people are or aren't allowed to say.


"Freedom of speech is the right above all rights"

Then Twitter has the right to choose who's speech they want to amplify.

"Concepts of racism, harassment, violence, fascism and the like are creeping into inappropriate territories. This is not a time to start making decisions about what people are or aren't allowed to say."

On the contrary, this move by Twitter is a step toward fending off some of those concepts.


I don't think I (or my parent comment) were trying to defend free speech. For context, I'm not American, and I'm a supporter of UK-style online hate speech crackdown laws.

I commended them for pointing out the lie behind "guy got sued for posting a dog gif", and adding context behind it. The discussion was not "posting nazi videos is hateful, but allowed because free speech"




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