High profile twitter users hacked, Checkmarks locked to secure site.

[vivster]

Darwinianevolution said:

vivster said:

If I'm killing or physically hurting people with my speech I should be silenced and if I don't stop killing people with my speech I should be removed from society altogether. Trump is not only hurting and killing people with his speech but he is also entirely unremorseful. So not only should he be silenced, but removed from society altogether.

See, it's very easy to draw lines. Free speech is a myth and only a moron would argue that speech should not be restricted in some form. Humans cannot be trusted to not hurt others, so of course they cannot be trusted with absolute freedom. It's how societies work and it's why laws exist.

There are procedures and laws to protect people from actual defamation and harassment on the internet already. That doesn't mean every single act or opinion (no matter how misguided or malicious) on the web is a threat to someone's integrity, otherwise we would have to close down the entire internet altogether. Also, if people should be removed from online society, then what about when the cancelled gets attacked? Someone who's been cancelled and is the target of a defamation campaign won't be able to defend himself because he won't even have a channel to do so. And you can't take people's rights to defend themselves.

And no, free speech is not a myth, is a human right that took a lot of fighting to obtain wherever it's active. Hell, you can complain about politicians because you live in a country with free speech. Try to do that on China and see what happens.

I think there are a few misunderstandings in here.

I don't advocate restricting speech to a point where anything that's considered offensive by anyone should be punished and I don't think I ever claimed so. I was actually quite specific. But there are some very easy lines that you can draw. For example a person shouldn't call for a certain race to be killed. There are clear lines and those lines can be crossed. And if they are, there need to be consequences.

When I say "removed from society" I mean literally removed from society, as in all of it. Because certain people have shown behavior that make it clear they do not want to play nice and want to destroy society rather than enrich it. So they should be removed. And then there will be no need for them to defend themselves because they will be gone. And before you go all fascism on me again, that removal is of course only for people who have been extremist in their actions and show no remorse for them, just like Donald Trump.

If you define free speech as in "say what you want without consequences" then of course it is a myth. It does not exist in that form in any known country on this planet. And it shouldn't. Germany is a great example because here the speech is extremely free, especially towards the government. However it is restricted in quite a few significant ways and that is how it should be. Because spreading lies and inciting violence will lead to people getting hurt and that's why it is restricted.