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. Not to mention that speech is how most violence starts.

Side note: I already have been silenced plenty on this very forum for my speech and the mods had every right to do so. Though some bans were more questionable than others.

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.

So... You're saying people should be allowed to verbally send death threats, because as long as they don't physically act on it, all's fine and that's, after all, only freedom of speech?

Freedom of speech has to be held to the same standards as freedom at large: A person's freedom ends where another man's freedom begins.

And as Mandela said: “For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

Hate speech and spreading falsehood simply don't qualify.

My bad. Yeah. Still, where should one draw the line?

If what someone says put people in danger, because they’re in a position of authority or they have an audience they can easily influence, that can easily fall in your “threatens to physically (and mentally, I will add) harm” category.

Do you mean the complete isolation and/exile of a person? Why would you think removing someone from society in such a complete and drastic and turning them into a pariah way would solve anything? How is that not just the erasure of pretty much all individual rights of a person? How is that not the same extremist action you yourself just condemned?

Hell, even the criminals who have commited the most heinous acts and are imprisioned on perpetuity still form part of society: They can talk to each other, communicate with the outside world in a limited capacity, be informed about current events, own propierty and even vote. Because even as criminals, they still are humans, and taking their rights away in such an absolute way would end up turning us into the monster we're supposedly fighting against.

The world is up shit creek partially due to humans doing what humans do best, taking something good (free speech) and ruining it by ignoring the simple rules of ethics and morals. People assume free speech gives them the right to say anything and everything, but they don't realise there is a point where free speech turns into hate speech, bigotry, sexism, racism, ignorance and stupidity in general that leads to a downward spiral of abuse and violence.

Issues is everyone wants freedom of speech, but when they take it too far they don't wish to take responsibility and it becomes everyone else's problem, as again we don't like to admit we are wrong.

They're are two Arabic terms that are quite interesting in their theology: fasad and fitna.

Fasah means to cause mischief and spreading corruption. This in turn then could lead to fitnah, which is civil unrest / sedition.

It's interesting as this is what we are seeing a lot of due to unchecked and abuse of free speech. Cancel culture, people being accused and witch hunts, race wars, it's and then off all sorts and then the loss of something good. As any parent knows, you give a kid an opportunity and if the kid screws up again and again, the opportunity or freedom of it is taken away.

People have no idea what the ripples they cast will turn into, whether they will just fizzle away or turn into a tsunami and down a poor soul.

So, how do you believe sites like VGC should handle moderation?

How exactly do people "regulate themselves" on an online forum?

Overall, I strongly disagree with you. The role of moderation is largely to create a certain type of community. If you don't like that community, you can leave. Without moderation, the worst elements are given free reign to define the community. Like, if you are at a meeting at work and someone just starts screaming, you probably aren't going to get a lot done, and if the individuals try to "regulate themselves", more often than not that just turns the whole meeting into a screaming match.

That isn't a community I would want to be a part of. In the absence of moderation, you aren't giving everybody a platform to speak, you are essentially driving off those who actually want to have conversations and discussions once they realize their efforts are fruitless. You are just using a different means to silence the well meaning.