All Western countries have governments and are states based on the rule of law, and all place some limits on speech and expression. Even the US doesn't allow certain forms of expression, such as libel, slander, falsehoods, terroristic threats, etc. The West has therefore never supported free expression, just as it has never supported free markets.
We are already on, and have always been on, that slope. Yet not all Western countries are like China or North Korea, odd.
It's almost as if that slope isn't as slippery as some would have us believe.
The US allows just about all expressions without prior restraint. Even shouting fire in a theater is allowed speech until a court says otherwise -- after the fact and with due process.
In contrast, censorship is a kind of prior restraint that restricts speech in the absence of judicial review or due process contrary to the rule of law.
Yeah but it restricts speek on a media plattform. Believe it or not, in the past 100 years it was pretty much the norm, that certain contents would not be published e.g. in books or newspapers.
A lot of the stuff right wing extremists say on youtube today would have been censored on television in the past (depending on the country of course).
Before the Internet came around, it was actively happening "here". You couldn't shop your violent extremist video around to pre-Internet mass media outlets, or if you did, you would probably be referred to law enforcement.
Not all forms of this look like China, some look like the USA circa 1990.
Pre 1990 extremists would maintain mailing lists and send each other communications and videos.
You have no right to mass media outlets. Just as I have no right to barge into your home and force you to listen to my speech... you have no right to force the owner of a tv or radio station to broadcast your message. Your right to free speech is not a right to violently force others to deliver your message against their will... those other people have the right to free speech and liberty too.
> You have no right to mass media outlets. Just as I have no right to barge into your home and force you to listen to my speech... you have no right to force the owner of a tv or radio station to broadcast your message. Your right to free speech is not a right to violently force others to deliver your message against their will... those other people have the right to free speech and liberty too.
I agree. I'm just saying that suppression of violent extremist propaganda in mass commercial media isn't some kind of violation of some centuries-old tradition, or a slippery slope toward Chinese style information control, as some people frame it, because it was literally the state of affairs in the US prior to the Internet.
Nobody forces anyone to hear from anyone else on Facebook or Twitter. You can block people, you choose who you follow. That sort of thing is woven into the fabric of the medium itself. TV and radio was traditionally limited to broadcast companies because there was only so much spectrum to go around. The internet is a different thing, it's not exactly analogous to any medium to ever come before it.
I don't even know if you and I have the same definition of extremist. If you mean promoting literal violence or any other illegal activities, you're absolutely right. No one has a right to that kind of speech.
The purpose of suggesting that "extremism" as a term is "so vague as to be meaningless" is to imply precisely that. It's a common enough rhetorical tactic that it can be taken for granted in any thread where speech or censorship (particularly of what is considered right or far-right politics) is the subject.
Extremism in context has a commonly understood definition, and claiming otherwise is not a convincing argument.
No, parent pointed out what I repeated, that history shows that freedoms are lost incrementally. You are the only one talking about inevitability.... which is par considering you also think it's totally obvious what some word that by it's very nature is inherently undefined, means.
My point was not that ‘extremism’ does not have a definition; my point was that what content falls under that definition is very much subjective. I could have phrased my original comment better.
Obviously, the drafters of this agreement had certain types of content in mind. But those people are not the ones who will be implementing the policy.
The types of content targeted by this kind of policy depend very much on who is making the decisions.
Here are some examples of how Western countries with democratic governments and rule of law actually utilize those laws that place limits on speech and expression:
We are already on, and have always been on, that slope. Yet not all Western countries are like China or North Korea, odd.
It's almost as if that slope isn't as slippery as some would have us believe.