* Allow all speech, including unintelligent and hateful speech.
This is evidently false, given:
1) Intelligent, well-reasoned dissent against a platform is permitted on virtually all large platforms on the internet, and this has been the case for decades.
2) Virtually all large platforms censor unintelligent, hateful speech.
Your nightmare scenario of intelligent speech disappearing due to censorship of small-minded vulgarity simply hasn't happened.
Quite the opposite, intelligent speech does disappear when small-minded vulgarity isn't censored. See voat or 4chan or the thousands of other poorly censored, poorly moderated places on the internet. Productive, intelligent communication does not happen in public forums without censorship.
Concerning what-ifs and slippery slopes, call me when someone with a well-reasoned argument is being suppressed by a large platform. All I've ever seen is hate and misinformation being pushed down the drain, and good riddance.
Censoring kids spamming "communist bandit" isn't a problem, not in this universe.
Censoring a professor critiquing communism as a viable form of government would be a problem, but that's neither here nor there.
Meanwhile, legitimate problems in the free speech domain are draconian copyright laws, suppressing science and creativity, and espionage laws, suppressing whistleblowers such as Snowden.
If we've decided that free speech shall be our crusade, and we're in the US, our limited time and resources should be focused on these real, ongoing, and broad-reaching problems.
* Accept suppression of intelligent dissent.
* Allow all speech, including unintelligent and hateful speech.
This is evidently false, given:
1) Intelligent, well-reasoned dissent against a platform is permitted on virtually all large platforms on the internet, and this has been the case for decades.
2) Virtually all large platforms censor unintelligent, hateful speech.
Your nightmare scenario of intelligent speech disappearing due to censorship of small-minded vulgarity simply hasn't happened.
Quite the opposite, intelligent speech does disappear when small-minded vulgarity isn't censored. See voat or 4chan or the thousands of other poorly censored, poorly moderated places on the internet. Productive, intelligent communication does not happen in public forums without censorship.
Concerning what-ifs and slippery slopes, call me when someone with a well-reasoned argument is being suppressed by a large platform. All I've ever seen is hate and misinformation being pushed down the drain, and good riddance.
Censoring kids spamming "communist bandit" isn't a problem, not in this universe.
Censoring a professor critiquing communism as a viable form of government would be a problem, but that's neither here nor there.
Meanwhile, legitimate problems in the free speech domain are draconian copyright laws, suppressing science and creativity, and espionage laws, suppressing whistleblowers such as Snowden.
If we've decided that free speech shall be our crusade, and we're in the US, our limited time and resources should be focused on these real, ongoing, and broad-reaching problems.