Suggesting that the USA will soon adopt China's approach to censorship of public discourse is basically preposterous. Our public discourse is not some extravagance that our government allows us. It is the core of our system and has been from the moment of the country's founding in reaction to hereditary monarchy. The government's right to rule flows out of this conversation. If the conversation stops, the country will cease to be.

So while I think you are quite wrong about the current risk, we are in complete agreement that freedom of speech should be vigilantly protected.

There is a large body of philosophical work over the past 2 decades that argues that no rules is precisely the marker of an iron-clad ideological structure wherein the citizenry self-discipline so that the order functions with total freedom of choice between given options. Meanwhile, we never get any access to the frame or the economic and political decisions (QE, Current War with China and Russia through Sanctions). China, on the other hand, the argument goes, requires strict rules because the people there know that they live in a strict ideological structure and fight against it constantly. While we in the west are so certain we are free because we can choose between two candidates, zillions of types of products and popping off polemically on all our platforms.

We are already on our way to full blown censorship. Cancel culture et al is effectively the beginning of the same outcome. Censorship starts with chilling effects

>We are already on our way to full blown censorship. Cancel culture et al is effectively the beginning of the same outcome. Censorship starts with chilling effects

I suggest checking the US history, both somewhat recent and not recent at all. Cancel culture is just the continuation of the old tradition of "naming and shaming", it isn't something new.

First there was "tarring and feathering", then there were the witch hunts in MA, then, more recently, there was the red scare. Current "cancel culture" is pretty much just a much lighter version of that, and we are definitely not moving any closer to "full blown censorship". In fact, I think that the modern "cancel culture" (despite me being very much not a fan of it) cannot even hold a handle to the red scare investigations of just 60-70 years ago

How do you think permanence of modern communication enhances chilling effects?

I agree the prior penalty could be more severe but now everything is logged and the barrier to offend is low, IMO.

Not likely