To extend your metaphor, imagine that part of humanity's brain is engaged in thinking about the abduction and exploitation of children. Another part is lionizing mass murderers and advocating for copy cats. A different part of the brain is contemplating the state of the art for financial and cyber crimes etc.

If you come to believe that the time humanity's brain spends occupied with these pursuits leads to negative real world consequences then I don't think the argument you've presented is very compelling. Put another way, if I were someone's therapist and my patient confided in me that, the more time he spends thinking about shooting up his school, the more he feels like actually doing it - I might advise him to spend less time thinking about shooting up the school. If I had the power, I might forbid him from thinking about it at all.

Really, what, but the amusement of edgy people, does humanity gain from entertaining these dark conversations? Perhaps such conversations play a role in the detection or prevention of bad outcomes. For example, police detectives are sometimes taught to identify with the criminal to understand their behavior, and so maybe having access to dark thoughts would help in that regard.

To me, the question of moderation hinges on whether you think permitting speech will be, on net, positive or negative. I don't have data or solid evidence - but I do have intuitions.

I hear you, the problem is the Catholic Church had intuitions about whether the earth revolves around the sun was positive or negative, too. Dangerous ideas come in all shapes and sizes; but on the whole are less dangerous than someone deciding which is which.

That’s a good point. Thoughts can be dangerous. My post only works if you have a bias against thought-crime.

As an aside, if someone’s thoughts are ill-intentioned, you should be able to dispel them by forcing an honest examination of everything.

> As an aside, if someone’s thoughts are ill-intentioned, you should be able to dispel them by forcing an honest examination of everything.

Unfortunately the human brain doesn't work that way. It tends to resist new information -- even if logically presented and supported by hard evidence -- that contradicts its world view.

And I'm not even talking about people who suffer from some sort of mental illness, or who are poorly educated, or anything of that nature. Everyone's brain works this way.

> Really, what, but the amusement of edgy people, does humanity gain from entertaining these dark conversations

I write short stories, some are EXTREMELY dark. None deal with murder but I have done a rape story... well the two were lovers and he thought she wanted to be raped, so he did it. But still very dark no?

> None deal with murder

Wait I was wrong, of course I've done murder in shorts, but not for years and years.

Free speech shouldn’t be criminalized.

But, neither does anyone have a right to an audience. And that’s what this is really about. Cloudflare is not depriving 8chan of their freedom of speech; they are just declining to assist 8chan in finding an audience.

I also disagree that speech is the highest form of thought in humans, but that is a sort of a side topic.

> But, neither does anyone have a right to an audience.

Free speech includes the right to be heard.

That's why the government is allowed to kick you out of political rallies/meetings if you're just there to protest or whatever; you're not allowed to try to shout over someone else to prevent them from talking, rather if you disagree with them then you need to go find your own followers to try to convince.

edit: To all the people downvoting me, do you not realize I'm literally just paraphrasing the relevant supreme court ruling?: https://www.thefire.org/say-it-again-for-the-people-in-the-b...

This has nothing to do with the right to be heard. In this case, it'd be about requiring CloudFlare to _assist_ 8chan in _being_ heard. And there's no such right, or ruling.

8chan's hosting isn't even being yanked, only their access to an edge caching CDN. I'm really struggling to see a "free speech" issue here. What if Google Analytics decides not to offer 8chan analytics? Does that also interfere with the right to speech?

> In this case, it'd be about requiring CloudFlare to _assist_ 8chan in _being_ heard. And there's no such right, or ruling.

The comment I was replying to was about what the constitutional right to free speech entails, not about what CloudFlare is required to do.

I submit that the concept of free speech does not include a right to be heard.

Certainly there are forms of restricting someone's ability to be heard that would infringe on their right to free speech, but the former does not necessarily imply or require the latter.

The concept of free speech does include the right to be heard in that if I want to hear what you're saying, the government preventing me from hearing it is just as bad as preventing you from saying it. It takes two to communicate.

However if I don't want to hear what you say--or I don't want to help you say it--the government is not going to step in and force me to do it.

The distinction is really about depriving vs. providing.

People get it mixed up in their heads when it comes to contractual relationships like Cloudflare. On one hand it is grammatically correct to say that Cloudflare is "depriving" 8chan of their service, since 8chan used to have access to it. Legally, though, 8chan never had any right to Cloudflare's service. It was a privilege that was revoked.

> Legally, though, 8chan never had any right to Cloudflare's service.

Correct. However, the main/only service CloudFlare provides is preventing DDOS attacks, which fall plainly into the category of unconstitutionally depriving someone of their free speech.

Providing services to 8chan isn't furthering their mission in any way, and the only "advantage" of cutting them off is that it empowers the people who would deprive the 8channers of their constitutional right to free speech.

_I_ have no obligation to ensure that _a third party_ doesn't impair _your_ right to speech.

We think via dialogue, We arrive at the truth via dialogue, and to arrive at the truth necessarily means pruning out the untrue.

Thus, limiting a speech when it first comes out is never good. Any point of view should be discussed, debated, and its truthiness assessed. However, if something has been deemed untrue over and over, it would be pointless to keep bringing it up and trying to assert it as truth. At that point, it deserves to be censored out as to not interfere with the other ongoing legitimate pruning processes.

>We arrive at the truth via dialogue.

In the US, we are currently undergoing the Democratic primaries, and consequently are having many televised debates. Almost anyone in this country who has watched one would scoff at the idea that an unmoderated debate would arrive at anything approaching truth. As it is, I've heard many people criticize the moderators in previous debates for not being more heavy handed in what blatant mistruths they allow the candidates to say on stage. You can't arrive at the truth if one member of a dialogue is not interested in getting there.

> I haven’t heard of a good rebuttal to the above reasoning

All important philosophy and epistemology has occurred in countries with free speech restrictions.

Are you making a dig at the U.S.A? Haha :D

I think I get your point though: It’s not an absolute game. You can do a lot of useful thinking even under some restrictions, so we’re forced to consider everything with more nuance.

Limiting who and how can experiment with anthrax doesn't seem like a limitation on science -- it looks sanity to me.

Since ideas are just as viral and as deadly there is nothing inherently wrong with limiting the spread of some.

Give it a bit more time, and anyone with two brain cells will be able to experiment with anthrax in their garage.

What then?

So what? It'd still be illegal, and you do the same thing to disincentivize garage anthrax as you do with any other illegal act: the threat of prison.

I agree with the premise, not the argument

We can arrive at truth through dialogue, but dialog can also lead to propagation and affirmation of misinformation. One does not necessarily converge on truth.

Though, to entrust any government to control free speech to that end is an entire different point.