I was referring to the comment where you say HN is “bizarrely” more “pro-censorship”.

Where you see “pro-censorship”, many see speech that historically has never been protected in the US like calls to violence, or speech that insights others to violence.

Companies gave Trump et. al. the benefit of the doubt on the “inciting violence” part, until the violence actually materialized and the FBI warned of groups organizing online to coordinate future violent attacks.

> I was referring to the comment where you say HN is “bizarrely” more “pro-censorship”. Where you see “pro-censorship”, many see speech that historically has never been protected

I didn't use the word "bizarrely" and I'm not talking about condemnation of unprotected speech (and again, not just because I'm not from the USA). I've seen people arguing that the concept of free speech itself is "outdated" and that societies that hold it are "doomed to collapse", and that's just an example.

> [Trump]

Again, I wasn't talking about parler nor about Trump. I would appreciate it if you stopped trying to imply that I'm talking about stuff I'm not, or steering the conversation toward subjects I've never even alluded to.

> I didn't use the word "bizarrely"

Sorry, I meant "ironic".

> I've seen people arguing that the concept of free speech itself is "outdated" and that societies that hold it are "doomed to collapse", and that's just an example.

Maybe downvoted far down the thread, but the majority of the upvoted "censorship" discussions have been directly related to Big Tech's deplatforming of Trump & Parler in response to the capital attacks, and how the existing limits on US free speech apply to these decisions.

> Maybe downvoted far down the thread

No, and no. Please don't tell me what I have or have not seen myself.

> [Trump and parler again]

Okay, this is the third time so I won't try again to tell you I have no interest in talking about that. I'll just say that the first time I noticed generally well received[1] comments in favor of censorship was almost two years ago, in a thread that had nothing to do with Trump (and I'm not sure if parler even existed by then). According to what I've noticed, it has been growing in prominence since.

[1]: Which is to say, they weren't downvoted nor pushed downthread and even though they had several replies disputing them; they had just as many agreeing.

> Please don't tell me what I have or have not seen myself.

Can you link to these posts?

I've been following the threads, but haven't seen people arguing that the concept of free speech itself is "outdated" and that societies that hold it are "doomed to collapse".

The only "censorship" I've seen people supporting is against speech that has never been protected by the 1st amendment, which isn't being "pro-censorship" or "censorship" at all, it's just the same laws we've had here in the US for centuries.

Again, happy to take a look at what you're seeing on HN if you can link to a few threads.

Before I give you one of the recent examples I saw, I'm curious about why you're asking for examples in the first place. You already seem pretty disinclined to agree with me as evidenced by how you keep trying to suggest that I'm talking about condemnation of unprotected speech, which I haven't and have said so several times. My first comment was merely asking someone for clarification on how he parsed these threads; I didn't even talk about the subject at hand because I have no interest to and yet that's almost exclusively what you have tried to talk about. Not sure what exactly would be changed in this conversation by my giving you an example. You've been assuming bad faith on my part from the get go so I feel it would be just another fruitless exercise, or lead into another discussion on the merits of free speech I certainly don't want to get into, again.

By the way, you're completely free to defend these gigantic corporations deplatforming whoever they want; I wasn't talking about that in my original comment. That implication was already present in my first reply, but maybe my saying it outright will convince you that I don't mean anything bad with my comments.

> I'm curious about why you're asking for examples in the first place

Because you said: "I've noticed lately that HN commentary (at least in threads like this) has trended increasingly pro-censorship[1] lately", "[1]: Which is a bit ironic, thinking about it."

I haven't had that experience and don't understand the irony. Just trying to understand where you're coming from and thought links might help.

I think I misunderstood "lately" to mean the censorship / violent speech debate about the resulting Big Tech deplatformings, which is why I keep bringing those up. In the US, taking down violent, insightful speech is not considered censorship, which is why I was confused about who you're referring to that is "pro-censorship", but again maybe I crossed some wires there.

I care about free speech a lot and if there's a growing trend that speech that's always been protected by the 1st amendment is being targeted, it's a line we all need to be very sensitive to and vigilant in defending.

Just in case, the irony, for me, is that if I were in favor of censorship, I would be the first person I censor, instead of using an online forum to speak in favor of censorship. I feel that there's irony in using a widely accessed medium just to talk about how censorship is better.

And here's an example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25715809

(It bears noticing how the post whose thread that comment belongs to is certainly not about the banning of Trump or parler).

Ok, so that is a good example of protected speech that we might not like. I read through the thread and you did a good job explaining the perils of censoring viewpoints.

The US has long done a “controlled burn” in banning violent speech, but we do need to be vigilant that it doesn’t turn into a wild fire.

I don’t understand why they removed the tweet instead of labeling it if they really want to be in the fact checking business.