Imagine if HN’s host killed all of HN because someone used the “r word” and it wasn’t removed.

War is Peace.

Freedom is Slavery.

Ignorance is Strength.

Censorship is Freedom of Speech.

"Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM."

"What you don't know can't hurt you."

You're only making the case that it does fit.

They go on the list because the conclusions are transparently absurd, despite the ability to rationalize your way there through doublethink.

The best and most free debates I ever had happened in environments where I knew that I was allowed to be wrong without them holding it against me.

As a European I always thought free speech was very much an American thing. In the past years I realised that debates are lead much more freely here than in the US, because your debates constantly go onto a red vs blue track. That means speakers have to reflect that constantly and signal to everybody else where they stand and which team they like.

The truth is, both environment factors into free speech and every society has to strike a balance.

This, I agree with. But the point I'm trying to make is that this cuts both ways. Alice has every right to make her point however she wants. Bob also has every right to not lend her his resources to amplify that. Charlie has a right to criticize Bob for denying resources, etc etc.

I note that the shoe never seems to be on the other foot — e.g., the crowd that gets angry about Discord banning hate speech is curiously quiet about the chilling effect white nationalist rallies have on people of color.

How you communicate is just as important as what you wish to communicate.

If one exercises their freedom of speech in certain ways one might impede the freedom of speech of others (e.g. who are objectively less free). This is one of the big differences between Europe and the US: in the US the freedom of speech of the individual (regardless of the collisions with others) is traditionally valued more, than a collective, utlitarian definition of freedom of speech which is more present in Europe.

Utilitarian freedom of speech would mean that we try to optimized for a society where everybody can speak freely even if this means cutting of some individuals that go to extremes.

Individual freedom of speech means you let everybody say what they wanna say, even if it means that the discourse of the society as a whole gets harder, muffled or destroyed.

I don't say any one of those things is better, but both have their pros and cons and we certainly need to be aware of the downsides and complexities involved when we ask ourselves what society we want to live in.

And of course I'm not saying there aren't limits to freedom of speech. There are legitimate limits. But a social media company deciding they don't want you on their platform anymore without any due process seems wrong.

I just don't buy the overly literal "this is private property and I get to decide what you're allowed to say here", when that private property is our primary medium for communication.

But I do not think Discord is at that level yet, while Facebook, Twitter and YouTube most definitely are.

All you can reasonably ask a normal company is that they do not act to harm society in their pursuit of profit. And they may argue that they believe the dynamic of WSB is harmful to society. I think that position in this case and for WSB is defensible, and I am yet undecided personally if I actually agree with it or not. (I do believe that WSB may grow to become clearly harmful, but I'm not sure they're there yet)

Living in Germany with laws that ban you from displaying Nazi insignia or spouting certain phrases in public, I don't really believe in the whole "if we ban a certain thing there is a slippery slope and suddenly everyhing is banned". German society more or less collectively decided that tolerance for the intolerant is stupid and did something about it.

This might seem a little extrem from an US perspective, but just like that the prudeness of US society seems extreme to us Europeans. You talk about freedom of speech and censor every female nipple there is? Really?

What we will and won't tolerate in public forums is a mirror of our respective societies and values. And there is always something we will have to ban or at least frown uppon. E.g. even in the US child molesters won't be very able to talk about how their believes are okay etc.

And because all out free speech is destructive we have to strike a balance somewhere inbetween disincentivising people who use free speech to get rid of it and not turning into thought police.

Seen from a German perspective the US is so polarized that the polarization alone disencourages most people from leading a free and meaningful discourse.