Porn is speech according to the Supreme Court. The minute we ban child pornography we no longer support unlimited free speech. So pretending that’s the line we are still holding is a rhetorical device rather than a helpful contribution to the discussion on free speech. In practice nowhere in the world supports unlimited free speech and we all draw a line somewhere the question is where we draw the line.

Almost no one is a free speech absolutist. Instead everyone is arguing where the line should be drawn. The issue one group has is that the other thinks drawing a line over there isn't actually drawing a line at all.

CSAM is an extremely narrowly carved out exception by the Supreme Court (for good reasons imo) and there were arguments about even that at the time.

There are also some other restrictions too (mostly around targeted harassment of individuals). Few things rise to this level imo.

> we all draw a line somewhere the question is where we draw the line.

A secular amen to that, brother!

> The issue is that when we abandon the general principle it immediately becomes a question of what speech is ok to ban and this can be weaponized by rivals.

The question of what speech is ok to ban is THE question. I think we all agree there's a line somewhere. I think it's more than one line, it's a bunch of line.

Private expression, public expression, public expression for monetary gain (ads), public expression without age-wall, ...

> People always imagine themselves or people they agree with in the position of determining what gets banned, but they should imagine their political rival or enemy in that position.

No need to imagine, it's what I currently see happening.

>Forcing private companies to not moderate though is different - that is itself a violation of the company’s speech.

Damnit, companies should have no recognized "right to speech". Citizen's United is a bloody scourge. A corporation is a vehicle for risk distribution, and should have never been allowed to become anything more. Theoment we started inferring rights to legal fictions we started going stark raving mad.

Citizen's United is a more nuanced issue when you read about the legal arguments (maybe you have, but often people don't know the details). I had seen a lot of people say negative things about it, but when I read about it I thought the way it was decided made sense.

>The people in positions of power to limit speech are often wrong.

But they're always right about when to limit physical activity (violence etc.)? It's just as conceivable that we'd be better off as a society if certain forms of physical violence by private citizens weren't illegal vs certain actions of "verbal" activity (publishing child pornography, or classified military secrets) being permissible by law.

I'd argue this is more about defaults. Speech defaults to free and is well protected with extremely rare/narrow exceptions, violence defaults to controlled.

Some forms of violence of private citizens are not illegal (self-defense), but I think we're better off in a society where violence is default illegal.

Speech and violence are pretty different things.

But violence is just physical interaction that we define as harmful by intent - a hug might be well be painful to someone but you can't be prosecuted for it. A solid punch in the arm might cause no measurable harm at all to particular individuals but it's still considered assault. Yet if you intentionally cause permanent mental health damage to another through repeated intentionally offensive and/or disparaging speech, why should you should get a free pass?